The amount of nitrogen that leached from two corn fields during a three-year study was many times greater than that leaching from a restored prairie, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists.

Overfeeding phosphorus costs dairy farmers about $12 to $15 per cow per year in added feed costs, according to Larry Satter, a dairy scientist with the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center at UW-Madison

One day those unused scraps of clean wallboard from construction sites and remodeling projects may be crushed and spread on agricultural fields.

Custom-tailored forage digestibility predictions may soon replace “one-size-fits-all” forage analysis in the upper Midwest. Digestion kinetics adjusts digestibility predictions based on a cow’s forage intake, and more accurately measures the energy value of forages for cows at various intake levels, according to Dave Combs, a dairy nutritionist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Digestion kinetics formulas, coupled with near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy, should help dairy farmers to fine-tune ration formulations and forage-purchasing decisions.

Margaret Krome of the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute will be honored Tuesday, March 16 for applying the

Feeling knee-deep in goose doo-doo?

As federal support for applied research declines, the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison faces growing difficulty addressing agricultural and natural resource problems in Wisconsin.

Next time you admire the plant diversity in a southern Wisconsin woodland, thank the neighboring farmers. A University of Wisconsin-Madison study has shown that while deer numbers in parts of south-central Wisconsin were above most damage-threshold estimates, foraging whitetails did little damage to woodland plants because they filled up on farm crops.

Deer herds regularly thinned by hunting had little impact on riverbottom plant life, a University of Wisconsin-Madison study has shown. “Quality deer management” and traditional deer hunts seemed equally effective in preserving plant populations along the Wisconsin River, according to Rebecca Christoffel, a wildlife ecology graduate student at the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. On the other hand, a deer herd that flourished under a strict no-hunting policy took its toll on plant and animal life in the area, she found.

The patchwork of woodlands and farm fields in southern Wisconsin can support more than 100 deer per square mile – but drivers and farmers won’t support that many deer. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources regulates deer abundance by balancing the public’s tolerance for deer-vehicle collisions and farmers’ tolerance to crop damage against hunters’ desire for abundant deer and the public’s desire to see deer. Private woodland owners control access to and manage most wooded deer habitat in Wisconsin, making them