Buy/Sell Forages on the Web
Source: Purdue University
Indiana's forage crop is thriving after an extremely mild winter, and a new Purdue University website offers growers and livestock producers a place to buy and sell it.
Forage Finder, at http://www.foragefinder.org/, can help growers sell, and buyers take advantage of, what has the potential to be a high-yielding crop. The site is free to use.
According to Keith Johnson, Purdue Extension agronomist, the crop has come through the winter in great shape, and, because of the warm conditions, pastures were in better shape than normal and less hay has had to be fed to livestock this year.
"If we stay on a normal weather track, I would think individuals should be able to stop feeding hay more quickly, leaving more in reserve for future use," he said.
Those who have extra forages to sell can post them on Forage Finder so those who need to supplement their feed system can find it.
"Many websites like this give a listing of what's available from A to Z. But here, buyers can select what forages they are really interested in," Johnson said. "It also gives buyers the option to search a radius of how far they're willing to travel."
Buyers also can search for straw from oats, rye, barley and wheat. Search results can be narrowed even further for bale type, price, cut and forage analysis. Site listings are automatically deleted after 30 days to make sure the information is up to date. Sellers can renew their listings if forages haven't sold within those 30 days.
