During the winter months when fresh forage on pastures is unavailable to most cow-calf producers, they typically turn to feeding one low-quality forage with a protein supplement. In Nebraska and other states where corn is a commonly grown commodity crop, many producers use grazing cornstalks as their low-quality forage source.

“Follow the yellow brick road.” The line from the famous Wizard of Oz isn’t new to most of us, but I think the way we view it changes throughout our life. As a child, when I first heard or read that line, I was so relieved for young Dorothy that her journey seemed so easy.

It was late afternoon on an early September day. Just a hint of fall hung in the air as I jumped my horse up into the trailer, a light fog of defeatism looming over me like the gray of the smoke from so many western wildfires that enveloped everything for hundreds of miles.

As the calendar has turned to autumn and the hay harvest season continues in full swing across the country, forage analysis labs expect to be hit by a tidal wave of samples from clients.

As an alfalfa stand ages and thins, the primary question becomes: Is this stand good enough to keep? Now is a good time to evaluate stands as more time is allowed for planning crop rotations than when stands are evaluated in the spring and determined to be uneconomic.

Fall is settling in, and with it comes a better idea of what path prices will take over the winter. While July prices decreased slightly for the most part, there’s still many factors that could play into the settling of hay prices. Take a closer look at prices and conditions in each region in the Progressive Forage Forage Market Insights column as of Sept. 10, 2024.

For decades, the agricultural industry has been at the forefront of innovation, continually adapting to meet global demands and environmental challenges.