Author Archives: grasslandrenewal

If you have some farm projects you have been thinking about over the past several years but just haven’t had the motivation to get it done, you’re not alone.  Most people go through life having a lot of good ideas, but until they take time to put it on paper and make it a priority,Continue reading “Turning Your Thoughts Into Reality”

Ever rising input costs have beef cattle producers constantly looking at ways to lower production expenses and maintain profitability. Production budgets show the largest expense category for cow/calf enterprises to be winter feeding costs. Because of this, beef and forage researchers have focused heavily on ways producers can lower this major production expense. One methodContinue reading “Reduce Wintering Cost with Stockpiled Fescue”

Triple Creek Journal, June 2021 Over the next year I am going to write a monthly update on our farm activities and what I am thinking relative to producing beef in a toxic fescue environment.  I will try to describe the challenges we face and solutions that we find.  Being on the farm daily duringContinue reading “I want to be proud of my cows!”

Cool-season grasses are the star of the show during the spring and fall, but these forages tend to get stage fright during the hot, dry summer months. Planting summer annuals can mitigate the effects of a summer slump and ensure steady forage production the entire season. Summer annuals such as pearl millet, crabgrass, and sorghum-sudangrassContinue reading “Summer annuals trump the slump”

Summer stockpiling is a system that excludes grazing from a portion of pasture acres during spring and summer in order to have forage for late-summer and early-fall grazing. This practice allows other pastures to stockpilefor winter grazing. The main goal is to provide a high quality, grazable forage during late summer, when cool season pastureContinue reading “Extend Grazing with Summer Stockpile”

When a group of interested individuals met for the 2021 Novel Tall Fescue Renovation Workshop on March 23 at the MU Southwest Research Center looking for answers to fescue questions, they were not disappointed. The line-up of expert speakers on the subject was impressive. Opening the workshop, Craig Roberts, MU Extension Program Director of Agronomy,Continue reading “Notes from the 2021 Fescue Renovation Workshop”

As the face of the American farmer changes, so do some of the methodologies, technologies, and results.  This is no different for the young cattlemen trying to get started in the business or starting new roots away from the family farm.  The reality is that many of us have jobs and homes away from theContinue reading “Managed Grazing from a Distance”

The USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service and Virginia Tech recently released five fact sheets on tall fescue. Each are just 1 page (front and back) and contain valuable information on understanding and managing novel endophyte tall fescue. They are: Fescue toxicosis – What it is and how it costs you Strategies to mitigate tall fescueContinue reading “Virginia Releases Tall Fescue Fact Sheets”

Animal performance problems related to toxic tall fescue are well documented, and there are many things that you can do to help with the problem.  Changes in nutrition, fertilization and animal genetics all may benefit animals suffering from eating fescue toxins, but nothing works like growing forage without toxins.  There are many “systems” for replacingContinue reading “Tall Fescue Pasture Renovation Made Simple”

Dwight Eisenhower said “Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you are a thousand miles from the corn field.” With that as a caution, I am going to foray into pencil farming for just a bit. At a recent meeting I was asked what I would plant if I could startContinue reading “When your plow is a pencil…”