At a Women in Agriculture conference earlier this year, Michael Stolp, vice president of customer insights and senior family business adviser at Northwest Farm Credit Services, presented ways to “Power up your communication” on the farm.

When discussing forage quality, we often focus on carbohydrates and the energy derived from these forage nutrients. Carbohydrates account for half to three-quarters of a feed’s weight, deliver the majority of the energy and, in turn, drive milk production, health and performance.

Many livestock and forage producers may not be familiar with a crop insurance product available for their grazing and haying lands, even though it has now been available for several years in most parts of the country. This insurance product is called pasture, rangeland and forage coverage, or PRF, and is intended to help producers deal with drought conditions.

There are nearly as many ways to feed hay as there are farms in the U.S. Everyone seems to have their own method. Despite significantly lower fertilizer prices in 2016, hay and baleage bales are still expensive. So, a number of articles have been penned over the years to keep costs low by minimizing hay feeding losses. Yet, that is only part of the story.

During our current severe drought, any technique that saves water excites us more than a dog in a sausage factory. Thus the comments by some claiming substantial water savings by growing forage hydroponically as a livestock feed has attracted substantial interest.

What does it cost to harvest a ton of hay? I have asked this question to large audiences of hay producers. Several farmers can estimate their harvest costs fairly accurately; some know their costs exactly; others do not know what it costs them.