Stories abound concerning cow behavior on Western rangelands in both historical and newer accounts by men and women who spend their days with livestock.

Scheps Dairy, located in northwest Wisconsin, is an example of how alfalfa can strategically enhance operations by supporting forage quality, yield and flexibility for dairy farmers.

At some point, every pasture or hayfield needs to be renovated. Although there are many useful approaches to improving a piece of land for forage production, some cover crops offer distinct advantages and disadvantages.

Drought stress is one of the most significant limiting factors in crop production worldwide, and alfalfa is no exception. Dealing with droughts and water shortages can be challenging. However, there are some new tools available to alfalfa producers to help mitigate yield and profit losses.

Nutritional management plays a central role in promoting the health, productivity and reproductive success of beef cattle.

Livestock enterprises can use crop acres seeded to cover crops and crop residue to stretch the grazing season and save on feed costs. Crop operations benefit from the nutrient value added through livestock manure and to help with pest management.

The good news is that despite the downsizing of proprietary and public alfalfa breeding programs, there is still a lot of genetic improvements being made. This is in part due to the technical advances in plant breeding.

 
Everyone knows a livestock producer who’s lost animals to bloat. Because of the risk, some folks flatly refuse to graze their stock on dense stands of clover or alfalfa. Others kind of shrug, saying they’ve rarely lost animals and don’t worry about it much. So … what gives?

When a producer plants an alfalfa field, there is an expectation that the field will remain productive for several years. Alfalfa is a perennial crop but there is a limit to its longevity, since all alfalfa fields naturally thin over time.