For the students that not only want to learn forage production and management, but also want to learn the forage physiology and chemistry to better prepare them for graduate school or a career in the laboratory sciences, I created a course focused on laboratory techniques in forage plant analysis. This course is taught almost exclusively as an applied course, both in the field and in the laboratory. We begin the semester by touring the variety of forages that are present at the University of Missouri Beef Research and Teaching Farm. Students are taught how to properly collect forage samples in the field, followed by proper preservation and processing techniques. We then shift our focus to performing all of the laboratory analyses necessary to determine the full nutritive value of the forages samples, teaching the what, how and why behind each analysis performed along the way.