Some of the forbs in Darrin Michalski’s pasture that form part of nature’s Pharmacy for Livestock. In a short clip taken from the recent SD Grasslands Amazing Grasslands video , we shared Mike McKernan, SDSU’s Pete Bauman, Madison Kovarna, and Josh Lefer’s work clipping and testing dozens of native forbs and grasses to study their nutritional value throughout the season. That video triggered a flood of thoughtful—and skeptical—comments. One in particular stuck with me: "Lots

Jeff Hemenway, former Soil Health Conservationist, pointing out Roots in the Subsoil at 80” in a No-till, Cover-Cropped Field in Brookings, SD When a commenter wrote on one of our recent videos Dwayne Beck, no-till , he put it bluntly: “Without tillage water won’t penetrate. I rented 400 acres that was zero till for decades and it was like a concrete block.” That comment — echoed by others in our threads — hits at one of the most common criticisms of no-till. If the soil is h

We recently posted a video short of Pete Bauman talking about goldenrod on the July "Our Amazing Grasslands" video, and it took off! 110,000 plays and 1,000 likes in just 11 days. With that reach came a tidal wave of comments, and not surprisingly, many folks had strong opinions about goldenrod. They ranged from “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Let’s feed shoe leather” to “Spot on—my sheep will hit the goldenrod, sunflowers, amaranth, giant ragweed, and mares tail first.” In between