Forage Management: Grateful for 2024, Looking Ahead to Greener Pastures in 2025

Dec 18, 2024

By Dr. Bruno Pedreira

Leading the UT Beef and Forage Center (UTBFC) this past year has been a rewarding experience, made possible with the great support of David McIntosh as our coordinator. Over the year, I’ve learned more about Tennessee’s forage and livestock industries, built strong connections with agents and farmers, and worked to improve the Center’s activities. Our goal remains the same: to support Tennessee’s beef and forage producers by providing research and sharing practical, science-based information.

In 2024, we reached some exciting milestones. We launched the Live.Stock Podcast and Companion, which you can find at utbeef.tennessee.edu/live-stock, giving producers access to helpful and engaging content. Our YouTube channel also grew, with 23.2K views, over 1,000 hours of watch time, and an increase in subscribers from 322 to 641. The UTBEEF.COM website received 171K views from 139K unique users. Social media allowed us to share timely information, including a post about armyworms in pastures that reached over 70,000 people and was shared nearly 300 times. We also continued sharing articles with Tennessee Cattle Business Magazine, which reaches over 7,000 producers across the state.

The Forage Laboratory analyzed more than 1,500 forage samples for producers and processed over 9,000 research samples using NIRS technology, saving nearly $400,000 compared to traditional testing methods.

Our forage variety trials made progress this year. New reports for Tall Fescue, Orchardgrass, and Annual Ryegrass are available at utbeef.tennessee.edu/forages-tennessee-variety-trials/. We also expanded warm-season trials to include Brachiaria and are planning trials for alfalfa, mixed pastures, and winter/early spring annuals.

We updated and developed several new Extension publications, including The Forage and Field Seeding Guide, Strategic Resource Management for Forage-Livestock Systems in Drought, Longhorned Tick and Bovine Theileriosis: Tennessee 2024 Update, Weed Control Strategies to Maximize Cool-Season Pasture Productivity, Buying Hay vs. Raising Hay for Beef Producers, among others.

We also welcomed Malerie Fancher as a new research assistant, along with several undergraduate students and visiting scholars who have brought fresh energy and ideas to the team.

As the year wraps up, I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished together and excited to see what 2025 has in store for Tennessee’s beef and forage industries. Here’s to another great year ahead!

Source : tennessee.edu

Video: Turning Plant Defense Into a Management Strategy

Turning Plant Defense Into a Management Strategy

Understanding how a plant responds to stress is one thing.

Using that knowledge to make better management decisions is another.

Systemic acquired resistance, or SAR, is the plant's more direct defense response. When stress or infection occurs, the plant begins signaling throughout its system and preparing defensive compounds.

But if we know that response exists, can we help prepare the plant before the stress arrives?

The answer starts with understanding what triggers the response and what the plant needs to carry it out.

The Trigger and the Fuel

Salicylic acid plays an important role in triggering the SAR pathway.

Think of it as turning the truck on.

The engine may be running, but it still needs fuel to do the work.

In this case, manganese plays an important role in supporting the enzyme systems involved in the plant's defensive response.

This makes manganese status an important part of the conversation. Whether a producer is using tissue testing, sap analysis, or simply scouting for visible deficiency symptoms, the goal is to make sure the plant has adequate manganese available.

Manganese is required in relatively small amounts, but that does not make its role small.

If the plant receives a signal to defend itself but lacks the nutrition needed to support that response, it may struggle to carry out the process efficiently.

The trigger matters.

The fuel matters too.

Prepare Before the Stress Arrives

The best time to think about stress management is before the plant is overwhelmed.

Once a crop is already struggling, management can quickly turn into a game of catch-up.

This is similar to nitrogen management. Once a plant becomes severely deficient, correcting the problem does not necessarily erase the time and yield potential already lost.

Plant defense can work the same way.

Low-rate, targeted approaches designed to support the SAR pathway may fit best ahead of an expected stress event rather than after significant damage has already occurred.

That requires producers to think about predictable stress.

We may not know exactly what the weather will do tomorrow, but we generally know summer heat is coming. We know certain field conditions increase disease pressure. We know a herbicide application can temporarily stress a crop as the plant processes the chemistry.

Even a properly timed and labeled herbicide application can create a temporary response in the plant.

That does not mean the herbicide is bad.

Weeds can create significantly more yield loss than the temporary stress caused by controlling them.

The question is not whether we should eliminate every stressor.

The question is whether we can better prepare the plant to manage necessary and predictable stress.

Not All Stress Is Bad

Stress is a normal part of plant growth.

A perfectly stress-free environment does not exist in the field.

In fact, some stress is necessary for normal plant development. A plant responds to wind, temperature, moisture, sunlight, and countless other environmental signals throughout the season.

The environment is stress.

The plant's job is to manage it.

Problems begin when the stress load becomes greater than the plant's ability to respond.

Extreme heat, drought, high salt concentrations, disease pressure, and even certain management practices can add to that load.

This is where understanding SAR becomes useful.

Instead of waiting until the plant is visibly struggling, producers can begin identifying periods when stress is likely and make management decisions around those windows.

ISR Starts With the Soil

While SAR is a more direct defense response, induced systemic resistance, or ISR, brings the conversation back to soil health.

The longevity of a farm is closely connected to the health of its soil.

Carbon plays a major role because it supports biological life within the soil. Bacteria, fungi, and other organisms interact with plant roots and influence how the plant grows, accesses nutrients, and prepares for stress.

This is why soil health cannot be reduced to one product or one application.

It is a system.

Keeping living plants in the field longer can support biological activity. Cover crops may fit some operations. Better water management can improve soil conditions.