Still Time to Frost Seed Red Clover

Chris Penrose, OSU Extension Educator ANR, Morgan County
(previously published in the C.O.R.N. Newsletter 2021-05)

We are at the point of the winter that daily average temperatures are rising and the days are getting noticeably longer. This freezing and thawing over the next few weeks is what gives frost seeding a great chance to work.

Frost seeding is a very low cost, higher risk way to establish new forages in existing fields by spreading seed over the field and let the freezing and thawing action of the soil allow the seed to make “seed to soil” contact allowing it to successfully germinate. When you see soils “honeycombed” in the morning from a hard frost, or heaved up from a frost, seed that was spread on that soil has a great chance to make a seed to soil contact when the soil thaws. I think the two biggest reasons why frost seeding fails is Continue reading

Are Parasites a Limiting Factor in your Operation?

Bill Fosher, Granite State Graziers coordinator and New Hampshire sheep producer
(Previously published in On Pasture: March 1, 2021)

The parasites that infest sheep can be an enormous drag on sheep production. Year in and year out, they probably cause more death and disease in some producers’ lamb crops than any other single factor, including predators.

The days when the answer to parasite management was to drench all the sheep every month are behind us. Parasites have started to evolve resistance to various classes of de-wormers. The problem with chemical resistance is so pronounced in some parts of the Southeast US that there are farms where no de-wormers work anymore, and there’s at least some degree of chemical resistance nearly every place where worms are a problem.

The first step in knowing how to manage parasites in your own farm is to know what’s going on in your flock’s guts and in the environment they inhabit. The second step is to know what environmental factors play into parasite reproduction and infectivity. In the final analysis, the answer for how to Continue reading