Forages

Ohio Forage and Grasslands Council to Meet in Cambridge, Ohio

– Christine Gelley, Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator, Noble County OSU Extension

Make plans now to attend on February 9th.

The Ohio Forage and Grasslands Council will be hosting their 2024 Annual Meeting on Friday, February 9, 2024 from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at Deerassic Park Education Center (14250 Cadiz Road Cambridge, Ohio 43725). This meeting serves as an opportunity to interact with forage growers of all backgrounds and interests and share with each other. Along with socialization you can listen to intriguing presentations, interact with vendors of forage growing supplies, and enjoy a delicious lunch.

The Ohio Forage and Grasslands Council is Ohio’s commodity organization for pasture and hay crops. The Ohio State University partners closely with the Ohio Forage and Grasslands Council to support forage education, research, and outreach throughout the state. It is the only organization of its kind, bringing together farmers, conservationists, academics, industry representatives, and service personnel into a shared environment to converse and build relationships that lead to more productive forage and grassland ecosystems and more profitable farm operations. The Ohio Forage and Grasslands Council is the state affiliate organization of the American Forage and Grassland Council. Ohio members are automatically extended membership to the national level for even more networking opportunities and learning experiences.

The 2024 meeting theme is “Feeding Forages ↔ Forages Feeding Us” and Continue reading →

Are you managing your pastures “ugly?”

– Victor Shelton, Retired NRCS Agronomist/Grazing Specialist

If hay’s in short supply, be efficient feeding it!

Back when no-till farming was fairly new, one familiar catch phrase was “Farm Ugly.” Managing pastures in a more regenerative fashion sometimes appears a bit ugly too.

Right or wrong, I finally finished clipping the last few paddocks at the end of November. It wasn’t because they really needed to be clipped, but more because they were aesthetically more pleasing afterwards. It also puts most of them in the same starting phase for next less places for coyotes to hide.

I didn’t really procrastinate the task. With the dry conditions and slowed fall growth, I certainly didn’t want to remove or deter any grazable forage, so I waited until after the last grazing of those paddocks to clean it up by clipping them. Other pastures that were stockpiled didn’t need to be trimmed but a couple were done anyways because the wife insisted.

It has been a dry fall. I’ve had Continue reading →

After 35 years, reviewing “the changes’

Penrose spent much of his career advocating stockpiling, bale grazing, and carefully managing forage resources,

EDITOR’s NOTE: After 35 years of service to Ohio’s agriculture industry as an Extension Educator, as he retires our colleague Chris Penrose takes a look back at 35 years of change and progress. Congratulations Chris on a job well done!

– Chris Penrose, Extension Educator, Agriculture & Natural Resources, Morgan County

I remember my first day in Extension back in the 1980’s when I started an internship with Hank Bartholomew, the Perry Co. Ag Agent and he was very involved with ways to extend the grazing season and Management Intensive Grazing. He, Daryl Clark, Tom Noyes, Ed Vollborn, Bob Hendershot and Gary Wilson were the ones that got me interested and were pushing these concepts around Ohio and beyond. I consider them to be on the Mt. Rushmore of grazing here in Ohio and I did my best to learn from them.

Over the past 35 years, we have seen Continue reading →

Managing Pastures for Winter

– Jordan Penrose, Gallia County Agriculture & Natural Resources Extension Educator

Are you still grazing?

Wintertime is here, for good or for bad, and managing pasture with livestock can be tricky in the winter. You have some factors to consider during the winter, such as grazing management, forage quality, supplemental feeding, and planning for the future. Let’s take a look at these key aspects to see if any can improve your pastures during the winter.

Grazing Management:

Depending on your grazing strategy, stocking density, and how your forages produced this year will factor into where you are at right now. If you implement rotational grazing on your farm, you may still be grazing your livestock or just starting to feed hay. But when the ground gets wet and muddy due to snow, rain, and freezing and thawing, do you have a plan for your livestock to keep your pastures from being destroyed and keep your livestock’s daily intake of feed where it needs to be, so they do not lose condition. Do you have a heavy-use pad that you can put livestock on when the conditions are bad. Can you Continue reading →

Toxic Tall Fescue: Recommendations and Reality

– Dr. Chris Teutsch, Extension Associate Professor and Forage Specialist, University of Kentucky

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I wrote this article several years ago for the forages session at the Kentucky Cattlemen’s Annual Meeting. It is a summary of management strategies for utilizing tall fescue in grazing systems. How we approach tall fescue management in grazing systems is NOT black and white, but rather nuanced by a number of practical considerations. In some cases, replacement of toxic stands with improved novel endophyte (non-toxic endophyte) varieties does not always make sense. The objective of this article is to help you work through those considerations to determine the best path forward for managing tall fescue in your operation.

Tall fescue (Schedonorus arundinaceus (Schreb.) Dumort., nom. cons.) is the most important cool-season grass in the transition area between the temperate northern and subtropical southern United States. In most unimproved pastures, tall fescue is infected with a fungal endophyte that imparts tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses. While this mutualistic relationship improves persistence in low input grazing systems, it also results in the production of alkaloids that cause tall fescue toxicosis. While there are a number of grotesque symptoms associated with this syndrome such as Continue reading →

Did we accomplish our grazing goals this year?

– Victor Shelton, Retired NRCS Agronomist/Grazing Specialist

Cover is important year around.

Henry David Thoreau wrote in his book Walden, “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”

It is the time of year that I like to, at least momentary, reflect back on the year. What did we accomplish, what is better, and what could we have done differently? It was a challenging year, but we made it through and none of us are the worse for wear thus far. The winter feed supply could still possibly be a concern depending on the serverity of weather to come and its duration. Extra hay is always a good insurance policy.

Reflecting back, the big questions for myself are always; Are the livestock, forages and soil all getting better? Could things be more efficient?  Did we Continue reading →

Fall Forage Management

– Stephanie Karhoff, PhD, OSU Extension Agronomic Systems Field Specialist and Kyle Verhoff, AgNR Educator, Defiance County (previously published in the Ohio Country Journal)

Fall provides a great opportunity to scout and manage forage hay fields and pastures. In established stands, final harvest or intensive grazing should already have taken place to allow a fall rest period, except if planning to frost seed legumes. If needed, there is still time to soil sample and address winter annual weed concerns.

Soil test fields that will be seeded to forages next year. Apply lime as needed to adjust pH levels. Maintaining proper soil pH increases nutrient availability and will strengthen forage stands, decreasing their susceptibility to stresses like insects, diseases, or weed infestations. The 2020 Tri-State Field Crop Fertilizer Recommendations for Corn, Soybean, Wheat, and Alfalfa (Extension Bulletin 974) recommends consistently soil sampling every 3 to 4 years at no more than 25-acre samples. Lime applications are recommended when soil pH is two to three units below the desired level. In mineral soils (less than 20% organic matter) where the subsoil pH is less than 6.0, the target pH is Continue reading →

Is your grazing plan winterized?

– Victor Shelton, Retired NRCS Agronomist/Grazing Specialist

Autumn is certainly here – and winter is coming!

The autumn colors and a few frosts and light freezes have reminded us that the growing season has come to a pause and winter weather is in the foreseeable future. Are you ready for winter?

I generally keep a running list of things to get done. Most of the time, that list is on an index card that I carry in my pocket, but sometimes it is the back of an envelope or scrape piece of paper.  I try to arrange the list from priority to “try and get done,” in that order. I slowly mark items off as the day progresses or at least I try to.

My typical winter check list includes: checking winter feed supplies with estimates of livestock needs; making sure winter feeding areas are cleaned and ready; confirming fields that might be used for bale grazing are left with enough stockpile to reduce soil and forage damage; ensuring any winter feeding equipment is ready to when needed; and checking all Continue reading →

Bale Grazing – Could it work for you?

– Christine Gelley– OSU Extension Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator, Noble County, Ohio

Some of the original bale grazing research happened at EOARDC in Noble County.

Extending the grazing season is one of the best ways to save money on feed and reduce labor on the farm. In order to add grazing days to the calendar, farm managers must approach grazing with a plan and the willingness to be flexible. Rotationally grazing, utilizing multiple forage species and growing seasons, being thoughtful about stocking rates, adding fertility when needed, and having plentiful fence and water will increase chances for success.

Whether you have the ability to graze for a couple extra weeks or a couple extra months, the benefits of preparation will show up in the money you save on harvesting or purchasing supplemental feed. Regardless of how diligent you are about your grazing plans, it is difficult to provide sufficient grazing for livestock 365 days a year in Ohio and eventually you’ll be relying on stored feeds to meet the needs of your livestock. There are still benefits to utilizing your pasture rotations even while feeding hay. Bale grazing may be Continue reading →

Forage challenges as the weather turns cooler to keep livestock safe

– Kyle Verhoff, OSU Extension Educator, Agricultural and Natural Resources, Defiance County and Jason Hartschuh, OSU Extension Field Specialist Dairy Management and Precision Livestock

Frost can impact the toxicity of our forages.

As the year begins to wrap up and temperatures drop, there are countless things to consider including how the coming frosts impact the toxicity of our forages. This past week many portions of the state began to flirt with possible overnight frosts which raises concerns of prussic acid poisoning, nitrate poisoning, and increased bloat as a result of feeding certain fall forages.

What is prussic acid toxicity?
Prussic acid toxicity is the accumulation of prussic acid (i.e. hydrogen cyanide) in forage plant tissue. Prussic acid is the product of a reaction between two naturally occurring plant molecules, cyanogenic glycosides and degrading enzymes. Plant cell walls usually separate the two, but a frost event Continue reading →