The Beef Checkoff launched a new video blog contest designed to engage youth in telling the beef story using the power of YouTube. Videos must be two minutes or less and will focus on one of eight beef-related topics, including common beef misconceptions, cattle care, beef’s nutritional value and more.

A Colorado State University biologist will lead a national team that will experimentally impose severe drought in Great Plains grasslands and evaluate how the landscape responds – the first large-scale project of its kind. The National Science Foundation has awarded $3.7 million to Alan Knapp, a biology professor and senior ecologist with the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology at Colorado State and principal investigator on the project. He will team with Melinda Smith at Yale University (who will soon join the Colorado State faculty), Scott Collins at the University of New Mexico and Yiqi Luo at the University of Oklahoma. The project is an outcome of a research working group supported by Colorado State’s School of Global Environmental Sustainability.

Southwest Missouri hay producers will have an opportunity to improve their hay making skills by attending a hay school from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., April 14 at the Fair Grove Lions Club, 142 S. Orchard Blvd., Fair Grove.

“There is a lot at stake when making hay and many things to consider to make it worth the effort and to be profitable,” said Brie Menjoulet, University of Missouri Extension agronomy specialist.

Even on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, where average rainfall is a mere seven inches per year, farmers can reap the benefits of winter cover crops without the expense of irrigation, University of California research has found. Growing a winter cover crop helps retain soil nitrogen – keeping it from leaching into groundwater – improves water infiltration, reduces runoff, increases soil organic matter and boosts long-term soil fertility.

PepsiCo and a leading German dairy company announced they will open their first U.S. yogurt-producing facility at a business park in Batavia, New York. The joint venture, called "Project Wave," is the latest announcement in what has become a burgeoning yogurt industry in New York.

On March 6, the Wisconsin Livestock Identification Consortium held its first RFID Educational Event for producers in DeForest, Wisconsin. With more than 70 attendees at the event and special guests – Colleene Thomas from Senator Herb Kohl’s office and the DATCP Secretary of Agriculture, Ben Brancel – guest speakers presented the ins and outs of RFID and its many benefits.

Seven university students from across the Unites States have won $21,000 through the Certified Angus Beef brand Colvin Scholarship. The awards recognize their commitment in both activities and scholastic achievement. “These students are the future of the beef industry,” said John Stika, Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB) president. “This year’s graduate-level scholarship is an exciting addition to the program, and we are happy for the opportunity to extend a helping hand for tomorrow’s leaders.”

The International Plant Nutrition Institute (IPNI) has just released its newest publication in support of 4R Nutrient Stewardship titled "4R Plant Nutrition: A Manual for Improving the Management of Plant Nutrition." The manual was released during the 2012 Great Plains Soil Fertility Conference and Nutrient Stewardship Summit both held in Denver, Colorado this March 5 to 7.

Solar tents can easily, inexpensively and successfully kill weed seeds and rhizomes, eliminating the need for hauling weeds out of remote areas where the unwanted plants have taken hold, a UC researcher has demonstrated.

Research by Jim Stapleton, a UC Cooperative Extension advisor based at Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center, was published as "Feasibility of solar tents for inactivating weedy plant propagative material" in the March 2012 issue of the Journal of Pest Science.