MANAGEMENT

One factor to consider when determining the price dairy farmers should pay for a forage is the ability of the forage to support milk production.

There is a lot of debate on whether carbon sequestered in the land should be considered real or personal property.

With current market incentives to increase crop yields and doing whatever it takes to boost those yields, building soil organic matter can sometimes takes a backseat on farms.

With the widespread drought this year, many forages contain higher levels of nitrate than normal. While testing and recommendations for toxicity levels are available, a little understanding of the biology of nitrate will help utilize nitrate-containing forage.

For a long time, many producers and researchers have looked at soil as a sterile environment we could control just by adding all the nutrients we wanted, often as synthetic fertilizers.

A representative soil sample accurately captures the traits of the soil in that area.