ORANGE CITY, Iowa — The I-29 Moo University 2022 Dairy Webinar Series continues Wednesday, May 4 from 12 noon to 1 p.m. with a focus on producing quality alfalfa during the “Make Your Best Alfalfa Ever in 2022” webinar.

Dairy producers and allied industry reps are invited to join CROPLAN Alfalfa and Forage Specialist Jeff Jackson as he discusses alfalfa harvest timing and decisions that can be challenging and are based on feed quality needs and some environmental impacts.

“Quality forage is the basis of dairy cattle rations and making top-quality alfalfa helps control costs,” says Fred Hall, dairy specialist with ISU Extension and Outreach. “Jeff Jackson is a nationally-known alfalfa guru and will provide useful information to producers.”

Jackson will discuss factors to help make tremendous alfalfa in 2022, answering questions such as:

• Field scouting… What can we learn from what we are finding in the field?
• How did first cutting go and what does the plant health of my crop look like?
• Do we keep it alfalfa or have another plan moving forward this year?
• Are there any in-season management decisions we need to keep in mind?
• And what about taking care of those pesky insects that have a tendency to visit alfalfa stands each season?

Jackson grew up on a diversified Northwest Iowa family farm growing corn, soybeans, oats, and alfalfa. Livestock was a very important part of his life as well, including cow/calf, calf backgrounding, farrow-to-finish swine production and an 80-ewe flock of commercial and registered Suffolk sheep. Graduating from South Dakota State University with a bachelor’s degree in Animal Science and a master’s degree in Plant Science has been instrumental in his development as a Forage Specialist for CROPLAN. In that role, Jackson focuses on taking a crop from inception to the livestock while having the biggest pile of high-quality feed possible, producing more milk, attaining higher pounds of gain and having a better ROI on each forage acre. Spending the last 17 years of his career in the I-29 corridor of South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska walking fields and talking to growers/producers has afforded many experiences and learnings he loves to share with those in production today.

There is no fee to participate in the webinar; however, preregistration is required at least one hour before the webinar. Preregister online athttps://go.iastate.edu/OUEHPM.

For more information, contact: in Iowa, Fred M. Hall, 712-737-4230; in Minnesota, Jim Salfer, 320-203-6093; or in South Dakota, Heidi Carroll, 605-688-6623.

I-29 Moo University is a consortium of Extension dairy specialists from the land-grant universities in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and South Dakota. The I-29 Moo University is a multi-state learning collaboration and connects Extension dairy staff with the dairy community to share research, information and management practices through workshops, webinars, e-newsletters, podcasts, and on-farm tours.

For more information about the I-29 Moo University Collaboration and programs visit www.i29moou.com.

— Iowa State University Extension and Outreach