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Memories, Kentucky Alfalfa Conference Feb 2015

Memories, Kentucky Alfalfa Conference

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

No abstract provided.


Photo Highlights Of The 35th Kentucky Alfalfa Conference, Darold J. Akridge Feb 2015

Photo Highlights Of The 35th Kentucky Alfalfa Conference, Darold J. Akridge

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

No abstract provided.


Farmer Panel--What Hay Quality Means To Me, Clayton Geralds, Ben Cox, John Mccoy, Dennis Wright, Minos Cox Feb 2015

Farmer Panel--What Hay Quality Means To Me, Clayton Geralds, Ben Cox, John Mccoy, Dennis Wright, Minos Cox

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

No abstract provided.


Hay Quality: What Is It?, Garry D. Lacefield, Don Ball Feb 2015

Hay Quality: What Is It?, Garry D. Lacefield, Don Ball

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

Profitable livestock production almost always requires a forage program that will supply large quantities of adequate quality, homegrown feed. A major percentage of the feed units for beef (83%) and dairy cattle (61%) come from forages. In addition, forages supply an estimated 91%, 72%, 15% and 99% of the nutrients consumed by sheep and goats, horses, swine, and wildlife, respectively.


Alfalfa And The Environment, Don Ball Feb 2015

Alfalfa And The Environment, Don Ball

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

We live in a society in which many people don’t understand or appreciate agriculture as much as they really should. After all, only about 2% of the population of the United States is involved in agriculture, so most people don’t know much about it. Furthermore, most don’t spend much time thinking about it. Forage crops, including alfalfa, are especially under-appreciated because forage is not consumed directly by humans (alfalfa sprouts being a minor exception).


Red Meat, Our Health And Alfalfa--Separating Scientific Fact From Opinions, Policy, Politics, And Bureaucracy, Peter Ballerstedt Feb 2015

Red Meat, Our Health And Alfalfa--Separating Scientific Fact From Opinions, Policy, Politics, And Bureaucracy, Peter Ballerstedt

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

The general public is becoming increasingly aware of the failure of the official nutritional policy of United States and other countries. Books like Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health (Taubes, 2008), Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It (Taubes, 2011) and The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet (Teicholz, 2014) have exposed the disconnect between nutrition science and nutrition policy, and have told the story of how we’ve come to this point in history.


Grazing Alfalfa: Real Cost Of "Fear" Of Bloat, S. Ray Smith, Kenneth H. Burdine, Jeff Lehmkuhler Feb 2015

Grazing Alfalfa: Real Cost Of "Fear" Of Bloat, S. Ray Smith, Kenneth H. Burdine, Jeff Lehmkuhler

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

In the Southeast, including legumes like alfalfa and clover in pastures provides many advantages. It reduces the impact of fescue toxicosis, provides free nitrogen, and improves pasture quality leading to increased animal performance. Individual animal performance is greater on grass/legume pastures compared to performance on similar monoculture grass stands. Daily gains for steers grazing clover-fescue swards is improved compared to straight tall fescue pastures (Figure 1). Improved performance is partially due to greater forage intakes. This practice is sound management even though legume bloat is a risk to livestock. If one considers the number of cattle grazing pastures containing legumes …


What's Required To Break The "Beef Per Acre" Kentucky Record, Kenneth R. Johnson Feb 2015

What's Required To Break The "Beef Per Acre" Kentucky Record, Kenneth R. Johnson

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

As I approach the task that Garry assigned me, I ask the question, “Do I really want to attempt to produce 1400 or more pounds of beef per acre?” An easy answer is “yes,” but more likely “no.” Most farmers I know, full or part time have all they can do now and to reach record levels of anything requires much more time and management. I am going to attempt to discuss the steps I think that will be required to reach record breaking production. Higher gains are certainly possible. We know alfalfa can produce 8 to 10 tons of …


Alfalfa Is Our Family Farming Operation, Myron Ellis Feb 2015

Alfalfa Is Our Family Farming Operation, Myron Ellis

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

Ellis Family Farm is a 5th generation family farm located in Harrodsburg, KY. Currently we farm 1250 acres total of which 870 acres is owned and the remainder is leased. We buy and resale between 1500-1800 head of feeder cattle per year and have 100 head of brood cows. The cattle operation feed is completely supplied by the first cutting of our 580 acres of alfalfa and alfalfa grass mix hay. From the second cutting on, we produce small square bales of alfalfa for the horse market in four states. Our normal production of square bales ranges between 75,000 and …


Kentucky Alfalfa Conference Reflections After 35 Years, Garry D. Lacefield Feb 2015

Kentucky Alfalfa Conference Reflections After 35 Years, Garry D. Lacefield

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

This event today marks the 35th consecutive year we have come together for a full day’s conference featuring "Alfalfa - Queen of the Forages" as the theme and focal point. Only one other state (California) in the U.S. has such an annual event.


Foreword And Recipients Of Kentucky Alfalfa Awards [2015], Garry D. Lacefield, Christi L. Forsythe Feb 2015

Foreword And Recipients Of Kentucky Alfalfa Awards [2015], Garry D. Lacefield, Christi L. Forsythe

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

This is the front matter of the proceedings.


Reductions Of Wheat Yield And Yield Components And Nitrogen Loss Following Frozen Soil Nitrogen Applications, Carrie Ann Knott, Edwin L. Ritchey, Lloyd W. Murdock Jan 2015

Reductions Of Wheat Yield And Yield Components And Nitrogen Loss Following Frozen Soil Nitrogen Applications, Carrie Ann Knott, Edwin L. Ritchey, Lloyd W. Murdock

Plant and Soil Sciences Research Report

Most wheat producers in Kentucky apply nitrogen (N) as a split application. The first N increment is applied when wheat plants begin actively growing (green-up) in late winter, which is typically in mid- February between growth stages Feekes 2 to 3. The second N increment typically occurs in March when wheat is between Feekes 5 to 6. Many producers in Kentucky, especially Western Kentucky, have become accustomed to beginning first N applications in late January when the ground is frozen and the wheat is still dormant. This practice allows them to apply N to large acreages of wheat while avoiding …


Soil Management And Nitrogen Dynamics In Burley Tobacco Rotations, Congming Zou Jan 2015

Soil Management And Nitrogen Dynamics In Burley Tobacco Rotations, Congming Zou

Theses and Dissertations--Plant and Soil Sciences

Agronomic practices, including tillage, crop rotation and N fertilization, have been developed to efficiently manage soil N dynamics and crop N nutrition. These practices can affect soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil total nitrogen (STN) sequestration, and consequently influence soil nitrogen mineralization (SNM) and crop N nutrition. However, little research has been systematically and simultaneously conducted to examine the effect of agronomic management on (1) SOC and STN stocks; (2) SNM; and (3) crop N nutrition. Burley tobacco (Nicotiana tobacum L.) is a N demanding crop and subject to inefficiency in N fertilization. Moreover, conservation tillage and rotation have been …


Grassland Renovation And Consequences For Nutrient Management, Johannes Isselstein, Manfred Kayser Jan 2015

Grassland Renovation And Consequences For Nutrient Management, Johannes Isselstein, Manfred Kayser

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Sward degradation is a serious threat to the functioning of grassland and the provision of ecosystem services. Renovation measures are frequently applied in order to restore degraded swards. However, the success is highly variable and substantial tradeoffs are often found following renovation such as among agronomic and environmental services. Starting from a general classification of renovation measures the paper investigates the processes induced by renovation that lead to a change of the vegetation and that affect carbon and nitrogen fluxes. These processes are strongly interrelated and dependent on site, climate and management condition as well as on the time scale. …


Quality Seed Production And Effective Marketing Systems For Development Of Grasslands, M. Philip Rolston Jan 2015

Quality Seed Production And Effective Marketing Systems For Development Of Grasslands, M. Philip Rolston

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Seed quality is defined as (i) maintaining genetic purity using seed certification principles (generation system; isolation; previous cropping history); (ii) achieving high levels of physical purity (especially low weed seed levels) by in field weed control and seed cleaning; (iii) achieving high levels of seed germination at harvest and maintaining germination through the seed supply chain. Seed production systems must not only produce high quality seed but also achieve economic seed yields. Seed crops have to be profitable (by being high yielding) to justify the investment of time and input costs to achieve quality. This in turn requires supporting research …


Recent Trends In Breeding Of Tropical Grass And Forage Species, J. S. Sandhu, Dinesh Kumar, Vijay Kumar Yadav, Tejveer Singh, R. P. Sah, Auji Radhakrishna Jan 2015

Recent Trends In Breeding Of Tropical Grass And Forage Species, J. S. Sandhu, Dinesh Kumar, Vijay Kumar Yadav, Tejveer Singh, R. P. Sah, Auji Radhakrishna

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Germplasm enrichment in major tropical grasses and their characterization for emerging environmental challenges have been major focussed area in the recent past. Breeding efforts in tropical grasses are still limited to few selected species viz. Panicum spp, Cenchrus spp, Pennisetum spp and Bracharia spp and all other grasses use of land races for varietal development through selection have been major source of improvement. The pace of breeding efforts in the tropical grasses have been slowed because of many inherent characteristics viz. apomixis, poor seed set, high photo and thermo sensitivity often creating problem in designing and implementing an effective breeding …


Rainwater Harvesting And Its Impact On Farming Systems, J. S. Samra Jan 2015

Rainwater Harvesting And Its Impact On Farming Systems, J. S. Samra

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Landless, small holders and other poors supplement their livelihood and adapt to climate change by grazing, stall feeding with crop residues and fodder cultivated under rainfed and irrigated conditions. Improving productivity by conserving rainfall, ground water recharging, harvesting and recycling of rainwater especially in degraded open access or shared land with community participation was quite successful over a wide range of precipitation and ecological situations. Various types of trenches, bunding, vegetative barriers, gully plugs, ponds, check dams, land slides and mine spoils stabilization etc. retained more soil moisture, seeds, vegetative propagules etc. in situ and prevented soil erosion. It regenerated …


Participatory And Holistic Approaches With Grassland Farmers And Development Of Policies, Alain Peeters Jan 2015

Participatory And Holistic Approaches With Grassland Farmers And Development Of Policies, Alain Peeters

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

The world is changing rapidly. Grassland farmers and ruminant livestock breeders will have to adapt to these changing environmental, social and economic conditions. Research can help them at the condition that linear ‘top-down’ technology transfer methods are abandoned for the benefit of participatory and holistic approaches. These approaches classified in the generic term of ‘Farming System Research’ consider farmers as real research partners, and they merge farmer’s and scientist’s ideas with those of other stakeholder types. They combine scientist’s and farmer’s knowledge for creating fast innovations, easily adopted by farmers since farmers themselves contribute to their design and their development. …


Grassland Resources And Protections In The Yellow River Source Zone On The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Xilai Li, Gary J. Brierley, Youming Qiao, George L. W. Perry, Jay King Gao Jan 2015

Grassland Resources And Protections In The Yellow River Source Zone On The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Xilai Li, Gary J. Brierley, Youming Qiao, George L. W. Perry, Jay King Gao

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

This paper summarises resources and protections of the Yellow River Source Zone on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. A concerted effort has been made to address concerns for overgrazing on the alpine steppe and alpine meadow landscapes in the source zone of the Yellow River. An assessment of the impacts of overgrazing includes consideration of the role of small mammals (on the one hand they are considered as a critical ecosystem engineer, on the other they are perceived as a major threatening pest). Analyzed in this paper are management options in the restoration of degraded grasslands.


Potential Of Forages In Crop Diversification And Crop Rotation, Martin H. Entz, Joanne Thiessen Martens Jan 2015

Potential Of Forages In Crop Diversification And Crop Rotation, Martin H. Entz, Joanne Thiessen Martens

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Redesign of agricultural systems according to ecological principles has been proposed for the development of sustainable systems. We review a wide variety of ecologically-based crop production practices that focus on forage crops in farming systems and discuss their potential role in enhancing the profitability, environmental sustainability and resilience. Crop-livestock systems that most closely mimic natural systems through appropriate integration of diverse components appear to offer the greatest potential benefits. These systems are more energy efficient and combine high productivity with low ecological footprint. Greater understanding of ecological relationships within crop-livestock systems are required to purposefully and proactively redesign agricultural systems …


Conservation Of Grassland Plant Genetic Resources Through People Participation, D. R. Malaviya, Ajoy K. Roy, P. Kaushal Jan 2015

Conservation Of Grassland Plant Genetic Resources Through People Participation, D. R. Malaviya, Ajoy K. Roy, P. Kaushal

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Agrobiodiversity provides the foundation of all food and feed production. Hence, need of the time is to collect, evaluate and utilize the biodiversity globally available. Indian sub-continent is one of the world’s mega centers of crop origins. India possesses 166 species of agri-horticultural crops and 324 species of wild relatives. India is reported to have five grass covers identified. There have been almost nil human interference in terms of selection pressure; hence, the biodiversity is well conserved in these grazing lands. There is need of a system approach to understanding biodiversity that moves significantly beyond taxonomy and species observations. In …


Wastelands Of The Mind: The Identity Crisis Of India’S Savanna Grasslands, Abi Tamim Vanak Jan 2015

Wastelands Of The Mind: The Identity Crisis Of India’S Savanna Grasslands, Abi Tamim Vanak

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

The idea that wastelands are unproductive continues to be pervasive and is used by various agencies to gain control over marginal landscapes and remake them for productive purposes with dire results.


Three Is Company: Fixing The Grazing-Land Business Conundrum, Ralph Von Kaufmann Jan 2015

Three Is Company: Fixing The Grazing-Land Business Conundrum, Ralph Von Kaufmann

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Grazing-lands have the largest footprint on the world’s land surface area but this is not reflected in the amount of business conducted on them. The most common land use systems are very land intensive, i.e., they use a lot of land to produce not very much and few jobs. The health of the planet depends on having healthy grazing-lands but there is a perfect storm brewing in which the demand from expanding pastoral communities for more food and jobs cannot be met just by applying good grazing-land management practices. Compatible businesses must be found that can create jobs without increasing …


Front Matter [Preface And List Of Contributors], National Organizing Committee, International Grassland Congress Jan 2015

Front Matter [Preface And List Of Contributors], National Organizing Committee, International Grassland Congress

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

No abstract provided.


Traditional Livestock Production And Growth Opportunities In India, S. M. Deb Jan 2015

Traditional Livestock Production And Growth Opportunities In India, S. M. Deb

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Livestock and animal health development projects need to be based on an understanding of livestock production systems because different systems need different approaches particularly in view of degradation of environment combined with population pressure. In India, the livestock production system is primarily traditional, consisting of mixed-farming and pastoral systems, therefore, development of marginal and smallholder mixed farms must aim at intensification of the total production system. Resource-poor farming systems may aim at the improved management of the various livestock species in backyards. Pastoral systems must focus on effective management of grazing pressure. Community pasture management involves application of technologies, land …


Nutrient Movements Through Ruminant Livestock Production Systems, Adegbola T. Adesogan, Jose C. B. Dubeux, Lynn E. Sollenberger Jan 2015

Nutrient Movements Through Ruminant Livestock Production Systems, Adegbola T. Adesogan, Jose C. B. Dubeux, Lynn E. Sollenberger

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Considerable attention has been paid to reducing nutrient emissions from ruminant livestock in the last few decades. This area will continue to attract considerable research in the future due to increasing farm sizes in some developed countries as well as the increasing demand for meat and dairy products, particularly in developing countries. This paper discusses the deposition and losses of carbon and nitrogen in soils and plants in grazed and harvested forage systems as well as utilization and losses of both nutrients by ruminants in both systems. The paper also outlines several soil, plant, and animal-focused strategies that can be …


Socio-Cultural Factors Challenging Development Interventions In Cattle Production In The Remote Areas Of Vietnam, Duong-Nam Ha, Pham-Van Hung, Tran-The Cuong, Ninh-Xuan Trung, Tran-Van Long, Laurie Bonney, Peter A. Lane, Guillaume Duteurtre, Stephen Ives Jan 2015

Socio-Cultural Factors Challenging Development Interventions In Cattle Production In The Remote Areas Of Vietnam, Duong-Nam Ha, Pham-Van Hung, Tran-The Cuong, Ninh-Xuan Trung, Tran-Van Long, Laurie Bonney, Peter A. Lane, Guillaume Duteurtre, Stephen Ives

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

The northwest highlands of Vietnam are characterized by high altitude, low infrastructure, and low population densities composed of a wide diversity of different ethnic groups. Their socio-cultural characteristics strongly influence their lifestyle and production systems, including agricultural activities. The majority of these people have suffered from slow economic development, with the highest poverty rate in the country. This is a real need for plausible interventions where behavioral changes of smallholders throughout local value chains would be a critical foundation. Our project implemented in this context of development in the Northwest highlands of Vietnam aims to understand the role of socio-cultural …


Scouting Benefits And Developing Innovations In Temperate Grassland To Sustainable Agriculture Production, Walter Ayala, Ethel Barrios, Ignacio Macedo, Jorge Sawchik, José A. Terra Jan 2015

Scouting Benefits And Developing Innovations In Temperate Grassland To Sustainable Agriculture Production, Walter Ayala, Ethel Barrios, Ignacio Macedo, Jorge Sawchik, José A. Terra

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Agricultural intensification raises concern about land use and future effects to natural resources. The world demand for grain, meat and forest products is increasing constantly. Changes are occurring at large scale, being a compromise for policy makers to contribute to identify opportunities to readdress the productive scenario. There is available technology to reduce impacts, without restricting necessarily productivity. Grasslands provide a large series of economical and ecological benefits to the agricultural systems, being the literature exhaustive in examples. Ley-farming and cover crops technologies are good examples of environmentally sound soil management practices. The society is also worried about an improper …


Problems And Prospects Of Grassland Development: Policy Issues, S. Ray Smith Jan 2015

Problems And Prospects Of Grassland Development: Policy Issues, S. Ray Smith

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

There are a range of government and non-government policies that affect grassland development around the world. The objective of this paper is to provide examples of successful policies which have been instrumental in the preservation and maintenance of grasslands and to highlight policies which have resulted in negative consequences. This paper will not attempt to provide a complete overview of policies, but instead will provide examples from representative countries. Policies which affect grasslands can be classified into two broad categories: government policies that cover comprehensive landscape issues like the Grassland Household Contract System (GHCS) in China or the Federal Land …


Genomic Approaches For Dissecting Complex Traits Related To Quality Production Of Range Grasses, Masumi Ebina Jan 2015

Genomic Approaches For Dissecting Complex Traits Related To Quality Production Of Range Grasses, Masumi Ebina

IGC Proceedings (1997-2023)

Tropical grasses have been widely used as warm-season forage grasses in the warm temperate zone since the early 20th century because of their high yields; they have also been used as perennial forages in their native tropical areas. Increasing demand for animal production sparked by economic development in tropical countries is requiring breeders to improve native forage grasses in these countries. Considerable efforts have been made to breed accessions with improved characteristics and to develop new cultivars. However, cross-breeding is not common, owing to a lack of genetic information and to complexities related to polyploidy, high sterility rates, outcrossing, and …