Garnering around 300 annual entries and awarding more than $26,000 in prizes to farmers, the World Forage Analysis Superbowl has been pushing forage quality forward for four decades. The contest encourages forage producers to enter their highest quality forages in eight different categories, In addition, leading forage research professionals share cutting-edge information during engaging and insightful seminars throughout World Dairy Expo.
The industry leaders who come together to manage the contest include Dairyland Laboratories, Inc., Hay & Forage Grower, US Dairy Forage Research Center, the University of Wisconsin and World Dairy Expo.
Roots of the Contest
Dr. Dan Undersander, Professor Emeritus of UW-Madison Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences has been involved in the contest since its start in 1984. “World Dairy Expo has really supported having this contest,” he says. “It’s been recognized by World Dairy Expo and many of the dairy leaders that forages are such a key component of the dairy ration, and high-quality forage is key to the production of high levels of milk.”
While the contest has grown to support eight entry categories, it hasn’t always been that way. In the very first years, alfalfa and corn silage comprised the entire contest. Undersander recalls that the need for further separation between production purposes, practices and locations quickly became evident. “We wanted to be sure we included everybody’s product,” Undersander shares.
“We added categories and developed contest rules that recognize the diversity of forage crops and methods of harvest utilized across North America..”
Dairy hay, mixed/grass haylage, commercial hay, baleage, grass hay, standard corn silage, alfalfa haylage and BMR corn silage make up the categories today.
Sorting to the Top
Dairyland Laboratories, Inc. receives all entry samples, where they are prepared and analyzed by near infrared (NIR) technology and sorted by quality based on milk per ton. Doug Harland, De Pere, Wisconsin Lab Manager, has managed the contest sample processing for the past ten years. He emphasizes the importance of milk per ton, not only in the World Forage Analysis Superbowl applications, but also as an industry standard.
“It uses energy values, fiber digestibility values, and a number of different elements to come up with a calculation for an estimate of how much milk could be produced per ton of feed,” he says. “That’s the main standard, and all samples are tested with a package that we have that will calculate this value.”
From there, a team of three judges from UW-Madison performs a visual analysis on the top ten to 15 samples in each category. “With hay or haylage, they might look for maturity, what stage it was cut, or length of cut,” Harland says. “They look at some production type of parameters and how that sample was harvested and management practices that may have added to or taken away from the quality of that sample.”
Final scores are awarded based on a 70 percent weight from milk per ton and 30 percent from the visual analysis, where the category winners sort themselves to the top. Milk per ton carries nearly three quarters of the weight in the final score due to its equalizing application across categories. Harland says that because there’s a common way to make a comparison across categories, any of the eight categories could take home the grand prize.
Over the last three years, grand champions have emerged from the BMR corn silage, grass hay, and commercial hay categories.
Wisdom from the Champions
David Hinman, Luke Haywood and Mike Jenson have proven their knowledge and experience in producing high-quality forages several times over. They’ve each taken home category ribbons or received grand champion accolades numerous times throughout the contest’s 40-year tenure.
David Hinman of Hardrock Farms hails from Wheatland, Wyoming. In 2023, Hardrock Farms achieved second place in both the commercial hay and grass hay categories. On a 1,000-acre operation, Hinman runs 600 acres of an alfalfa-grass mix and 400 straight grass. He says his biggest challenge in recent years has been with pests. “You get those gopher mounds out there and it ruins the quality of the hay real quick,” he says. “Same as everyone else though, we also have weevils.”
Hinman adds that the geography plays a large role in the high-quality hay he harvests. “We live at 5,200 feet high, so that gives us cool nights even into the summer. We don’t have the super-hot days, so that in turn helps us on the quality.”
Luke Haywood of Sand Creek Dairy is from Hastings, Michigan. Last year, Sand Creek Dairy took home first place for standard corn silage and second place for BMR corn silage. On approximately 2,000 acres, the Haywoods produce both corn grain and corn silage. They also milk 1,300 Holsteins and Jerseys.
Haywood points to the heavily populated area where they live as a challenge for their farm. “We have plenty of houses to deal with, limited acres, and we’re on light ground,” he says. “For particularly a brown midrib, drought stress affects it significantly more. There are only so many irrigated acres we have – or can get.”
The limited space to grow has also pushed the family to focus on quality. “With finding enough acres, we’ve gotten over the mindset of, ‘we’ve got to have the highest yield,’ and have found that really we have to have the highest quality,” Haywood says. “And so if we trade off on that a little bit, we’re ok with it.”
Mike Jenson, Jenson Family Farms, is located in Elk Mound, Wisconsin. They’ve received the Quality Counts Hay/Haylage Award and third place in the standard corn silage category, following a second place baleage and a champion standard corn silage. The Jensons grow alternative forages, including grasses, corn silage and Yield Max sorghum on 250 acres: all of which goes into feeding their herd of 130 milking cows.
Jenson says their biggest challenge comes down to the weather. “We’re not irrigated, so we’re at the mercy of the rainfall,” he says. “I do attribute a lot of the quality to my growing program with compost and cover crops. We’re not organic, but we have kind of gone back to a more natural way of growing crop. I think that makes a healthier plant, which makes better feed.”
Jenson is always open to learning and applying recommendations from his agronomist, and adds, “It’s always ‘quality,’ but as for the contest, it’s just a matter of the competition that year.”
Each of these accomplished producers cites similar benefits they’ve seen coming from the World Forage Analysis Superbowl, both for their own farms and for the dairy industry as a whole. They also offer advice to other growers looking to improve their forage quality.
Hinman says, “I would look at planting an alfalfa that has a fine stand from a leaf and then fertilize it, plant it thick and keep the weeds out of it.” He adds, “I think the World Forage Analysis Superbowl is a good program. I like to see how we compete with other people.”
Haywood states, “Once we learned just how important fiber digestibility is for us, it really piqued our interest to compete in contests because that gives us the next goal to attain, pushes us just a little bit more. Every year, we’re all doing just a little bit better. You can’t do the status quo, you’ve got to find the next advancement.”
Jenson echoes Haywood: “The biggest thing is just to keep an open mind, listen to the recommendations for finding better ways of growing forage. Don’t be set in your ways.”
A Global Impact
While the World Forage Analysis Superbowl accepts entries across North America, customs and shipping logistics present barriers to participation from farms across the borders. However, several other countries around the world conduct their own version of an annual forage contest.
One such contest is Årets Vallmästare in Sweden – translated, “Meadow Master of the Year.” As an editor for Sweden’s only dairy magazine, Linda Grimstedt is on the committee for their 23-year-old contest. With a desire to make improvements to their forage contest program, she traveled to World Dairy Expo in 2023 to gather information about the World Forage Analysis Superbowl to take home.
“I realized after doing this for a couple of years, we had to kind of strengthen the way we judge the contest,” she says. “Our forage competition is not down to the numbers the way it is in many countries. We assign different values, knowing the targets our farmers have with their forage production, and whether it’s beef or dairy. We do consider a bit of grazing, so we have all these soft values as well. Sometimes these discussions are straightforward, but sometimes they’re big.”
Grimstedt says she received a warm welcome from contest peers upon arrival in Madison and was eager to report back what she learned about judging parameters in the US. “The main difference I noticed was the milk per ton value you use, which we didn’t really have here in Sweden before.”
She adds, “Overall, it kind of made us reflect on our work and how we can adjust the format of our discussions. We’ll see where it lands, but I think it gave us energy and valuable input on how we can improve our program.”
