Hay

Hello from Graze-N-Grow. It was a lot warmer March 1 getting the clover frost seeded this year, but that weather has disappeared lately.

Testing hay will help to predict animal performance. “We test hay to use it properly,” said Ron Tombaugh, a director of the Illinois Forage and Grassland Council.

Hello from Graze-N-Grow. It sure is great to see the sun stay up until almost 6 p.m. now and I like even more getting an early start with daylight. I feel a case of spring fever coming on.

Well, with this mild winter weather and missing the two rain events that have been forecasted for my area, it has been pretty uneventful. The flock is eating unrolled hay and silage bales on the ground.

Liquidation of the U.S. cattle herd has accelerated the last couple of years due to drought conditions.

Seems like it has been an unusually quiet past month around here and I think that is simply because there have been virtually no cattle movements in or off the farm.

A pasture is a high-quality crop — not a place — for graziers utilizing managed intensive grazing systems.

The La Salle County Soil and Water Conservation District announced the Isermann family of Streator is the 2022 Farm Family of the Year.

U.S. farming is still overwhelmingly a family business, according to the latest Agricultural Resource Management survey data.

I reviewed my article from one year ago and read that I started to graze my eight-way annual cover crop field in the middle of November and it lasted until Feb. 1. This year I’ll be done grazing the annual field by mid-December — what one year and a slow lack of rainfall can do.

Hello from Graze-N-Grow. We will be sending the last of our pastured hogs to the locker, so one less winter chore. We take orders in the spring from our regular customers and add a few more for new customers and buy our Berkshires from Ralph by East Peoria.

Agriculture conditions were flat to slightly improved across Corn Belt Federal Reserve districts, the Beige Book reported. The survey-based Beige Book publication summarizes comments received from contacts outside the Federal Reserve System.

Four newly elected board members began their service on the Indiana Soybean Alliance’s Board of Directors, while a handful of directors were selected as executive officers during two days of meetings.

U.S. hay stocks decreased in 2022. “We’re not at the record lows we saw in 2007, 2013 or 2019, but we’re getting close to that level,” said Mike Rankin, managing editor of Hay & Forage Grower. “There is not as much hay in the barn as we had from 2015 to 2017.”

Nick Harre wasn’t able to do his morning chores. “My alarm went off at 4:30 a.m. and Andrea was standing there and she said, ‘I don’t think you better go,’ so we went to the hospital,” he said.