This fact sheet authored by PRO-DAIRY forage systems specialist Joe Lawrence was shared in the August 2025 PRO-DAIRY e-Leader newsletter, distributed to an email list of nearly 7,000 dairy producers, agriservice, and legislators.
The challenges of the 2025 growing season continue with questions about adequate quantity and quality of forages to meet the needs of dairy herds in the coming year.
As we look for a strong finish to the growing season to alleviate some of these challenges it is important to assess your forage situation and take steps to meet the forage needs of the herd. The PRO-DAIRY Forage Management webpage has a number of resources that may be useful when working with your farm team to assess your forage situation.
A new fact sheet offers guidance on:
- Hay crops - Weather challenges around first cutting resulted in large harvest of lower quality hay for some farms. Understanding the nutritional value of hay crops in inventory will be important to determining additional forage needs.
- Corn silage - The variability of the corn crop will effectively create two different “cuttings” for some farms. To make the most of this challenging situation it will be important to consider storage and management options to best utilize the earlier corn which should be able to reach proper maturity with good nutritional value. The later corn, which may need to be harvested at an immature stage can still have value for certain groups of animals on the farm but needs to be managed separately.
- Grain crops for forage - Late planted corn originally intended for grain may not make it may be an option for additional corn silage. Recognizing that in these cases this may still result in immature corn silage, the same considerations above should be considered. It is very difficult to price immature corn silage.
PRO-DAIRY is a nationally recognized extension and applied research leader serving dairy farms for more than 30 years.
