Mike Rankin

Fort Atkinson

Managing Editor at Hay & Forage Grower

Husband, Dad, Grandpa, Managing Editor-Hay & Forage Grower at W.D. Hoard & Sons, retired UW Extension Agronomist, and baseball nut.

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Articles

Grasses gone wild

2 weeks ago | hayandforage.com | Mike Rankin

It’s that time of year when grass paints the landscape in green and grows like it’s on a designer steroid. As temperatures warm, cool-season grasses are well rested and ready to take advantage of the conserved water and mineralized nitrogen stores in soil. This perfect storm offers both a curse and a blessing . . . a reprieve and a problem . . . a challenge and solution.
The curse of rangeland cedar trees

3 weeks ago | hayandforage.com | Mike Rankin

Photo: University of NebraskaRangeland pastures are difficult enough to keep productive throughout the growing season without the encroachment of woody species. The problem, according to Bethany Johnston, is getting worse. The University of Nebraska Extension educator notes that her state’s challenge rests with the spread of eastern red cedar trees in otherwise productive rangeland. “This encroachment is more than just a change in scenery,” Johnston explains.
There are no first-cut mulligans

1 month ago | hayandforage.com | Mike Rankin

As the story goes, David Mulligan hit a poor drive off the first tee at a Montreal golf course. The errant shot may or may not have been the result of an extremely bumpy ride while traveling to the morning’s golf outing. Nevertheless, the Canadian amateur golfer reteed and took another swing. He told his golf partners that he was taking a “correction shot,” which would soon be termed a “mulligan” after its instigator.
Headwinds haven’t stopped this forage harvester

1 month ago | hayandforage.com | Mike Rankin

Farming is never easy, but it can be made that much tougher when you’re beginning from scratch. As with many who set their life’s sail toward a sustainable farm business and start with little or nothing, Allen Hoff knows what it’s like to simultaneously fight for a bank loan, operate with and constantly fix older equipment, build and keep a client base, and start a family.
Death by lethal ingestion

1 month ago | hayandforage.com | Mike Rankin

The philosopher Socrates was sentenced to death in 399 B.C. for not believing in the popular Greek gods of his time and place. Without the option of an electric chair or firearm, the philosopher’s sentence — like that of many others — was to drink some poison hemlock juice. It’s not described as a pleasant or quick way to go. Over 2,400 years later, poison hemlock still remains a lethal threat, but mostly to grazing livestock or where the weed is harvested in hay.
Hard work and the luck of the Irish

1 month ago | hayandforage.com | Mike Rankin

What happens when a Michigander meets an Irishman . . . in New Zealand? At least in one case, and there may only be one, a unique grazing dairy called Annie G’s springs up just outside of a city better known for wolverines than cows. Kat (Lambarth) Mageean grew up on a farm originally purchased by her great-grandfather in 1924. Her father operated a conventional dairy, building both a milking parlor and freestall barn in the early 1970s.
Our annual look at custom fieldwork rates

1 month ago | hayandforage.com | Mike Rankin

Custom rate guides are welcomed resources in those states that continue to do the survey legwork; unfortunately, many do not. Each year, eHay Weekly offers readers a one-stop shop for accessing custom fieldwork rate information from those states that have done surveys in the past few years. Especially for forage crops, custom fieldwork and harvesting is a common practice.
What horse owners want from haymakers

1 month ago | hayandforage.com | Mike Rankin

Selling hay in the horse market can be both rewarding and frustrating. Even so, that market is the lifeblood for many commercial hay producers, especially those who make small square bales. “We sometimes consider horse people as a bit of an enigma as to what they consider to be important when buying hay,” said Bob Coleman at the Kentucky Alfalfa and Stored Forage Conference in Lexington last month.
Corteva to phase out their BMR corn program

2 months ago | hayandforage.com | Mike Rankin

Brown midrib (BMR) corn has been a staple feed on many dairy farms since the mid-1990s. These hybrids generally have a lower lignin content and higher fiber digestibility than conventional hybrids. Nutritional studies have helped show farmers how BMR corn silage can best be used in a dairy cow’s diet to provide the greatest return. Some of the early BMR hybrids had inherent agronomic problems, but over the years, improvements were made.
Maximizing vs. optimizing a grazing system

2 months ago | hayandforage.com | Mike Rankin

“We, as cattle producers, row-crop farmers, and as a society, have been pushed toward maximizing production as much as we can,” said Dan Glenn at the Kentucky Cattleman’s Association meeting last January. “In many ways, we’ve been successful at this, increasing the weaning weights, carcass traits, and yields of our cattle.”Glenn, a grass-fed cattle producer in southern Georgia, doesn’t discount the value of maximizing production, but he recognizes that this often comes at a price.