No More Uninvited Guests: Stop Bugs from Entering Your Home This Winter

Inside your home is the coziest place to be during winter. It’s warm, dry and safe. Unfortunately, pesky insects think so too. Cold, outdoor temperatures force bugs to find a warm place to survive, but Ragan & Massey’s indoor/outdoor insecticides can prevent them from making your home their safe haven. Control the Worst Pests Compare-N-Save […]

Rain and Snow Don’t Mix with RM43 

Precipitation is a must for many lawn and garden tasks. It helps moisturize a dry lawn, gets plants growing fast, is necessary to activate many fertilizers and come winter, provides insulation for dormant plants. But when it comes to applying herbicides like RM43, rain and snow won’t do the application any favors.  Dry Weather is Essential […]

EVERYTHING COUNTS

A relatively minor problem or need generally have a minimal economic impact. However, collectively, small problems or needs can make a substantial difference.

Tips for Protecting Your Plants In Cold Weather 

Harsh, biting temperatures can not only do a number on bare skin, like hands and noses, but they can also do a number on your plants. Freezing temperatures can scald plants, freeze roots, damage foliage and even kill them outright. Usually, Mother Nature can prep plants for winter with fall rains and heavy blankets of snow. But you can’t always count on Mother Nature […]

The Best Winter Forage Tip from Ragan & Massey

Farmers across the southern United States depend on winter grazing to provide a healthy diet for livestock until spring. Why?  Winter pastures help stretch stockpiles of hay, saving farmers money and time by allowing cattle, sheep, horses and goats to graze far beyond the normal growing season.  So now that you’re on board with putting in a winter pasture, how do you ensure your […]

Tips to Keep Your Livestock Safe During Winter

Tips to Keep Your Livestock Safe During Winter

Year after year meteorologists and farmers predict the upcoming winter will be worse than the last – and it turns out to be accurate most of the time! But no matter if the winter or extremely harsh or mild, it always poses a risk to your livestock. The best way to prepare for the worst […]

When To Water What Works Best For Lawn And Garden Products

When To Water: What Works Best For Lawn And Garden Products?

Water and gardening go hand-in-hand. Water is necessary to produce lush, green lawns and big, beautiful blooms. When it comes to herbicide and insecticide applications, water can be both friend or foe as some products require water to activate and others need dry conditions to be effective.

5 Things That Are Ruining Your Lawn This Year

5 Things That Are Ruining Your Lawn This Year

Every year it’s the same thing – you tell yourself, your spouse and your neighbor that you’re going to get your lawn in tip-top condition – but you end up with a subpar showpiece. Drought, weeds and insects can quickly turn a healthy and vibrant lawn into one in need of resuscitation. Here are five […]

Foraging Ahead With Dr. Don Ball: Flooding of Forage Crops

Foraging Ahead With Dr. Don Ball: Flooding of Forage Crops

Flooding of pastures or hayfields occurs with regularity in some or many areas in most years, especially in fields located near creeks or rivers. Obviously, there are limits to the amount of flooding a forage stand can tolerate. Therefore, it is common for questions regarding this topic to arise. In particular, this often occurs when […]

Trampling Clover Seed

FORAGING AHEAD With Dr. Don Ball: TRAMPLING CLOVER SEED

Livestock producers spend a lot of time taking care of their animals, but the idea of giving the animals a job to do usually doesn’t come to mind.   I am referring to the “trampling” or “walk in” approach to establishing clover. I first observed this technique during a trip to New Zealand in 1988, in […]

Why Ragan & Massey Doesn't Coat Their Seeds

The Seed Cover-Up: Why We Don’t Coat Our Seeds

We’re sure you’ve heard and read about other seed companies touting their seeds as “pre-inoculated” or “coated.” Inoculants, strains of naturally-occurring soil bacterial that improve nitrogen availability to a plant as it grows, can be beneficial; however, more and more of these “coatings” advertised by seed companies are really just corn starch or talc with […]

Overseeding

Foraging Ahead With Dr. Don Ball: Overseeding Winter Annuals – A Practice Worth Considering

Annual ryegrass is often planted on the dormant pastures of warm-season forages, especially bahiagrass and bermudagrass. However, other warm-season forage crops including dallisgrass, crabgrass, broadleaf signalgrass, and sericea lespedeza can also be overseeded. The dependability and value of this practice has been thoroughly verified by university research, and thousands of livestock producers have benefitted from […]

Key Steps In Overseeding Winter Annuals

Foraging Ahead With Dr. Don Ball: Key Steps In Overseeding Winter Annuals

Fields selected for overseeding should not be excessively wet or subject to flooding.  A soil test should be taken from each field, and any needed lime should be applied several months before planting.  Most winter annuals are best suited to a soil pH of 6.0 to 6.5.   Any legume seed planted should be inoculated with […]

Information Determines Results With Dr. Don Ball

Foraging Ahead With Dr. Don Ball: Information Determines Results

During a recent review of forage crop planting recommendations, it occurred to me that such guidelines have a lot in common with driving directions. If we decide to take a trip to a place we have never (or rarely) been before and don’t have a map or GPS unit, we will need some help.

5 Basic Gardening Tools Everyone Should Have

5 Basic Gardening Tools Everyone Should Have

Every gardener will tell you that, when it comes to growing and maintaining your yard and garden, the gardening tools you use are just as important as the seeds, shrubs, and trees you plant. While you could fill your garage or shed with a variety of implements, these five basic garden tools help everyone’s thumbs […]

Broiler Litter

Foraging Ahead With Dr. Don Ball: Fertilizing Forages With Broiler Litter

Poultry and beef are in competition in the grocery store, but on individual farms they are often quite compatible enterprises.  One reason for this pertains to the litter generated in broiler production houses.  Broiler litter (normally a combination of sawdust, wood shavings, or peanut hulls, plus poultry manure, feathers, and wasted feed), builds upon the […]

UF-Riata Springs Forward

UF-Riata Springs Forward

There’s something about a Sunday drive that seems to be genetically programmed into farmers. We take the long way home from church, from family breakfasts, or from a ball game just to see how our piece of the world is doing. My grandfather did it. My father did it. And now I find myself doing […]

5 Landscaping Tips To Repel Mosquitoes

5 Landscaping Tips To Repel Mosquitoes

If you’re like most homeowners, you take a fair bit of pride in your lawn and outdoor areas. And what’s not to love? Long days, beautiful lawns, comfortable chairs, a cozy fire pit—so many ways to enjoy the great outdoors this time of year. Until the mosquitoes move in.

A Factor That Limits Legumes

Foraging Ahead With Dr. Don Ball: A Factor That Limits Legumes

Most livestock producers understand the desirability of having forage legumes such as clovers and vetches present in pastures. As compared to grasses and non-leguminous forbs, biological nitrogen fixation and improved forage quality provided by legumes are major attributes. In addition, in some cases legumes can extend the growing season and increase forage yield. These are […]

What You Need To Know About Herbicide Resistance

What You Need To Know About Herbicide-Resistance

Weeds have a horrible reputation around these parts. Johnson grass, water hemp, pigweed, and so many others creep into fields, destroying yields, clogging harvesters, and sending pollen counts soaring. Modern herbicides and herbicide-resistant crops have changed how we combat weeds.

Holdover Seed

Foraging Ahead with Dr. Don Ball: Holdover seed

Each year, many cattlemen and other livestock producers purchase cool-season forage seed they intend to use in autumn plantings. For various reasons, some of this seed doesn’t get planted (the most common reason being dry weather at planting time, which happens fairly regularly in autumn in the Southeast). So when you have holdover seed, what […]

Foraging Ahead: Nutrients in Forage

Foraging Ahead with Dr. Don Ball: Getting the most out of forage nutrients

In recent years, increases in the cost of fertilizer nutrients have caused cattlemen and other livestock producers to create and discover economical ways to provide nutrients for production of forage. Since it appears that fertilizer costs are not likely to decrease significantly in the foreseeable future, these methods are more important than ever when it […]

Introducing “A Job Well Done,” the new expert-advice series by Ragan & Massey

In “Weather to Make Your Production Decisions,” we’ll discuss how the weather has a direct impact on your success, and offer our thoughts on how you can minimize its negative impact.