We’re raring to go again now that we’ve had some time off so look forward to a great issue next Tuesday. But until then, there’s plenty to entertain and inform you from our last 9 months of publication. Here’s just a sampling of what you can find with a few clicks of your mouse.
Troy shows the poster created for the project that resulted in the free grazing charts. It wouldn’t have been possible without the help of many farmers and a great team made up of
Grazing Management
We’ve got free grazing charts, and tips for planning your grazing season using them.
Dave Scott did a great series on managing grazing on irrigated pasture.
Or maybe you just want to watch a few videos to review some basics. Here you go:
We also did some great pieces on managing livestock around water, with a little about new regulations, impacts of livestock on water quality, and the results of studies about cattle grazing and clean water on public lands.
There’s plenty more in this category, so have fun exploring!
The goal for pasture-based producers is to sustainably convert sunlight to net cash income. Understanding how plants grow makes it easier.
Pasture Health
To keep your pastures healthy you need to know something about how plants grow. Ed Rayburn did three great pieces on this topic:
- Turn Sunshine Into $ by Understanding How Plants Grow
- Collect More Sunshine to Grow More Grass
- Plant Growth Under Rotational Grazing
Soil is like cake. They both have layers.
On Pasture soil articles have been picked up and published by other magazines because they’re so informative and easy to read. Here are just a few of them:
- The ABC’s of Soil Science
- How Your Soil Got to Be What It Is Today
- Understanding That Soil Is Like Cake Could Lead to Tastier Pastures
- What’s Soil pH and Why Do I Care?
- Grazing Management Affects Soil Health
- Soil chemistry? Are you kidding? CEC in Under 500 Words
You know those things you call weeds? Well, they actually might be great alternative forages. Check out the benefits of what you’ve got!
We’ve also written about more standard forages that some folks are adding to their pastures like radishes, summer annuals, and red clover.
We sprinkled in videos and other interesting things, so scroll through and pick out what tickles you!
Livestock
From understanding behavior, to changing behavior so animals eat weeds, this is a really rich category of On Pasture articles. Just click on the category and see what we’ve got for you. We’re sure you’ll find something of interest!
Money Matters
Our authors have shared the numbers on small farm and large farm egg-onomics and the best handbook you could imagine on raising veal. There’s something on Estate taxes and Tips for Transferring the Farm to the Next Generation. Meg Grzeskiewicz did a great series on the ins and outs of pasture leasing to build your farm business.
Consider This
Calamari on one side of the plate, sliced hog rectums on the other. Which is which?
Having our minds jostled a bit with some interesting or entertaining thoughts can be fun. So that’s why we include “Consider This” articles every week. We’ve written about moose farming, Worm Dancing, iron disease, eating bugs and bones and ice cream, grass fed music, Sna-Koil, and using Pork Bung to make artificial Calamari.
Consider a stroll through our Consider This archives. You never know what you’ll find!
What ever you do over the next 2 weeks, we hope you’re enjoying your holiday season and we look forward to seeing you again on January 7!
Thanks for reading!
Rachel and Kathy
P.S. Need something more to read? Our contributors have written some GREAT books! Check them out here.
