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Armoring Your Soil for the Winter

UnderstandingAg

For example, if a fall-winter cash crop was turned over and immediately planted to a spring crop, the summer-winter mix is a good follow up to provide an extended period of rest through the winter. For example, a simple seed mix may include Sudan grass, cow pea, buckwheat, cereal rye, vetch, and forage pea.

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Bringing Back Local Milk, Ice Cream, and Cheese

Civil Eats

Local dairy also supports the North Coast economy, which has been impacted by price collapses in cannabis, one of the region’s primary cash crops. Proper rotational grazing relies on pasture as the primary forage, cutting feed costs. The diversity of players helps foster innovation, “just like tech and Silicon Valley,” he adds.

Pasture 142
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The Best Types of Hay to Choose for Your Livestock

Farmbrite

Carbohydrates and Energy, and Fiber The amount of energy contained in hay or forage is contained in carbohydrates. The amount of water needed varies by species, animal age, stage of life, available live forage, and environmental temperatures. This is one of the highest quality feeds for livestock as well as a cash crop.

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Can Taller Cover Crops Help Clean the Water in Farm Country?

Civil Eats

The tall forage stands out in southeastern Minnesota’s corn and soybean fields, which this time of year have been reduced to stubble poking through the snow. It works as both a cover crop and forage for the cattle, and it’s helping Bedtka build up organic matter in his soil. That’s where the sorghum-sudangrass comes in.

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Hungry and Seemingly Unstoppable: Grasshoppers Invade Canada’s Prairies

Modern Farmer

While most of what he’s growing are traditional cash crops, the coriander isn’t for commercial sale. It will take years for the pastures and perennial forages to recover, and that’s only if conditions improve. It’s for the grasshoppers. They don’t like the smell and will avoid areas where it’s planted,” he says.

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How to Improve Long-Term Soil Health on Your Farm

Farmbrite

One common method is the traditional or sequential crop rotation, where different crops are grown in a planned sequence over a period of years. This can include a rotation of cash crops , cover crops , and even fallow periods to allow the soil to rest and rejuvenate.

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Agricultural Diversification: Practice and Policy

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition

And beyond the diversification associated with cropping fields, adding livestock diversity into a system can reduce challenges like pests and diseases while allowing for nutrient cycling from livestock to soil and back to crop or forage species. Rotating crops also significantly reduces pests and diseases.