Virginia’s cool-season grass pastures are highly productive in the spring and fall, but high temperatures and short-term drought stress often limit their growth during summer months. Incorporating warm-season grasses can be a beneficial strategy for meeting feed resources during this period of forage deficit.

Silvopastures intentionally integrate trees with forage and livestock production in a rotational grazing system. These systems have the potential to improve animal comfort, increase farm resource use efficiency, boost income, and mitigate environmental costs.

Silvopastures — integrated tree-forage-livestock production systems — have the potential to boost farm resource use and income. These systems take advantage of the beneficial interactions among system components, add biodiversity, and increase animal comfort. The intentional and careful combining of trees and livestock in time and space can yield both short-and long-term returns and have positive environmental outcomes.

Fescue is the predominant forage in Virginia because of it is productive, high-quality forage across most of the state. However, the plant's positive agronomic traits are offset by toxins in the plant that cause significant reduction in animal performance and welfare. This article discusses fescue, the sources of toxins and their impacts, and provides some management strategies for addressing toxicosis.

In spring 2020, a small solar-powered pumping demonstration system was installed at the Shenandoah Valley Agricultural Research & Extension Center. A description of the purpose and construction of this system is provided in this video.

The Virginia Tech Shenandoah Valley Agricultural Research and Extension Center hosted its biennial Field Day on August 5, 2020 at 2 pm. This online event featured videos of current research projects at the Shenandoah Valley AREC. The topics covered during this field day included establishing and protecting trees in pasture, establishing biodiverse pasture systems for pollinators and cattle, new herbicide options for pasture weed control (while still preserving clover), cow and calf performance on summer-stockpiled tall fescue pastures, supplementing yeast-derived products to feedlot cattle, the Asian longhorned tick and Theileria, standardized performance analyses for benchmarking cow herd productivity, and the Smart Farm Innovation Network.

A farmer's experience of converting a tall fescue field into native warm season grasses for improved forage production in the summertime.

A farmer's experience of converting a tall fescue field into native warm season grasses for improved forage production in the summertime.

Native warm season grasses may provide valuable forage resources for farmers in the summer months, while also providing habitat for wildlife, among other conservation benefits. This report provides the results of a three-year forage yield variety trial of 20 different cultivars and ecotypes of native warm season grasses at five different locations in Virginia.

Native warm season grasses may provide farms with summer forage and improved animal performance, while also providing habitat for wildlife species. This paper describes the conversion process of a tall fescue-based pasture at the Southern Piedmont AREC to native warm season grasses. Subsequent beef cattle performance on this pasture was compared to cattle performance on nearby novel-endophyte tall fescue pastures, indicating the potential for good animal performance in the summer on these grasses.

Fall stockpiling for winter grazing has been a common practice for many years to extend the grazing season in Virginia. Despite an abundance of spring pasture growth that is commonly harvested for hay, the need for fall forage often limits the acreage that can be set aside for winter grazing. A novel practice developed at the Shenandoah Valley Agricultural Research and Extension Center (SVAREC) called “summer stockpiling” enhances a producer’s ability to maximize fall stockpiled acreage and consistently extend the grazing season.