MANAGEMENT

As we enter winter and begin to think about spring, it may be the time of year when many of you check fence conditions to keep livestock in or out of neighboring fields.

Each bale of hay contains mineral nutrients that come from soil reserves or from applied fertilizer. When fed to livestock, most of these nutrients will pass through the animals and can by recycled for future forage growth.

Imagine a contest at a local livestock show where attendees are asked to guess the weight of the prize-winning animal. Nearly everyone will fail to get it precisely right. But what if you averaged everyone’s answers?

In an earlier edition of Progressive Forage, we featured an article that compared a football team to the basics of farm finance. In that analogy, the safety position on a football team was compared to your farm’s equity.

Grazing management requires planning for the future and acting in the present. Planning is integral to success. Set goals for the operation, evaluate current assets, and then sketch out a plan to reach your goals.

For the November issue, I wrote an article about the Norfolk Four Course: Turnips and clovers in revolution and how it helped increase agricultural production and made possible the first sustained population growth in England.