Agriculture

Producing and feeding high quality forages is vital to improved animal performance, whether the goal is more pounds of milk, a higher rate of gain, or improved conception.

Forage quality is defined as the extent to which a forage, whether pasture, hay or silage, has the ability to produce the desired animal response.

While many factors affect forage quality, the stage of maturity at harvest or grazing is the single most important consideration. It also is the one where producers can make the most progress.

With all the rainfall in the last week, the garden at Groundhog Hill is pretty darn muddy, so there’s not much to do except to stand and to stare at the blank rows and to yell in a public pool lifeguard-type voice, “Is anything germinating under there?”

So like all super amateur gardeners with some time on their hands, I have assumed a dual identity. I like to think of him as Estate Manager, but my father has another name for him: Yard Boy.

We all know that we should eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, but many of us don’t get the recommended servings. Fruits and vegetables are important to our diet, because they provide necessary nutrients and are high in dietary fiber and low in calories, fat and cholesterol. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that you make half your plate fruits and vegetables.

Expected Progeny Differences, or EPD, may actually be the best tool beef producers have to use in the genetics of their herds.

The breed average EPD provides a benchmark to compare beef cattle’s genetics. They are averages for the animals included in that run of genetic evaluation.