That peculiarly American event is just around the corner, the day when we encourage — nay, reward! — outlandish behavior. It’s OK, on this particular date, for people to say, “Gimme what I want or else!”
“February” is one of the finest essays in Sand County Almanac, the 1949 book of superlative essays on nature and mankind’s role in it, by forester and conservationist Aldo Leopold. In it, Leopold, the father of wildlife ecology, tells the history of his Wisconsin “sand farm” and its natural …
Farm and/or ranch decisions usually are based on two choices: data or “gut feeling.”
Q Do you know what this is? (See photo.) It is a vining weed that has an odor when you pick it.
“What’s your favorite dessert?” I asked my daughter. She was a preschooler at the time.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is currently deciding whether or not to allow lab-cultured protein to be labeled as meat.
Just as the bad memories have almost completely faded, I’m going to bring them up again. I’m speaking of this past spring’s calving season
USDA in conjunction with its Risk Management Agency recently unveiled the Dairy Revenue Protection (Dairy-RP) program in August of 2018, which is designed to insure against unexpected declines milk sales on a quarterly basis at a guaranteed coverage level. The revenue will be based upon futu…
When you think about the term “big data,” does corn come to mind?
When my grandfather died, he put the farm and his other assets in a life estate for my grandmother. When she dies, the assets will be divided between their six children in chunks of roughly equal monetary value.
10/15/18 — While USDA continues to dream about record large yields in the U.S. this year, crop conditions and yield models for corn and soybeans continue to decline for the third week in a row. Once again, it appears that USDA will have to cut yields into the final Jan. report — after hiking…
In the unseasonable heat of mid-September, the yard’s many black walnut trees began shedding their heavy fruit. Now, a month on, the stately trees are bare of nuts and most of their leaves weeks earlier than any year I can remember. Does that suggest an early winter? A long one?
The essentials of financial recordkeeping on modern farms and ranches has grown with the need to track income and expenses to determine a profit in a business with very tight margins. In several instances the present record keeping system, which may still be shoe box filing and hoping for a …
October blew in on a wild bronco of bone-chilling rains, a killing frost and a spiteful spattering of snow thrown in for good measure. The tenth month continues to maintain its reputation as a mass executioner of gardens.
Developing and maintaining a producing cow herd is no easy task, and doing that task well is close to the heart of every producer.
“Mom, this is just like those scary movies,” my older daughter teased. “First, they cut your phone lines so you can’t call for help.”
Food Safety, including food recalls and alerts, is one of the more important issues that we cover in this column. The United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS) is responsible for recalls involving meat (including fish of the order Siluriformes), p…
On Oct. 1, U.S. farmers and ranchers joined President Donald J. Trump to praise one of his Administration’s biggest international achievements, a reworked trade deal between the U.S, Mexico, and Canada.
I’ve heard it said that an ancient Chinese curse reads, “May you live in interesting times.”
10/09/18 — Prices are relatively stagnant, with the markets not going much higher, but not going lower, either, as we plow through harvest of record yielding corn and soybean crops. That’s usually not the case that record crops don’t push prices to new lows at harvest, but this year was unus…
Getting a nationwide group of notoriously independent and private people to voluntarily turn over information to the government can be a difficult obstacle to overcome. USDA made a major push to identify and track livestock in 2007, back when South Dakota native Bruce Knight was undersecreta…
I have a teal dinosaur that sits on my desk. It’s an unusual office ornament, but he serves a valuable purpose. When plans change, when the unexpected pops up, when I’m tempted to say “we’ve always done it this way,” he’s my reminder of what happens when we fail to adapt. We go extinct.
Gustavus Adolphus is a picturesque little college that sits upon a hill at the edge of the picturesque town of St. Peter, Minn. When my wife and I recently visited Gustavus, the autumn trees were turning gold and scarlet and a dozen clean-cut college students were playing volleyball on an em…
I am a true believer in how safe our country’s food supply is, especially compared to much of the rest of the world. As a veterinarian working with food animal producers, I observed how their lives revolved around raising the healthiest and most wholesome animals possible. I’ve also observed…
“Zucchini are easier to slice if you cut them from top to bottom,” the student chef said to me.
A major challenge to beef production today is finding the right labor force with training, knowledge and common sense.
Beginning on September 14, 2018, low-moving Hurricane Florence dumped nearly 40 inches of rain on portions of North Carolina with lesser amounts spread over an area from Washington, D.C., to Georgia. Because of the physical size of the hurricane and its slow movement, governors of South Caro…
Farmers and ranchers spent most of last month hoping the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) recent crop estimates would be proven wrong and President Donald J. Trump’s “plan” to fix “the world’s worst trade deals ever” would be proven right.
10/02/18 — Grains are grinding away at or near the bottom as we harvest another very large crop. USDA says both corn and soybeans are record large yields, and so far many areas are indeed harvesting very large crops. But whether or not we shatter the previous record is yet to be seen. Meanwh…
Fall- and spring-calving herd managers don’t often find themselves facing the same decision as those who buy calves for backgrounding, but this is one of those times. Should you implant the calves and if so, what product should be used? Answers will vary, of course.
Due to low commodity prices, many of you are planning on storing grain until prices get to a profitable level. Some elevators and grain facilities are telling producers no grain will be taken unless it was contracted with them. Storing grain, however, creates problems with cash flow and cove…
A popular question nowadays is, “If you could talk with any person, living or dead, who would it be?” Many would name such history-altering figures as Washington or Lincoln or Weird Al Yankovic.
I noticed a vehicle in front of me crossing the center line, then swerving toward the shoulder of the road.
Why dry crop seeds artificially when they can be naturally dried in the field? Two major reasons are:
Preparing market cows and bulls is a timeless function of beef operations.
Gardeners probably have been digging and enjoying new potatoes several weeks ago now. The tubers start to form about the same time as the plants flower (four to six weeks after planting), but flowering is not required for the tubers to form — that’s just coincidence. Sometimes the flowers wi…
Whenever I go home to visit my family, my wife notices that it’s never really a vacation for me. She says that I spend most of my time working on the farm.
Truisms don’t need to be completely true to be a truism. For example, “If you live long enough, you’ll see everything” doesn’t mean you will see everything if you live a long life. You may see a great deal, but it’s highly unlikely you’ll see “everything.”
When Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue proposed moving both the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) out of the D.C. metro area and into more affordable parts of the country last month, he thought the move made a great deal of common sense. With h…
9/25/18 — We’re now into fall, and for us in agriculture that means harvest of fall crops, with the corn and soybean harvest now well underway across the U.S. Yields so far have been good to outstanding, with some areas incredulous over the yields, and others somewhat disappointed after all …
The days have shortened and there’s a definite nip in the air. This increasing chilliness is enough to make a guy reach for his hip flask and take a nip.
This summer is done for and fall came in a hurry. There’s a lot to do and not much time before the snowflakes tickle our noses. I thought you readers might appreciate some positive vibes to ruminate over as you go about your daily tasks this harvest. Enjoy the fall weather and stay safe. And…
The career plans of would-be veterinarians are being derailed as you read this.
Every state has at least one food festival, and they often showcase the foods grown or caught in the region. Sometimes festivals also highlight the ethnic heritage of people in the area. Supporting your community and everything that makes it unique is a memorable way to connect.
Fall is the time for breeding cattle inventory reconciliation.
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as those organisms in which the genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally.
09/18/18 — As we start another week, it seems the rhetoric has turned up a notch between China and the U.S., with many developments the past few days. News has broken today that the Trump administration will impose a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion in Chinese goods on Sept. 24, and will ra…
