Most cattle producers can tell you the body condition score of their cattle, but do they know the condition of their pastures?

Assessing the health of rangelands is often difficult to quantify and evaluate because of inherent spatial and temporal variability across our native landscapes. The overall goal is to create an environment where native rangelands are resilient to disturbances and sustainable in forage production.

To a forage-hungry cow, the great sagebrush sea of the West embodies the famous paraphrasing of a Coleridge quotation: water, water, everywhere – but not a drop to drink.

In the Intermountain West, the sagebrush steppe ecosystem is a crucial resource for the livestock industry because it provides a large portion of forages for grazing livestock. Sagebrush steppe also provides important habitat for hundreds of wildlife species.

One of the most sensitive subjects in neighbor relations for landowners concerns the removal of trees and brush along property lines. While cutting brush and trees on one’s own land may seem simple, the matter becomes more complicated when the brush and trees lie along property lines or result from overhanging plants and trees from neighboring property.

Most of us are very familiar with the agronomic advantages of endophyte-infected tall fescue. In short, endophyte-infected tall fescue thrives through a variety of environmental challenges most grasses wouldn’t tolerate, including drought stress, overgrazing and insect pressure.

For the majority of us, June is the most productive month of the year for forage production. Generally speaking, we should expect 60 to 70 percent of our annual forage to be produced by the end of the month, which makes June so critical for timely forage management.

On most ranches, average cow size has increased significantly over the past three decades as a result of genetic selection. These changes do not come without consequences to forage intake.

At the Eliason family ranch in Holbrook, Idaho, Brayden and Allison Eliason are checking first-calf heifers on a February morning last year when they find a stillborn calf with a cleft palate.