Coronavirus picture

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: We are open.

We provide critical agricultural and environmental testing services so we are still open. When you drop off samples we ask that you place them in a bin outside the front door instead of coming inside to limit person-to-person contact. If you have any questions we can help over the phone at 970-353-8118.

(Credit: NIAID. Image unmodified. https://www.flickr.com/photos/niaid/49666286236/ CC-BY-2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en). Colorized scanning electron micrograph of an apoptotic cell (green) heavily infected with SARS-COV-2 virus particles (purple), isolated from a patient sample. Image captured and color-enhanced at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland.

Alfalfa in Pan

Evaluating Alfalfa – A Blind Study of 39 Labs

We presented a poster at the California Alfalfa and Forage Symposium last November. The full paper is now available for download.

A method to prepare unground alfalfa samples with uniform composition indistinguishable from routine, cored alfalfa samples is reported. These samples were sent to fourty NFTA certified laboratories to determine the Relative Feed Value (RFV) by NIR and/or wet chemistry. The variation in ADF was much lower than NDF. In the paper we argue the merits of using blind samples and calculating RFV from ADF alone to circumvent this problem. At Weld Labs we perform NDF analyses using the reference method to minimize problems.

Wheat

New Fertilizer Recommendations

Our grass hay recommendations have always been designed for farmers who cut and baled cool-season grasses like smooth brome and orchardgrass. We have been getting more requests for grazing versions of our main crops so we just added Pasture recommendations. Our pasture grass recommendation applies a nitrogen manure credit automatically.

Crops we can currently provide fertilizer recommendations for: Alfalfa, Alfalfa New Seeding, Corn Silage, Sugar Beets, Corn Grain, New Turf (turfgrass), Grass (hay), Grass80 (80%Grass, 20% Legume), Grass40, Triticale, Wet Silage Triticale, Vegetable Garden, Wheat, Carrots, Hemp, Dryland Grass, Dryland Sorghum forage, Irrigated Oats, Dryland Wheat, Pinto Beans, Hopps, Potatoes, Sunflowers, Irrigated Sorghum-Sudan, Dryland Sorghum-Sudan forage, Millet, Dryland Small Grain, Cole Crops, Onions, Malting Barley, Tomatoes, Dryland Proso Millet, Dryland Alfalfa, Dryland Corn, Dryland Sunflowers, Established Turf (turfgrass), Feed Barley, Buckwheat, Clover, Fruit Trees, Cherry Trees, Preplant Grape Vineyard, Dryland Oats, Dryland Milo-Grain Sorghum, Peppers, Sainfoin, Native Grass (buffalograss, blue grama for reclamation), Winter Squash, Maple Trees, Dryland Triticale, Pasture Grass, Mountain Meadow Pasture (higher elevation).