By Daniel Olson, Founder of Forage Innovations The world of warm season annuals is a new one for many farmers and so is the terminology associated with them. In this article, I will try to define some terms and characteristics of different annuals. Sorghum, Sudangrass, sorghum X Sudan, and millet. Probably the most common of these three is sorghum. We will be focusing on forage types, Continue Reading
Foraging Ahead Articles
Fresh Forage, not your Father’s Green Chop!
So, what is “Fresh Forage”? It might just be a new name for “green chop”, but it is really much more than that. Fresh Forage refers to an actual balanced-in forage ingredient for high-producing dairies. It was covered in one of Daniel Olson’s (lead forage specialist with Forage Innovations) earliest Zoom discussions during the new way to interact with you during Covid 19, but Continue Reading
Clover, The Forgotten Forage
by Larry Hawkins, PAS Ever since the genetic engineering scientists have been working to improve alfalfa, they seem to have forgotten about a legume forage which already has the traits they are trying to achieve with the exception of Roundup Ready®. Reduced lignin and condensed tannin are the two traits that were targeted to address the shortfalls of alfalfa. The lower lignin is already in the Continue Reading
Comparing Apples to Oranges: The attack on Better than BMR
by Larry Hawkins, PAS Whenever a trend-setting new technology arrives threatening to upset the apple cart, the forces which are being disrupted (in this case “Big Corn”) attempt to muddy the waters to maintain their highly profitable dominance. Such is the case with Forage Innovations’ Better Than BMR (BTBMR) system. Competitive hybrid companies with a lot to lose are pecking at the edges of Continue Reading
Forage Innovations Knows Great Forage
Forage Innovations Knows Great Forage by Larry Hawkins Obviously, the best way to determine a great forage is to feed it to your cows and see if the energy corrected milk (ECM) goes up. When the forages to compare are scattered all over the USA, the way to judge great forage is by submitting samples to the World Dairy Expo’s Forage Analysis Superbowl (FASB), the Granddaddy of such forage Continue Reading
FI Knows Great Forage
Obviously, the best way to determine a great forage is to feed it to your cows and see if the energy corrected milk (ECM) goes up. When the forages to compare are scattered all over the USA, the way to judge great forage is by submitting samples to the World Dairy Expo’s Forage Analysis Superbowl (FASB), the Granddaddy of such forage contests. Further proof of forage quality is the Continue Reading
Prussic Acid Safety in Sorghums
The caveat for sorghums is their chance to contain prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide) mostly when the first frost occurs. If the first frost is not a killing frost, more prussic acid will be produced on subsequent frosts until the sorghum plant is completely dead. Prussic acid toxicity occurs with all sorghum family plants, i.e., forage sorghum, hybrid sudangrass and sorghum-sudan. If you are using Continue Reading
More Opportunities With Small Grains – Making Allelopathy Your Friend
For many of us, 2020 has at least one good thing happening for us. I has been the earliest harvesting of corn silage since 2012! This is giving us a big leg up ongetting our winter triticale planted in time to deliver a highly-tillered, and voluminous crop next spring. In our last Foraging Ahead newsletter, we weretalking about putting in a crop of a cocktail mix after the triticale or rye in the Continue Reading
Opportunities in Small Grains
Fall-planted small grains are a huge opportunity, especially for the Upper Midwest, Northeast and High Plains. Many questions have come in these last few weeks, so we are putting together this guide to answer many of these small grain questions. We will be only discussing opportunities for forages and not grains. This article will deal with these opportunities, and also with the options for the Continue Reading