Author: Jonathan Oakes
Planning Unit: Russell County CES
Major Program: Forages
Plan of Work: Livestock Production
Outcome: Long-Term Outcome
Since 2014, Master Stocker, Master Cattlemen, Master Grazer, and Applied Master Cattlemen, have all been conducted in the four county area. Together over 40 individuals participated in those courses. With that being said, the four county area agents decided they would try a newer program that was put together by the tri-county area agents (Adair, Green and Taylor), Master Haymaker. The program started in fall of 2017 and carried through the winter months of 2018. The program consisted of seven sessions: cool season forages, warm season forages, soils, forage storage, machinery and economics, weed ID, and forage nutrition. The participants also got to turn in a free forage sample to get analyzed by Kentucky Department of Agriculture Mobile Unit. On the post-survey thirteen individuals completed it with 100% of them saying they would sometimes, often or always, be conducting a soil test annually; applying fertilizer according to those soil test; spaying their hay fields annually for weed control. This is compared to 25% indicating they already test their forage annually and 5% who spray annually according to the pre-survey.
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