Producer Features

Alfalfa hay is the bread and butter of Alturas Ranches in northeast California – but what’s made the ranch a stalwart in the California hay industry might be a mindset bent on continual improvement.

Tom Kestell likes to joke his family’s physical stature means they’ll never be selected first when choosing sides for a basketball team.

Sometimes what has worked for years isn’t working anymore. Running a stocker program has worked for Cooper Brothers Farm for decades, but circumstances today have changed, and they’re converting to a cow-calf operation.

You’ve heard of the Texas two-step, a country dance. Let me introduce you to the Texas three-twist – cultivation, diversification and cooperation – involving sprigs, hay and custom work.

For the Rice family, farming has always been a family affair. With the sixth generation coming back to the farm, there is no denying farming is in their blood. Brothers Scott and Steve Rice operate a production alfalfa farm in Wilsonville, Nebraska, the town where they were born and raised.

If you buy a $90,000 30-foot-wide no-till drill, 95 percent of your neighboring farmers will call you crazy – a few cards shy of a full deck, a few bricks short of a full load, half a bubble off plumb.