Wisconsin’s short growing season doesn’t provide a lot of time for growing cover crops. However, the early harvest of winter wheat allows an excellent window for cover crops to grow, protect the soil and provide other benefits. Cover crop recommendations typically change depending on where you are in Wisconsin but because of the early harvest […]
Establishment of dense vigorous stands of alfalfa is essential for long-term profitability, but establishment can be challenging because seedling alfalfa is vulnerable to competition from annual weeds and wind and water erosion. Roundup Ready Alfalfa was re-introduced last year as a new tool available to farmers growing high-quality alfalfa. While not for everyone, it will be useful for many alfalfa growers.
UW-Madison Extension experts discuss selecting cover crops and questions that you should be to ask yourself to help clarify your goals for using cover crops.
Cover crops can provide many benefits for the soil in crop productions systems. Benefits can include conserving soil and water as well as improving the soil. Reduced Erosion An obvious effect of growing cover crops is covering the soil surface, which can significantly reduce the potential for wind and water erosion. This is particularly true […]
Interseeding (Drilling or broadcasting early season into standing crop) Establishing cover crops after corn and soybeans is a challenge in Wisconsin due to the minimal amount of growing season left after harvest. Interseeding a cover crop during the vegetative growth of these crops provides Wisconsin farmers a cover crop establishment method earlier in the season. […]
Wisconsin’s short growing season doesn’t provide a lot of time for growing cover crops. However, the early harvest of winter wheat allows an excellent window for cover crops to grow, protect the soil and provide other benefits. Cover crop recommendations typically change depending on where you are in Wisconsin but because of the early harvest […]
Farmers have been making silage pile for years, but some methods have allowed huge storage losses. Typically, a pile is constructed by unloading silage into an elevator and piling up the silage, much as a quarry piles sand or gravel. This piling method misses the most important step – PACKING.
“Update on starch utilization by dairy cows” was presented by Randy Shaver, University of Wisconsin. Two-to fourfold increases in corn prices in recent years over historical trends have prompted many questions about the utilization of starch by dairy cows.
Quality of corn silage is determined by energy content and intake potential as well as content of protein and minerals. Methods used to evaluate corn silage quality include chemical methods such as fiber analysis, biological methods such as fermentation with ruminal microbes, and instrumental methods such as near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) which predicts nutrients rather than measuring them directly.
There continues to be a lot of interest in corn silage harvested with a self-propelled forage harvester (SPFH) equipped with an aftermarket processor having cross-grooved processing rolls set for 2- to 3-mm roll gap and greater roll speed differential than has typically been used (32% versus 21%). Also, the developer of this processor recommends that […]
Increasing starch or neutral detergent fiber (NDF) digestibility in whole-plant corn silage (WPCS) may increase lactation performance by dairy cows or reduce purchased feed costs for dairy farmers.
Hay producers working in humid environments are well-acquainted with the consequences of baling moist hays, which include heating, molding, losses of dry matter (DM) and nutritive value, and the possibility of spontaneous combustion.
