the magazine that is by graziers, for graziers
Goal: grain feeding as punishment by Nathan Weaver Canastota, NY—We have long hoped to have a no-grain milking herd, and we have geared the herd and our farm toward that conclusion. We stopped our original no-grain effort shortly after moving to this farm several years ago, as the land was not yet able to produce …
Continue reading “A report from our return trip to no grain”
By Daniel Olson Lena, Wisconsin — Most of you have seen those “growing curves” for perennial, cool-season grasses. The curves spike in mid-spring, crash in the summer heat and revive in time for the early-fall grazing period. The biology of this is that a perennial can’t afford to put all of its energy into production, …
Continue reading “Options for adding annuals to your operation”
By Joel McNair, Belleville, Wisconsin — Talk of $200 per barrel crude oil and seven-dollar per gallon gasoline grabs headlines and earns sound bites, and indeed these things may be reality sooner rather than later. Or they may not. History and common sense tell us the current oil price trend line will not continue unabated. …
Amos Nolt relies on top forages, barley baleage and chicken manure Shiloh, Ohio — Try, if you will, to poke holes in this formula for an organic, grazing-based dairy in the eastern Corn Belt: 1. Feed the dairy herd pasture, dry hay and (in a dry year) baleage for five to six months per year. …
By Jim Munsch — There is an ongoing struggle within organic dairy about the direction of the industry’s production and business models. The debate seems to center on whether or not the details of systems to produce milk should be strongly influenced by customers. Grazing is central to the struggle. All advertising, packaging and commentary …
Continue reading “Organic needs to do what people think we’re doing”
By Nathan Weaver, Canastota, New York — Slowly the puzzle of proper grass production from semi-permanent pastures appears to be pieced together. In the last decade we removed our farm from a forage/grain operation to a forage-only farm. We placed a heavy emphasis on forage harvestable by grazing cows. Initially we looked at the new …