Earth Sciences Commons^™

Keys To Success With Alfalfa Balage, Dennis W. Hancock

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

Baled silage (or Balage) has many advantages over conventional hay production. Losses during the curing, baling, storage, and feeding phases are each dramatically lower when the forage is conserved as Balage rather than hay. Of course, this comes at an expense. The cost of the wrapper (generally $14,000 – 21,000), plastic wrap (usually $4-6 per ton of DM), and added labor can make this system quite costly. Furthermore, there is an environmental cost for disposal of the plastic. However, Balage enables the alfalfa producer to quickly harvest a crop with more independence from unfavorable weather and to create a more …

Alfalfa As A Grazing Crop, Bill Payne

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

Planning a “Forage Sequence” implies that a stockman provides nutritious and palatable forage crops for grazing for as many days of the year possible. Cool season perennial grasses and legumes give Kentucky forage growers an competitive advantage over those in many other states. That advantage declines during the heat of our summers, however. Providing a solution to our “Summer Slump” is a challenge to stockmen throughout the South. This “Summer Slump” is the result of low yield of cool season forages during the heat and drier conditions of July, August and September. Another factor hindering livestock gains is the fescue …

Alfalfa Hay For Horses: Myths Vs. Reality, Laurie Lawrence

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

How Much Hay Does A Horse Need?

A horse owner once described their Quarter Horse gelding as “a hole in the stall that I throw hay into”! This description is certainly accurate… a 1200 lb gelding used for light recreational riding will consume about 700 lbs of hay per month during the winter in Kentucky. If the horse is kept in a place with minimal pasture, yearly hay consumption will be about 4 tons. Restricting hay intake can lead to digestive disturbances and behavior problems, so it is recommended that most horses be allowed access to 1.5 – 2.0 lbs …

Alfalfa Seed Price And Seeding Rate: Impact Of Production Cost, S. Ray Smith

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

I am often asked the question about what is the ideal alfalfa seeding rate, especially with the price of seed for most improved varieties over $4.00 per pound. Before giving the ideal seeding rate or recommended range of seeding rates, let me overview alfalfa seed size, seedling survival, and plant survival. Alfalfa has about 200,000 seeds/lb. If one pound was evenly spread over one acre (43,560 ft²), there would be about five seeds per square foot. Therefore if you take the seeding rate you are using and multiply by five, you will come pretty close to knowing how …

Rfv Vs. Rfq -- Which Is Better?, Tom Keene, Peter Jeranyama, Alvaro D. Garcia

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

Determining the value of hay is often times a trying adventure but the rewards can be significant. It begs the question though, what do those numbers really tell me? Do they provide me pertinent information? There are so many numbers…which ones do I need to be concerned with? All of the numbers and information on the results sheets are important. However, certain numbers have greater bearing on some classes of livestock than others. As research continues to give us new parameters regarding, herd health, pounds of gain, pounds of milk, maintenance, etc. the importance of these will also likely change …

Art And Science Of Haymaking, Garry D. Lacefield

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

In 2007, Kentucky was chosen as one of three states to participate in the making of a movie on Quality Haymaking. Case IH Agriculture in an effort to better serve their customer base and the forage industry invested resources to produce, edit and distribute a DVD on Quality Haymaking. A national project coordinator was hired who in turn contracted with a film company. When we were contacted and learned it was not going to be a commercial for any one brand or product, we agreed to participate.

Foreword And Recipients Of Kentucky Alfalfa Awards [2009], Garry D. Lacefield, Christi L. Forsythe

Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference

No abstract provided.

The Mississippian Section At Paddys Bluff, Crittenden County, Kentucky, Ron Counts, F. Brett Denny, James C. Hower, Zakaria Lasemi, Rodney D. Norby, Paul E. Potter, Scott Waninger, David A. Williams

Map and Chart--KGS

Paddys Bluff (Figs. 1-3) is located on the south side of the Illinois Basin on the Cumberland River, 1.7 miles downstream from Dycusburg in Crittenden County, Ky., in Carter coordinate section 23-I-16 and ecoregion 71f of the Western Highland Rim of Kentucky (Woods and others, 2002). This bluff is on a right-descending bend 18 liver miles above its junction with the Ohio River at Smithland, Livingston County. The bluff (Figs. 4A, B) is locally famous as the location for a scene from the classic 1962 film, "How the West Was Won,' a winner of three Academy Awards, starling James Stewart, …

Four Rivers Basin: Cumberland, Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi, Daniel I. Carey

Map and Chart--KGS

The Four Rivers Basin includes over 4 ,700 square miles in all or parts of 17 counties. The basin contains more than 10,700 miles of streams.

More than 720 miles of streams assessed in the basin by the Kentucky Division of Water do not support designated uses for warm-water aquatic habitat, fish consumption, primary contact recreation, or secondary contact recreation. Not all streams have been assessed. The percentage of assessed streams not supporting uses was: warm-water aquatic habitat (58 percent); fish consumption (14 percent); primary contact recreation (76 percent); secondary contact recreation (30 percent). Nearly 125 miles of streams have …

Upper Cumberland River Basin In Kentucky, Daniel I. Carey

Map and Chart--KGS

The Upper Cumberland River Basin covers over 7,300 square miles, 5,180 in Kentucky and 2,130 in Tennessee. All or parts of 20 Kentucky counties lie in the basin. The basin contains nearly 15,100 miles of streams, 10,430 in Kentucky and 4,640 in Tennessee. From the headwaters of Looney Creek in Harlan County, 4,100 feet above sea level, and the Poor Fork in Letcher County, runoff flows down the Upper Cumberland River west to an elevation of 460 feet at the Kentucky-Tennessee line. The river and its tributaries are a blessing and a bane: They provide for recreation, drinking water, and …

Mapped Karst Groundwater Basins In The Tell City And Part Of The Jasper 30 X 60 Minute Quadrangles, Joseph A. Ray, Jack R. Moody, Robert J. Blair, James C. Currens, Randall L. Paylor

Map and Chart--KGS

No abstract provided.

Green/Tradewater River Basin In Kentucky, Daniel I. Carey

Map and Chart--KGS

The total area of the Green/Tradewater River Basin is 11,500 square miles, including 410 square miles in Tennessee. More than one-fouth of Kentucky lies in the basin, including all or parts of 35 Kentucky counties. The basin contains nearly 23,600 miles of streams, including 1,580 miles in Tennessee. The Green River Basin contains over 9,230 square miles, including 410 square miles in Tennessee.

From an elevation of 1,384 feet on a ridge in Lincoln County, water flows west 385 miles down the Green River to its confluence with the Ohio River east of Henderson at an elevation of 342 feet. …

Licking River Basin, Daniel I. Carey

Map and Chart--KGS

Nearly 9,600 miles of streams flow through the Licking River Basin's 3,700 square miles in 22 counties. From a hill in southern Magoffin County 1,600 feet above sea level, the Licking River runs northwest down to the Ohio River at 448 feet above sea level.

The underlying rocks in the basin are, in general, dominated by shale. This creates a large number of perennial streams in the basin and provides a foundation for ponds and lakes, but also limits the potential for water wells. There are 29,000 acres of wetland in the basin.

Residents draw about 24 million gallons of …

Long-Period Ground Motions In The Upper Mississippi Embayment From Finite-Fault, Finite-Difference Simulations, Kenneth A. Macpherson

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

A 3D velocity model and 3D wave propagation code have been employed to simulate long-period ground motions in the upper Mississippi embayment. This region is exposed to seismic hazard in the form of large earthquakes in the New Madrid seismic zone and observational data are sparse, making simulation a valuable tool for predicting the effects of large events. These simulations were undertaken in order to estimate ground-motion characteristics and to investigate the influence of the 3D embayment structure and finite-fault mechanics. There are three primary fault zones in the New Madrid seismic zone, each of which was likely associated with …

Salt River Basin, Daniel I. Carey

Map and Chart--KGS

The Salt River Basin and adjacent Ohio River drainages include over 4,150 square miles in all or parts of 19 counties. The basin contains more than 9,600 miles of streams.

Over 660 miles of streams assessed in the basin by the Kentucky Division of Water do not support designated uses for warm-water aquatic habitat, fish consumption, or primary contact recreation (swimming). Not all streams have been assessed. The percentage of assessed streams not supporting uses was: warm-water aquatic habitat (38 percent); fish consumption (36 percent); primary contact recreation (86 percent). Over 100 miles of streams have been declared special use …

Big Sandy/Little Sandy And Tygarts Creek Basins, Daniel I. Carey

Map and Chart--KGS

Nearly 7,600 miles of streams flow through the basin's 3,440 square miles in 14 counties to the Tug Fork, Big Sandy River, and Ohio River. The Tygarts Creek–Little Sandy River Basin includes 1,160 square miles. The Big Sandy River Basin has 2,285 square miles in Kentucky and 1,950 square miles in West Virginia and Virginia. There are nearly 17,000 acres of wetlands, including water bodies.

Residents draw about 27 million gallons of water per day (mgd) from streams and reservoirs in the basin. About three in five residents are on public water; other households rely primarily on domestic wells. Only …

Kentucky River Basin, Daniel I. Carey

Map and Chart--KGS

The Kentucky River Basin's nearly 7,000 square miles in 42 counties contain 16,000 miles of streams. From a hill in Letcher County 3,250 feet above sea level, and the Kentucky River runs down the Eastern Kentucky Coal Field, Knobs, and Bluegrass Regions to the Ohio River at 420 feet above sea level.

Along the way the river washes rocks laid down as sediments over a period of 150 million years—past the 300-million-year-old sandstone, siltstone, shale, and Camp Nelson limestones at the base of the Kentucky River Palisades in central Kentucky.

Residents draw about 100 million gallons of water per day …

Integration Of An Extended Octagonal Ring Transducer And Soil Coulterometer For Identifying Soil Compaction, Santosh K. Pitla, Larry G. Wells, Scott A. Shearer

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

The soil coulterometer is an "on-the-go" electro-mechanical system which collects impedance force data at multiple depths using an oscillating coulter. During the initial testing (summer 2006), only vertical soil impedance force data was collected using a pressure sensor. To improve the performance of the coulterometer, an extended octagonal ring transducer was integrated into the system to collect both the horizontal and vertical impedance forces given by the soil. In the summer of 2007, data was collected using the revised sensor from a typical central Kentucky field setting in a 0.8-ha (2-acre) plot. Four passes were made with the coulterometer. Seventy …

Paleogeographic Reconstructuion Of The St. Lawrence Promontory, Western Newfoundland, John Stefan Allen

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Neoproterozoic-Early Cambrian continental rifting related to the breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia framed the continental margin of eastern Laurentia and the departing cratons around the opening Iapetus Ocean. The result of continental extension was the production of a zig-zag set of promontories and embayments on the eastern Laurentian margin defined by northeast-trending rift segments offset by northwesttrending transform faults.

The St. Lawrence promontory defines the Laurentian margin in western Newfoundland. There, Neoproterozoic-Carboniferous clastic, volcanic, and carbonate successions record protracted continental rifting and passive-margin thermal subsidence followed by destruction of the margin during the early, middle, and late Paleozoic Appalachian orogenic …

Bedrock Mapping Of The Winchendon (1:25,000) Quadrangle (Ma-Nh): Evidence For Discontinous Deformation Along The Bronson Hill-Central Maine Boundary Zone, Timothy M. O'Brien

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

Bedrock geology of the Winchendon quadrangle is divided into two zones based on structures and lithology. The eastern zone consists of tightly folded Silurian Rangeley and Paxton metasediments and pegmatites. Planar, NNE-SSW striking, W dipping foliations are characterized by alternating phyllosilicate-rich and leucosome layers. Fold axes of tight to isoclinal upright and recumbent folding are parallel to SSW-NNE shallowly plunging sillimanite, quartz and muscovite lineations. In the western zone Rangeley schists were intruded by Devonian Hardwick and Coys Hill and Fitzwilliam plutons. Planar NNE-SSW striking foliations dip shallowly to steeply west. Fold axes of tight-to-isoclinal asymmetric to recumbent folds plunge …

Variation In C/P Ratios In Devonian-Mississippian Marine Shales: Testing The Productivity-Anoxia Feedback Model, Brian T. Scott

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

Carbon/phosphorus ratios for late Devonian-early Mississippian marine black shales along a transect from the Illinois Basin, across the Cumberland Saddle, and into the Appalachian Basin were evaluated to assess the role of productivity in organic carbon accumulation. Phosphorus is a key limiting nutrient for biological productivity in marine environments and may be regenerated preferentially relative to organic carbon, the amount of regeneration possibly being related to bottom-water anoxia. A positive feed-back mechanism (more specifically, productivity-anoxia feedback or PAF) has been proposed between water-column anoxia, high benthic regeneration of phosphorus, and marine productivity. This regeneration of phosphorus under anoxic conditions and …

Use Of Surface Geophysical Techniques To Locate A Karst Conduit In The Cane Run - Royal Spring Basin, Kentucky, Ganesh N. Tripathi

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

Groundwater flow in karst terrains is difficult to map because it can be concentrated through conduits that do not necessarily coincide with the surface features. We applied electrical resistivity (ER) and self-potential (SP) techniques at three sites to locate an inferred trunk conduit feeding a major spring in the Inner Bluegrass region of Kentucky. Royal Spring is the primary water supply for the city of Georgetown; the upper part of its basin coincides with the Cane Run watershed. ER and SP profiles were perpendicular to the inferred trunk conduit orientation. ER profiles (972 m total length) were measured using a …

Matrix Geochemistry And Phytophthora Occurrence On Reforested Mine Lands In Appalachia, Kathryn M. Ward

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

At the Bent Mountain surface mine, Pike County, Kentucky, a study has been ongoing since 2005 to assess the influence of various types of loose-graded mine spoils on water quality and forest establishment. Six research plots consist of two replicates of brown weathered sandstone, gray unweathered sandstone, and mixed brown sandstone, gray sandstone, and shale that were emplaced according to Forestry Reclamation Approach criteria. A series of analyses was initiated in 2007 to examine influence of spoil matrix composition on sulfate and carbonate geochemistry of infiltrated waters, as well as to investigate the occurrence of Phytophthora, a group of …

Structural Geology Of The Transylvania Fault Zone In Bedford County, Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Lauren Dodson

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

Transverse zones cross strike of thrust-belt structures as large-scale alignments of cross-strike structures. The Transylvania fault zone is a set of discontinuous right-lateral transverse faults striking at about 270º across Appalachian thrust-belt structures along 40º N latitude in Pennsylvania. Near Everett, Pennsylvania, the Breezewood fault terminates with the Ashcom thrust fault. The Everett Gap fault terminates westward with the Hartley thrust fault. Farther west, the Bedford fault extends westward to terminate against the Wills Mountain thrust fault. The rocks, deformed during the Alleghanian orogeny, are semi-independently deformed on opposite sides of the transverse fault, indicating fault movement during folding and …

Forage Spokesman Information, Clayton Geralds, Brady Jarvis

Kentucky Grazing Conference

No abstract provided.

Supplementing Cattle On Pasture: When, What And How Much?, Roy Burris

Kentucky Grazing Conference

The biggest advantage of maintaining cattle in the southeast is our ability to grow forages. It is generally an economic advantage to make maximum use of our forage and then supplement only when needed to meet our production goals. Judicious use of extra nutrition to grazing cattle can allow us to meet an objective which was best stated by Hoveland in 1986:

“Our objective is to maintain pasture at the highest quality that the environment will allow and efficiently convert as much of the pasture as possible into saleable animal product.”

Fencing And Watering Systems: Simpler Is Better, Ralph Quillin

Kentucky Grazing Conference

Sustainability and Grazing Management have taken on a new importance in the Americana farm community. The key components of the sustainable approach, profitability, agronomic, social and ecological responsibility and quality of life are becoming obtainable goals for this and future farming generations.

Practical Grazing Management And Feed Strategies To Alleviate Fescue Toxicosis, Glen Aiken

Kentucky Grazing Conference

Tall fescue grown in Kentucky is productive and persistent and that is why the state has 5 million acres of the stuff! Fescue has tolerances to drought, low fertility, and overgrazing that are attributed to a fungal endophyte which infects most tall fescue plants. Unfortunately, these advantages of tall fescue that livestock producers appreciate are offset by reduced calving percentages and calf weight gains caused by consumption of ergot alkaloids produced by the endophyte. Ergot alkaloids affect the physiology of cattle to cause elevation in body temperature, reduced sweating, retention of winter hair coats and uncontrollable growth of summer hair …

Herbicide Options For Pasture Weed Control, Jonathan D. Green

Kentucky Grazing Conference

Weeds have become more evident and problematic in grazed pastures as forage and livestock production systems have intensified. As animals consume the more desirable and palatable plant species in pastures, weedy plants become more abundant. In particular, animals tend to avoid grazing plants which contain thorns, prickly spines, or are unpalatable making some pastures less productive. In fact, many of the more problematic plants observed in Kentucky’s grazed pastures possess these characteristics including thistles, spiny amaranth (spiny pigweed), horsenettle, common cocklebur, tall ironweed, and buttercups.

Horse Pasture Monitoring Program: Results After Three Years, Tom Keene, S. Ray Smith

Kentucky Grazing Conference

Since 2001-2002 and the outbreak of Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome (MLRS) the University of Kentucky has been developing stronger ties with the state’s equine industry. Approximately 30% of the foal crop was lost in the Central Bluegrass region during this period with a devastating impact on the industry. Traditionally, many Thoroughbred farms have functioned as independent entities, but MLRS helped them to realize that the University of Kentucky had tremendous amount of expertise that they could provide in the areas of animal health, forage management, and other areas. Initially, there were many theories as to the cause of MLRS with …