NOVEMBER 2020 F11
FARM & RANCH
THE NORTH PLATTE TELEGRAPH
Stockpiled grass can help cut winter feed costs By JERRY VOLESKY Nebraska Extension Grass remaining for win- ter grazing can help cut feed higher quality forage in a pasture. Stockpiled cool-season grazing will allow the cows to effectively utilize that
to feeding hay. On native range, there is little risk of damage to the grasses be- cause they are dormant and winter stocking rates can be somewhat higher compared to the summer. Often times, you will notice that pastures only grazed during the win- ter are the most vigorous and productive. It is important though, that you closely monitor
body condition of the cows during the winter graz- ing period. Crude protein is generally the most limit- ing nutrient during winter grazing. The crude pro- tein content of dormant warm-season grasses will be around 5 to 7%, and will slowly decline through the winter months from weathering and as the cat- tle selectively grazing the
winter forage and maintain the desired body condition. A possible grazing man- agement strategy that can be used is to do simple rotation- al grazing where cattle are periodically moved to a new winter pasture. This will al- low for a more consistent diet quality when winter grazing.
grass pastures are those that have been only lightly or not grazed during the growing season. These pastures may have slightly higher crude protein levels, but that qual- ity will also decline as the winter progresses. Feeding the right amount of protein supplement while winter
costs for stock cows. Your management can greatly in- fluence how effectively this works for you. Grazing winter range or pastures has several benefits. It can save as much as a dol- lar a day per cow compared
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Nebraska leads intelligent image analysis for plant phenotyping
IANR News LINCOLN— Image-based plant phenotyping analysis is an emerg- ing research field that aims to link intricate plant phenotypes to genetic expression for global food security under dwindling natural resources and climate variability. It is an interdisciplinary research field that lies at the intersection of computer vision, plant science, genomics, statistics and artificial intelligence. A book titled “Intelligent Image Analysis for Plant Phenotyping,” the first of its kind in this re- search sector, has been recently published by Ashok Samal, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and Sruti Das Choudhury, research assistant professor in the School of Natural Resources. The book reviews information on time-saving techniques for identifying plant traits through image-based plant phenotyping, a process that until recently was strenuous and time-consuming.
lished extensively in these areas. More recently, he has focused on plant phenotyping and co-leads the Plant Vision Initiative re- search group at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Das Choudhury was previ- ously a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and an Early Career Research Fellow in the Institute of Advanced Study of the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. She received her undergraduate degree from theWest Bengal University of Technology, her master’s from the University of Calcutta, India, and her doctorate in computer science engineering from the University of Warwick. Her research focus is on biometrics, data science, and, most recently, image-based plant phenotyping analysis. She co- leads UNL’s Plant Vision Initiative research group. Additional publications can be found at plantvision.unl.edu/pub- lications.
Newmethodologies using comput- er vision and imaging technology provide automated, non-invasive and scalable mechanisms to de- fine and collect plant phenotypes. The book features: » Methodologies for image pro- cessing, including data-driven and machine-learning techniques for plant phenotyping. » Information on advanced tech- niques for extracting phenotypes through images and image se- quences captured in a variety of modalities. » Real-world scientific problems, including predicting yield bymod- eling interactions between plant data and environmental informa- tion. » Discussion of the challenge of translating images into biolog- ically informative quantitative phenotypes. Samal received his under- graduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, and his doctorate from the University of Utah. His research interests include computer vision and data mining, and he has pub-
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SOIL from Page F8
and place in a labelled bag to be analyzed. Repeat this pro- cess across the field for every 40 acres or by the soil types in your field and then package for submission.
Once you have your results reach out to your extension educator, fertilizer dealer or agronomist for more informa- tion to help build a profitable alfalfa program.
er in a plastic bucket. From there, take about a pint of soil
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