Getting A Grasp On Growing Grasses: It takes careful management and a new way of thinking

摘要

Dairymen are starting to realize the advantages of adding grasses to their alfalfa-corn silage rations - to provide more effective fiber and reduce energy levels. But there's a learning curve and a change of mindset that growers need to overcome whengrowing, harvesting and storing grasses, says Geoff Brink, USDA-ARS research agronomist at the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center in Madison, WI. "Very few farmers would think about cutting alfalfa according to the way it was done in 1940, but those are the standards that we still apply to cutting grass hay or grass for silage," he maintains.