Forage Foundations

By Dr. Michelle Windle, Vita Plus forage products and dairy technical service specialist
Dairy cows are fed silage all year-round.  This means selecting the right inoculant for your operation has the potential to impact the farm’s bottom line on many fronts.  With the inoculant market becoming flooded with so many different choices, it's getting harder to decide which inoculant is right for your needs.   A good inoculant should meet certain qualifications before being considered for use on a farm.  These qualifications include the following...

By Richard Mensendike, Vita Plus dairy specialist
In this fourth video of a five-part series, Richard Mensendike, Vita Plus Lanark livestock specialist, walks through the proper steps of sampling upright silos to help you make management and nutrition decisions.  We’ll discuss sampling strategies for other storage structures and feed in upcoming editions of Forage Foundations.

By Jon Urness, Vita Plus national forage specialist
When Shredlage^® was introduced in 2008, it caused quite a stir among dairy producers, nutritionists, custom chopper operators, equipment manufacturers and university researchers. 

By Jenny Kilpatrick, Premier Insurance Solutions, LLC insurance agent
As a crop insurance agent in Wisconsin, each year I talk with producers about which crops they want to insure.  Corn, soybeans, wheat, oats and established hay are most frequently mentioned, but producers often forget about their valuable forage seeding crop. 

By Dr. Daniel Undersander, University of Wisconsin-Extension forage agronomist
Lignin is the key plant cell wall component that gives a plant strength to stand up and prevent water from leaking during transport from the root to the leaves.  This may be good for the plant, but lignin also reduces plant cell wall digestibility in mammals.  For these reasons, we want to find the proper balance of lignin to support the plant without drastically reducing digestibility.

With the 2016 fall harvest behind us, hear from our Vita Plus dairy and forage consultants as they reflect on the hay, corn silage and grain harvests at several points in the Vita Plus market area.

A "good" joke, but it’s not funny when those molds appear in your feed and start causing trouble.