Forage Types

As temperatures began to drop below freezing, southern Idaho livestock producer Justin Place of Place Farms had doubts about the field of cold-tolerant berseem clover he was trialling as a break crop and whether it would survive.

“Even though it just seems like dirt, it’s a very complex and intricate system. And the more we study it, the less it seems like we know,” says Keith Berns of Green Cover Seed.

Like a lot of their neighbors, the Seymours raised beef and tobacco – and just for good measure, they did a bit of tree farming and logging. But changing times brought about a new vision for Randy Seymour, his son John and their operation, which had been in the family since the 1860s.

It’s no surprise that soil health is still a buzzword. Though the idea of soil health is an old one, there has never been a quantifiable measure of what one would call a “healthy soil.” Many top researchers have been working on developing this measure for decades.

Cool-season annual mixtures are highly nutritious and are a great forage option during the fall, winter and into the spring.