What was seen as a banner year for corn production, is now facing dire threat due to a late spurt of hot weather in the Midwest. And that's just the short-term outlook. The long-term effect of the ongoing drought is looking even more painful – especially for those states using the Ogallala Aquifer of the high plains.

Valley Pride LLC, a dairy cooperative made up of 21 dairy farms near Harrisonburg, Virginia, has purchased an ice-cream plant in Hagerstown, Maryland, and plans to begin production this fall, according to an article by Julie Greene in the Herald-Mail.

It’s been a tough summer, and you are wondering if this is the last season for you working on the farm because you are tired of the chronic fighting.

No matter how hard you have worked at trying to get along and make things work, sometimes the conflict situation cannot be resolved. You need to move on, realizing that you can only control your own actions. To continue in the muck takes endless energy, and it is draining you.

Dairy producers and nutritionists are evaluating rations carefully these days. When doing so, their focus should be on developing rations that will promote efficient nutrient utilization and cow health and productivity while addressing opportunities for improving income over feed cost (IOFC).

Nowhere in my original plans for this issue are the words “robot” or “automatic,” yet when I page through this magazine I’m about to present to you, I find it weighs heavily on the topic.

I learned long ago you can’t time the news. In the magazine business, we try to plan out what we can. In fact, our schedule for 2014 has already been established. However, we also remain flexible to include timely information.

1. Salt in cheese
A research team led by Dr. Steve Labrie (Laval University) looked at the impact of reducing the sodium content on the safety, texture, functional properties and taste of Canadian cheddar, mozzarella and soft cheeses.

They found reducing sodium in cheeses could negatively affect the ripening process, cheese hardness and melting properties.

  Delegates from all 10 provinces have voted in favour of Dairy Farmers of Canada’s (DFC) proAction Initiative at its recent annual general meeting in Toronto.

To improve on last year’s symposium, Pearse Lyons, founder and president of Alltech, and his team thought of the 2012 symposium as “boring.”

“We never review what we did right,” Pearse Lyons said. “Last year’s symposium was fantastic, but we wrote down one word and only one word. We should take the approach that last year’s [symposium] was boring. Start again and create something different.”

This year’s symposium was held May 19-22 in Lexington, Kentucky. Nearly 2,400 people attended the event from 72 different countries.