Grass Clippings is a quarterly newsletter that features grazing-related research from the University of Wisconsin and beyond. The May issue features: Interseeding legumes vs. applying nitrogen fertilizer Performance of birdsfoot trefoil in northern Wisconsin How much grass seed do we need? Soil quality and the grass farm, part 3 Upcoming events Read this newsletter (pdf file) [...more]

Grass Clippings is a quarterly newsletter that features grazing-related research from the University of Wisconsin and beyond. The February issue features: Persistence of grazed red clover varieties Carbon crediting for agricultural soil management practices Upcoming events Soil quality and the grass farm, part Issues and opportunities for the Wisconsin grazing community Read this newsletter (pdf file) [...more]

Is kura clover a good legume choice in rotationally grazed pastures? A study conducted at the UW Lancaster Agricultural Research Station says yes, with excellent beef production on kura clover/grass pastures. Kura's persistence and leafy growth led to higher Holstein steer growth rates on kura/grass pastures than red clover/grass pastures. [...more]

Dairy farmers can reduce their purchased inputs without cutting into their profits. An ongoing twelve-year study of two forage rotations similar to those found on Wisconsin dairy farms compared a diversified, low-input system with a less diverse rotation requiring high levels of commercial inputs. While the two systems returned similar profits, the low-input system incurred [...] [...more]

Switchgrass offers a wide range of environmental benefits as an alternative energy crop. Switchgrass can reduce soil erosion and provide warm season pasture for most ruminants. Harvesting this crop in August can improve habitat for grassland birds. Burning switchgrass together with coal can generate electricity with lower emissions than coal alone. Currently, no biomass crop is [...] [...more]

Late maturing varieties of annual (Italian) ryegrass hold some potential for pastures in a management intensive rotational grazing (MIRG) system. However, in a 1997-98 on-farm study in southern Wisconsin, annual ryegrass did not make a contribution to pasture yield. In addition, frost seeding annual ryegrass over an existing pasture met with limited success. But researchers [...] [...more]

Can environmentally beneficial crop rotations also improve farm profitability? A long-term study underway in southern Wisconsin aims to find out. It blends systems research with strong farmer guidance to measure profitability, productivity, and environmental impacts of six cropping systems. The Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trial (WICST) compares three cash grain cropping systems and three forage systems [...] [...more]

More than one million acres of forages are grown within 75 miles of Hayward in northwestern Wisconsin. The area relies heavily on growing forages and converting them into higher-value products such as milk, meat, and wool. A project at the UW-Madison Hayward Agricultural Research Station evaluated ways forages could be utilized more efficiently in a livestock [...] [...more]

“Edible” bunker silos may enable Wisconsin livestock farmers to save labor and money when storing and feeding forages. University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers devised a low-cost system for storing corn silage and hay during a research and demonstration project at the Hayward Agricultural Research Station. The five-year project focused on labor and cost-saving practices farmers could adopt [...] [...more]