The Clinton County Extension service partnered with the Twin Lakes Cattle Association to hold a beef field day in July 2018. Clinton County is home to around 10,000 head of beef cattle, making cow/calf production a vital part of the Ag economy. Beef producers rely on grazing multiple forages to supply nutrition to the cows and calves. Tall fescue is the predominant forage for beef cattle, however growth will slow and the grass will go dormant in the heat of the summer. Producers are continually searching for a forage to fill the summer slump of fescue, summer annual forages such as sudan-grass, sorghum/sudan or millet are generally used for this purpose. Recently some improved varieties of large crabgrass has shown some promise to fill the summer gap left by tall fescue. Large Crabgrass is a summer annual grass, but when allowed to go to seed in the fall can be managed as a perennial. A demonstration on two different large crabgrass varieties was conducted on the farm where the field day was held. Clinton County Extension Ag Agent Colby Guffey, summer intern Kayla Shelton and cooperating producer Steve Peddicord, sowed the two varieties of crabgrass in mid-May. Samples were taken from each variety and analyzed by Dairy One forage lab for quality. The results were presented at the field day in July by Extension summer intern Kayla Shelton. Producers were also able to see the accumulated summer growth of the crabgrass compared to the dormant tall fescue. 

Other topics and demonstrations during the field day were, high tensile fence options and spring water pipe and tank installation for cattle water. About 75 cattle producers from the area attended the field day.