Harvest & Storage

This article is not legal advice.

As summer slowly fades to fall, some harvesters may have already swathed and baled hay – and unfortunately, customers might not have paid for these services.

To bring added value to a hamburger, you might add cheese or barbecue sauce. To bring added value to a dairy, you could expand to make your own yogurt. To bring added value to a ranch, you could offer hunting licenses or agritourism.

Forage testing is done to estimate the intake and performance by livestock. Low-quality hay does not allow a high-producing animal to consume enough digestible energy to be highly productive.

Most people consider death and taxes as the only two “certainties” in our human existence. Most dairy or beef producers would probably add a third “certainty” to the list: cattle do not like to eat dirt.

For some custom harvesters, there may come a time when things are a little slower than usual. Does that mean panic is warranted?

Special attention should be paid to the cutting height when harvesting switchgrass or other native warm-season grasses for forage or biomass (Figure 1).