Alternative Forages

California dairy innovates with automated indoor feed mill

audrey@agproud.com — Fri, 07 Feb 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Known for its forward-thinking approach, River Ranch Farms LLC has embraced numerous innovations, from a biogas hub and solar fields to the recent development of an automated indoor feed mill. At the forefront is Forever Feed Technologies, a company that dairy producer Jack de Jong helped establish to explore the possibilities of sprouted grain feeding systems.

Purchased and home-raised feeds: Where are we losing the most profit for the dairy?

clm275@psu.edu — Mon, 04 Dec 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Profitable dairy production requires a very efficient conversion of feed to milk. A combination of purchased and home-raised feeds are frequently used to provide the needs of the dairy operation.

Fodder production using hydroponics studied at Cornell

audrey@agproud.com — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 00:00:00 -0400

You may be asking yourself, “What are hydroponic forages?” The word "hydro" means water and "ponics" comes from the root word meaning work. To put it simply, it means working with water, and in this case, it entails using water and a little bit of light to grow or sprout wheat and barley seeds.

Hydroponic-grown forages in dairy feeds: A viable option?

sblez@verizon.net — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Since dairy producers started milking cows, the search has been ongoing for better, more economic feeds and forages to promote more cost-effective performance while working toward better rumen health, health in general and reproduction.

Cover crop or winter forage?

kimmo@novonesis.com — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 10:10:15 -0500

What does it matter whether we call it a cover crop or winter forage?

Small-grain silages: Evaluating and feeding

Tue, 18 Oct 2022 22:10:39 -0400

Small-grain silages are a versatile feed that can add to forage inventory and work within cropping rotations across many geographic locales.

Hydroponic forages in transition cow diets

alvaro@dellait.com — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 17:43:40 -0400

Forages are by weight the main component of dairy cow rations greatly influencing production, profitability and cow well-being.

The alternative-forage decision tree

katie_raver@rockriverlab.com — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 22:01:06 -0500

For those who know me well, especially my husband, they would not list decisiveness as one of my strong qualities. At the risk of sounding cliché, the typical sitcom-couple restaurant situation plays out in our household on a regular basis and extends beyond restaurants to weeknight meal planning.

Clover super silage helps walk the dairy margin tightrope

Sat, 25 Sep 2021 15:34:06 -0400

If surviving four generations in the dairy business has taught the Freitag family anything, it’s that minimizing input costs while optimizing outputs is essential to survive an inconsistent market.

Keeping milk-quality forage coming throughout your harvest season

jmagnuson@dlfna.com — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 19:13:23 -0400

God’s given us 54 organic acres to work with on a grazing system and 110 cows to milk. Four years ago, we put up 55 bales of baleage. Last year, we stacked 400. But was it milk-quality feed? There’s a balance between quantity and quality of forage.

The potential of small-grain silage

alvaro@dellait.com — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 20:10:33 -0400

Where climate is adequate for its growth, corn silage is the main forage in intensive cattle production systems. Warm regions of the world usually allow for a double corn crop, thereby maximizing land use. In other regions with well-defined seasons, corn is harvested only once, leaving the land oftentimes fallow during the rest of the year.

The win-win of small-grain forages

hutjensm@illinois.edu — Mon, 24 May 2021 22:07:47 -0400

Small-grain forages should be considered as a win-win situation. Dairy farmers “win” as a cover crop, early spring or fall source of forages, decrease in soil erosion, an opportunity to incorporate manure in late spring and early fall, and extending the growing season capturing more solar energy per acre.

Double-cropping with forage sorghum and forage triticale in New York: Best timing for sorghum harvest and triticale planting

Mon, 08 Mar 2021 23:32:52 -0500

Double-cropping with both warm- and cool-season forages in New York can have many benefits, including providing a source of forage yield in the spring that potentially leads to greater total season yields than a monocrop system, increasing rotation diversity, and providing year-round soil cover.

Small grains, big advantages

jon.pretz@hubbardfeeds.com — Fri, 05 Feb 2021 14:00:01 -0500

In many parts of the U.S., small-grain forages are increasing in popularity and can make excellent feed for milk cow rations when harvested at the correct stage of maturity and put up at proper moisture levels.

Dairies dabble in growing and marketing industrial hemp

peggy@upleveldairy.com — Fri, 11 Sep 2020 13:00:01 -0400

Over the past few years, state-authorized pilot programs for growing industrial hemp as an agricultural crop have opened up across the country.

Hemp production in the western U.S.

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 13:00:01 -0400

In an industry that’s changing as rapidly as a landslide in an earthquake, no matter what figures presented in this writing, it’s only a snapshot of one point in time.

The basics of growing hemp

Fri, 11 Sep 2020 13:00:01 -0400

You have decided to grow hemp. Now what?

Cereal grains provide flexible forage options

Thu, 21 May 2020 13:00:01 -0400

In recent years, there has been an increased interest to harvest cover crop cereal grain forages such as rye or triticale in spring to help supplement inventories.

Boost forage inventories with alternative crops

rschmidt@lallemand.com — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 13:00:01 -0400

Challenging growing conditions have created potential shortages in silage stocks over the past few years, which has sparked interest in putting up alternative silage crops, some more creative than others.

Successfully harvesting, fermenting and feeding BMR sorghum

tfk1@cornell.edu — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 13:00:01 -0400

BMR sorghum has been increasing in acres across the region north of the Mason-Dixon line. Most farmers, agronomists and seed sales professionals use harvest and feeding information from years of experience in Texas and across the South.

Keeping kelp in front of cows on grass

brittany.statzolson@gmail.com — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 18:39:59 -0400

In another installment of Penn State Extension’s Dairy Grazing Management Guide webinar series, University of New Hampshire professor, extension educator and veterinarian Andre Brito discussed the growing popularity of supplementing kelp to cows in pasture-based systems, both organic and conventional.

Harvest management for triticale forages

waynekcoblentz@gmail.com — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 14:00:01 -0500

Triticale has become very popular with dairy producers managing cropping systems throughout much of the U.S. In most cropping systems, triticale functions as a winter-annual forage that includes fall establishment after the removal of corn silage or soybeans followed by a harvest of silage the following spring or early summer.

Forage challenges for dairy farms in the Southeast

dubeux@ufl.edu — Thu, 07 Feb 2019 14:00:01 -0500

The Southeast U.S. has a tremendous potential to grow forage crops. Its mild winters and the possibility to grow forages 365 days of the year offer numerous possibilities.