MICHAEL COLLINS is Emeritus Professor and Director of the Division of Plant Sciences at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He received his BS from Berea College, his MS from West Virginia University, and his PhD from the University of Kentucky. During a 36-year career in forage research and teaching at the University of Kentucky, Lexington and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he taught an undergraduate/graduate forages course and advised graduate students. His research emphasized forage management and postharvest physiology of hay and silage, with an emphasis on forage quality.

C. JERRY NELSON is Emeritus Curators' Professor of Plant Sciences at the University of Missouri. He received his BS and MS from the University of Minnesota, and his PhD from the University of Wisconsin. His research has focused on growth of grasses and persistence of legumes, and he is now active in agriculture-related international programs, especially in Asia.

KENNETH J. MOORE is Professor of Agronomy at Iowa State University. He received his BS from Arizona State University and his MS and PhD from Purdue University, He has taught graduate-level courses in field plot technique and design, pasture and grazing management, and forage quality and utilization. He advises graduate students and conducts research on pasture management and ecology.

To honor the contributions to this and earlier editions of Forages, and his dedicated national and international leadership in grassland agriculture, we dedicate Volume I of the seventh edition to Dr. Robert F Barnes. "Bob", as he was affectionately known, was born in Estherville, IA on February 6, 1933 and passed away on April 27, 2013 in Madison, WI. He graduated from Estherville Junior College in 1953, served in the Army as an intelligence specialist for 2 years, and graduated in Agronomy from Iowa State University in 1957. He earned his M.S. in Farm Crops from Rutgers University in 1959, and his PhD in Agronomy from Purdue University in 1963.