Farmer and rancher Steve Rader will tell you the drought of 2011 is over. He will also tell you the countryside where he resides and makes a living is consistently a dry country – slow to recover and heal. A Texas native, Rader is the third generation on the land he owns and manages in the Panhandle region near Follett.

In September 2014, Carlson Dairy completed its new 60-by-260-foot calf facility, which is equipped with an automatic feeding system.

On Nov. 9, USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) Administrator Val Dolcini announced that almost half of all dairy farms in America have made their annual elections for 2016 coverage under the Margin Protection Program, and reminded producers who have not yet enrolled that they have until Nov. 20 to select coverage.

Trimble announced today that it will acquire the assets of privately held Agri-Trend of Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, which operates the largest network of independent agricultural consultants in North America.

Alltech and Masterfeeds announced that they have entered into a share purchase, under which Alltech will acquire 100 percent of the outstanding shares of Masterfeeds Inc. from Ag Processing Inc. This will provide Alltech complete ownership of Masterfeeds LP, a commercial animal nutrition company in Canada.

On Nov. 6, the USDA awarded more than $4.5 million to 49 American veterinarians to help repay a portion of their veterinary school loans in return for serving in areas lacking sufficient veterinary resources.

Newport Laboratories Inc. has developed a new multilocus sequence typing (MLST) technique for Mycoplasma bovis, a significant cause of disease in cattle.

The USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) recently announced the award recipients of more than $1.2 million in Alfalfa and Forage Research Program (AFRP) funding to study an array of issues affecting the alfalfa industry.

Biofilms, ATP testing and bioluminescence. Many of us have heard these terms before, but what do they mean and how do they help you raise healthy calves?