Improving your pasture management skills will grow more forage that will have higher quality that will better feed your livestock and make you more money. A better pasture should just keep getting better year after year including: improving the environment; improving the soil, water, air, plants, and animals as well as reducing your energy requirements. [...]

Winter I try to start grazing as early as possible in March. When the snow melts, I will try to feed stockpiled fescue which also provides a clean field for the cows to have calves. This year, when we moved cows to start grazing March 3, grass had already started to grow and some fescue [...]

Some graziers have already begun the grazing season thanks to the above average winter temperatures we experienced. Other graziers are right there at the starting line, anticipating the spring growth of pastures. The start of the grazing season provides an opportunity to take some time to set some grazing management goals for the year. In [...]

More than 95 percent of weeds can be controlled through good management practices.

Frost seeding of legumes in February and early March can be used to improve pasture, hay quality and yield. The freezing and thawing of late winter and early spring can provide for good legume seed/soil contact and germination.

This is the time of year to evaluate your hay and pasture fields to determine if they need to be reseeded. First and foremost, you need to make sure the pH and fertility is adequate for the forages you want to plant. If it is not, the new seeding could germinate then die or never produce to its potential.

For the grazier, winter means dealing with cold temperatures, wind chill, freezing rain and mud. These weather conditions can negatively impact livestock performance and increase the energy requirement of the animal.

Change, no matter how uncomfortable, sometimes causes us to look at our operation and discover that there are more ways to do things than we believed possible.

Livestock graziers, now is a good time to finish what is left in your hay fields and then utilize forage in stockpiled areas.

For many years, OSU Extension has been conducting one- to five-day grazing schools throughout Ohio. In many cases OSU Extension, USDA/NRCS and local SWCD offices cooperate in these programs. Recently, evaluation data was collected from participants who have attended a Pasture for Profit grazing school. We sent a mail survey to participants who had attended [...]