Field Notes

From severe drought to flooded fields, Wisconsin’s forage producers are turning to forage species that can provide adaptability and flexibility in the midst of abnormal conditions. We jump in with Yoana Newman, UW-River Falls professor and Extension forage specialist, and Matt Oehmican, from Short Lane Ag Supply, to talk the details of warm season annual forages, from the decision-making process for growing these species to the unique technical agronomy management warm season annuals need to grow in Wisconsin. Are warm season annual forages a fit for your farm’s forage inventory?

Like gas and groceries, the cost of trucking and raising dairy heifers out West has gone up. Does this present Wisconsin farmers with an opportunity to lure these animals back to the state with low-input approaches and similar performance standards with well-managed grazing? We sit down with Jason Cavadini, UW-Madison Extension Grazing Outreach Specialist, and Mike Redetzke, a farmer custom-raising dairy heifers near Colby to discuss the nuts and bolts of getting confinement dairy operations in Wisconsin to put their heifers out on grass.

Wisconsin infrastructure for grain markets and the ability to drop off grains at the nearest elevator incentivizes corn and soybean (and wheat to a lesser extent) rotations. Breaking outside that box and finding alternative grain markets can yield dividends in price premiums and extended crop rotations enhancing farm resilience to drops in commodity prices and other external shocks. We talk with Willie Hughes, an organic and conventional grain farmer in Rock County, and Alyssa Hartman of the Artisan Grain Collaborative about how they navigate finding, complying with and knitting together these differentiated markets. Photo taken by Willie Hughes

Whereas most grain farmers with a livestock grow crops to feed their cattle, Jeff Gaska a farmer between Beaver Dam and Columbus in Dodge County is trying to grow his cattle to feed his crops. One of the ways he is moving towards this goal is by grazing cover crops interseeded into 60" row corn. We talk with Jeff about this system, the results that he has had over the last couple of years, especially with drought, as well as the approach to how he is determining if it is an economically viable practice for his farm.

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Field Notes brings you an episode all about cranberries. Wisconsin's state fruit for a reason; we produce the majority of the world's supply, and who better to dig into the details, or the peat, than UW-Madison Extension Cranberry Outreach Specialist Allison Jonjak? We strap on our waders and hop into the bogs to talk about Wisconsin's production of this native, perennial vine and the unique environment and highly acidic soils in which they grow.

Surrounded by the peak autumn colors of Wisconsin, we thought we'd take a turn to talking about trees, specifically about integrating trees and crops in a system called agroforestry. We call up Jacob Grace of the Savanna Institute, a Wisconsin non-profit focused on promoting, educating, and breeding trees for agroforestry and Eric Wolske of Canopy Farm Management, which specializing in agroforestry installation, maintenance, and management, to chat about the many benefits of trees in cropland and some of the challenges.Photo taken by Eric Wolske

Field Notes reporting from the field, well, the bar. We sit down with Mark Keller of Kellercrest Holsteins of Mt. Horeb and Chelsea Zegler, Outreach Specialist with Extension's Ag Water Quality Program, at the Mt. Vernon Tap to talk phosphorus and how farmers can work to draw down excessive levels and save money in the meantime. Mark recounts the Pleasant Valley Watershed Project that worked with farmers in the area to adopt conservation practices like reduced tillage and cover crops for forage, which reduced soil test and water phosphorus levels by 40%, which meant big fertilizer savings. And Chelsea discusses pathways for phosphorus loss and ways to mitigate and keep the dollars in your fields.

There is a lot of solar being sited in Wisconsin with some projects reaching a pretty massive scale. The traditional narrative has been hello solar, goodbye agriculture, however a new crop of farmers, researchers, and solar companies are thinking differently: how can we continue to farm this land between, under, and around solar panels? Steffen Mirsky from Extension's Cutting Edge Podcast joins us as we talk with Sarah Moser, director of agrivoltaics with Savion, a utility-scale solar developer, and Eric Romich, Extension Field Specialist in Energy Development with the Ohio State University about their current and future projects investigating how to grow and mechanically harvest hay under solar in Ohio.Photo taken by Tobi Kellner and used under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/