In the Northeast and similar growing environments, home-grown forages are well-understood to provide the foundation of an economically and environmentally sustainable dairy cow diet. The emphasis on achieving higher levels of forage in diets and the need for the right quality in these feeds to achieve this goal remain very important. However, it is also important to recognize that the optimum balance is influenced by farm resources and tradeoffs should be considered, particularly when a farm business is looking to grow through increased cow numbers.