Forage Foundations

By Dr. Zach Sawall | We often focus on growing crops to maximize tonnage, and we figure out how to deal with that feed once it’s in the bunk. A more economical approach is to look at what the cow needs and focus on growing forage to meet those needs.

A long fall allowed for great harvest conditions across most of the upper Midwest.  Vita Plus consultants across the region recap the 2022 harvest.

By Jonathan Ydstie, Vita Plus | Accidents and fatalities increase 17% in the winter. As we think about our farm teams, we likely have some employees who need reminders of the dangers winter can bring. Others may have very little experience working in the cold and need proper training to work safely through the season ahead.

By Jon Rasmussen | More farms are considering feed centers as a means to reduce shrink and improve efficiency by reducing the steps, wheel traffic, and time to load a TMR mixer. Here are a few suggested steps in the process of designing your ideal feed center.

By Steve Murty, Vita Plus | Equipment repairs are the last thing you want to deal with when a crop is ready to harvest.  Supply chain issues we often face today add to the frustration.  This applies to inoculant applicators like any other equipment.  A little time invested now can save headaches next spring.

By Steve Murty, Vita Plus forage specialist | Nutrients lost through forage shrink have a real cost to your dairy. Here are 11 tips to efficiently harvest, pack, and cover your corn silage to reduce shrink and add dollars to the bottom line.

With Terry Seubert, Vita Plus IT services development coordinator, and Dr. Michelle Chang-Der Bedrosian, Vita Plus forage and dairy technical services | Drone technology can help producers dial in their forage inventories and better manage their feeding programs.

Part of a successful corn silage season is having a fine-tuned kernel processor. To help you get prepared for this year's harvest, we walk you through what and how to check if your kernel processor is ready to hit the fields.

By Cody McCary, Vita Plus forage specialist | The stage of plant growth and timing of harvest are essential to achieving the yield and quality goals for a given grass crop. The progression from one stage of maturity to the next often happens rapidly. To combat a narrow harvest window, consistent monitoring of in-field conditions and plant stage of maturity is necessary.

By Augusta Witt, Vita Plus dairy specialist | Learn from an agronomy consultant's first-hand experiences with fall armyworms and strategies to deal with this pest.

Steve Murty, Vita Plus – Delayed planting, volatile grain markets and high feed costs are once again dominating agricultural headlines, reminding farms to double down on forage management practices to preserve homegrown protein yields and save out-of-pocket expenses.

Dr. Michelle Chang-Der Bedrosian, Vita Plus – The value of silage has skyrocketed, which means the penalty of dry matter loss has also skyrocketed. In today’s markets, we cannot afford to skip inoculants.

Ashley Blackburn, Vita Plus – Plants can’t distinguish between manure and commercial fertilizer, so taking advantage of these nutrients can help you manage fertilizer costs for crop production. Many factors can affect the nutrient composition of manure and the nutrient availability to plants. Understanding these factors can help you put a dollar value to your farm’s manure.

Randy Welch, CROPLAN - In this video, Randy Welch describes fall dormancy of alfalfa and provides tips for selecting varieties that best fit your fields and forage needs.

Dr. David Weakly, Forage Genetics International – One of the major factors negatively impacting harvested alfalfa forage quality is leaf loss. That’s because leaves have an RFQ of about 550 while stems have an RFQ of 70 to 80. A new equation predicts the percent of leaves in alfalfa from NDF, protein and NDFd28 measured in the sample.

Dr. Michelle Chang-Der Bedrosian, Vita Plus – The phrase “trust, but verify” can describe the approach many producers take to new technology, including handheld NIR meters. Here are some tips to verify the technology’s accuracy on your farm.