It's time to collect Data!

​The weather is warm and the cover crop is growing fast. The spring mix contains a nice mix of oats, barley, triticale, peas, flax, safflower, sunflower, rapeseed, and purple top. We are currently weighing cattle as they go onto the field, taking forage samples, and investigating the weed community using transects. The forage samples will be taken back to the lab, sorted by species, and an oven-dried weight will be taken on all the different species represented in each sample.

The cool season forage species are dominant in Manhart's field. They've had a lot of rain this spring and would have preferred to start grazing last week. The cool temperatures have helped slow things down, but now that the warm weather has kicked in things are growing fast.

Feiker's field is at about the same growth stage as Manhart's, maybe even a little farther behind in spots.

The dog is named Zip. He's our roadie this year. He loved exploring the forage with us at Manhart's.

The temperatures have been cool at Feikert's as well. However, in his field there is a nice mixture of cool and warm season cover crop species.