Dedication. Drive. Devotion. Determination.
From the 2 a.m. call to the barn as a sow delivers a litter of piglets, to the daily chores of feeding, grooming, training and bonding with each show animal, raising and exhibiting pigs is a family affair for the Todd family of Seneca, Mo.
Jarrod and Jami Todd each were raised on family farms. He worked cattle while she showed livestock, including pigs. So, for their three children—Jori, Jeffrey and Jaci—farm life and showing pigs are part of their DNA.
“They have a system, and the kids work well together,” said Jarrod. “Jami and I think it is very important for them to raise their own show pigs, so they know all the steps involved in pro- ducing and showing an award-winning . . . READ MORE
Todd Oberreuter farms 1,150 acres of row crops and 25 acres of pasture in north-central Missouri, and he doesn’t own any of it. Every acre is rented.
But that hasn’t stopped him from treating the land as if his name were on the property deeds. Oberreuter recently planted 200 acres of cover crops and enrolled in the Carbon by Indigo program through MFA. He’s grid-sampled about half the acreage he farms with MFA’s Nutri-Track precision program. He has installed grass waterways, built diversion dams to help control erosion and plans to put in drainage tile in some of the most flood-prone fields.
“I’ve always been taught to leave things better than when I got them,” Oberreuter said. “I want to implement . . .
The 2022 MFA Forage Tour on July 13 at the University of Missouri’s Southwest Research Extension and Education Center (SW-REEC), located about four miles southwest of Mt. Vernon, Mo., demonstrated what Mother Nature’s extremes can do to the best-laid plans.
Jay Chism, director of the SW-REEC, began laying the groundwork for a new forage research partnership between MU and MFA in the winter of 2021. Trials would include warm-season annual forages such as sorghum-sudan and fertilizer applications. Little did he know that the weather . . . .
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