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A roasted turkey in a tinfoil roasting pan.

Preparing Turkey for the Holidays

The holidays often involve preparing turkey. Planning ahead to safely prepare and roast a turkey will relieve some of the cooking stress associated with the holidays. Safe food handling is important for the health of you and your family.

An instant pot pressure cooker with chicken, butter, vegetables, and seasoning inside.

Instant Pot 101

Pressure cooking is a popular cooking option as it cooks and tenderizes food quickly. The Instant Pot works by quickly heating contents of the sealed pot, resulting in a buildup of steam and pressure.

grass with field bindweed, a viny green weed with white flowers

Weed Control: Noxious Weeds

Noxious Weed Recommendations: Herbicides for pasture, range, and non-crop areas, including roadside and other right-of-way that may be harvested for hay or grazed, are given a priority.

A herd of cattle gather around a stock pond on a vast, lush grassland. Courtesy: USDA [CC BY 2.0]

Weed Control: Pasture and Range

There are 24 million acres of native and tame pasture and range as well as 1.4 million acres of grass hayland in South Dakota.

A red angus cow with two unweaned calves attempting to suckle from it.

Alternative Calving Considerations

Structuring a calving program that best suites farm and ranch operations can be challenging. Of primary concern are: weather, labor, market timing, and animal health considerations, with weather possibly being the most volatile factor, as it ranges from challenging to catastrophic in some years.

Frost-covered grass in a winter pasture.

SWOT Analysis for Your Ranch (And Don’t Forget About Yourself)

Completing a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis allows you to evaluate your operation's current position and decide on management strategies to achieve your goals for the next year. Learn how to get started today!

Left: Soil from long-term no-till field, exhibiting good soil aggregation through clumping and smaller pieces of soil. Right: Soil from conventionally managed field that included tillage and crop residue removal. Notice the soil is lighter brown, indicating lower organic matter, and the pieces of soil are in larger chunks with no visible indication of clumping or structure.

Organic Agronomy Starting to Impact

For decades scientists have known that a handful of soil contained more micro-biological organisms than the number of humans on earth. Science is just beginning to discover these organisms and learn about their functions and contribution to their soil ecosystem.