forage Articles
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Modeling tiller density, growth, and yield of mediterranean perennial grasslands with STICS
A generic crop model (STICS) was adapted (STICS–Grassland) to model growth, yield, and environmental impacts of grasslands in France. It is a semimechanistic model combining equations of physiological processes and mathematical relationships between processes in a daily time step. The Information et Suivi Objectif des Prairies (ISOP; Grassland Information and Objective Survey) application was ...
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How to make the most of grass silage first cut
First silage cut is essential for farmers as this cut will provide forage stock for the winter. Although nitrogen is essential to ensure the yield, other elements have to be watched closely, especially phosphorus (P). ...
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Assessment of pasture biomass with the normalized difference vegetation index from active ground-based sensors
Calculating forage availability is challenging for managers of grazing systems due to the spatial heterogeneity of swards. Remote sensing applications may help to overcome this problem through estimates of biomass made with reflectance data. The objectives of this study were to (i) estimate herbage mass using an active, on-the-go, ground-based, narrow band sensor to calculate the normalized ...
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No-till sequential cropping of summer and fall annual forage species compared with grassland
Summer (SAS) and fall annual species (FAS) can supplement animal forage requirements during times of slow growth of cool-season perennials. A 2-yr experiment was conducted in a perennial grassland (G) at the Reedsville Experimental Farm of West Virginia University to determine herbage accumulation (HA) and quality of two summer and two fall crops (in factorial combination) grown on the same land. ...
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Endophyte survival during seed storage: Endophyte–host interactions and heritability
Use of nontoxic endophytes in forage tall fescue [Schedonorus phoenix (Scop.) Holub.] is a preferred strategy to overcome fescue toxicosis. Endophytes are transmitted through the seed, but suffer mortality preferentially to the embryo during storage. Loss of viable endophyte reduces the value of the seed, so increasing storage life would be a benefit. The objectives of this study were to examine ...
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USGS Study Points To Biofuel Crop Related Land-Use Change Reducing Honey Bee Habitat
On August 29, 2016, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) published a study on the result of land-use changes on North and South Dakota commercial honey bee colonies in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. USGS scientists found that grasslands and other landscape features favored by beekeepers were decreasing, with crops that are avoided by beekeepers, such as corn and ...
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Focal bird species and risk assessment approach for non‐agricultural grassland scenarios in Central Europe
The European Food Safety Authority guideline on risk assessment identifies pesticide exposure scenarios for non‐target wildlife, however this scheme is not applicable to non‐agricultural grassland. For example, different habitats and human utilisation on golf courses attract bird communities that differ from those found in agricultural fields with annual crop cycles. The present study ...
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Summer drought survival strategies and sustainability of perennial temperate forage grasses in mediterranean areas
Perennial grasslands provide numerous agroenvironmental benefits due to continuous soil cover. In Mediterranean areas, chronic summer drought is expected to increase as a result of climate changes. Plant adaptations that protect meristematic tissues include dehydration delay, dehydration tolerance, and summer dormancy. Summer dormancy can only be reliably tested in plants not subjected to water ...
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Our global Ponzi economy
Our mismanaged world economy today has many of the characteristics of a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme takes payments from a broad base of investors and uses these to pay off returns. It creates the illusion that it is providing a highly attractive rate of return on investment as a result of savvy investment decisions when in fact these irresistibly high earnings are in part the result of consuming ...
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Chicago Council lists three-decade changes in greenhouse gases and average temperature
In 2011, we wrote a column, “Global warming is happening: How should farmers respond?” (http://agpolicy.org/weekcol/549.html). In that column we began by saying, “There was a time when one could legitimately argue that there was a lack of scientific agreement over the issue of the role of humans in global warming and even whether we were in a cooling or warming period. It is ...
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