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Sheep Breeds
Everyone has heard the fairytale “Baa Baa Black Sheep Have You Any Wool?” but what about the double-coated California Red, the multi-colored Katahdin sheep with hair, or the East Friesian dairy ewe that produces over 1,100 pounds of milk a year? Sheep come in different shapes, sizes, and colors and all of them provide different functions and uses for producers. These can range from meat, wool, and milk production or a combination of characteristics.
National Sheep Improvement Program: Performance-based data you can rely on
Sheep producers continually look for opportunities to improve their flocks through the introduction of genetic traits that will contribute to both improve the performance and physical appearance of the offspring. For hundreds of years, producers used the phenotype or physical appearance traits to select replacement stock, followed by performance trials and wool testing to quantitatively define the traits a specific animal may possess.
Cover Crops & Livestock Integration: A Profit Opportunity for S.D. Farms
Cover crops have been gaining a reemerging acceptance over the last decade, with very few producers disagreeing about the potential soil health benefits of adding cover crops to their farming operation.
Ergot: A Potential Livestock Poisoning Problem
Cool, damp weather followed by warmer temperatures favors grasses becoming infected with ergot bodies, which can cause a certain kind of poisoning that can affect cattle on pasture.
Feeding Damaged Wheat to Cattle
Feeding damaged wheat to livestock is one way to salvage value from the crop. Wheat can work well in cattle diets with some limitations.
Effects of Spring Flooding on Weed Seed Movement
How does spring flooding impact weed seed movement and dispersal? The flooding that is occurring from spring snow melt may cause weed seeds that are on the soil surface or eroded soil to move, and possibly long distances.
Planting Into Wet Soils
It is evident that there are high chances of planting into wet soils this spring. This is not a good decision when normal soil conditions appear to be attainable, but this year we may not have a choice.
Cover Crops After Small Grains
In last few years, interest in using cover crops has been increasing tremendously among crop and livestock producers in South Dakota. Growing cover crops following small grain is gaining more attention due to feasibility in cover crops species selection and also the time of the year where cover crops receive longer growing and establishing time than following row crops.
Herbicide Interactions With Cover Crops After Oats
After oats have been harvested, options exist to keep a living root in the soil. This can be done through growing cover crops. In 2018 an on-farm trial was preformed near Salem, South Dakota to observe how cover crops grown after oats would germinate after common herbicides had been applied.
Wet Conditions Likely Into Fall Season
Many locations in South Dakota have already received as much precipitation this year as they do in an entire average year. The latest climate outlook from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center shows increased chances of wetter than average conditions to continue into the fall season.