We asked Progressive Dairyman readers if their equipment was ready for the spring tillage and planting.

Alltech is launching a new support tool for nutritionists that not only evaluates and troubleshoots dairy rations to maximize feed efficiency and combat ever-rising feed costs, the company says, but also estimates the amount of energy lost as methane and methane emissions per animal.

The Hilmar Cheese Co. says it will invest up to $100 million to build a milk powder processing plant in California’s Turlock Regional Business Park, and is expected to create at least 40 new jobs.

Farmers who love social media have likely heard of the "felfie" – an ag-based offshoot of the selfie, which is a self-portrait taken on the fly, usually by phone. (For more about felfies, check out this newspaper article.) Progressive Dairyman editors figured that if a #felfie is what happens when a farmer takes a selfie, then dairy farmers should launch the #calfie (farmer + calf + selfie). We took the idea to our Facebook fans, in the form of a #calfie contest, and got a stellar response.

Andrew Novakovic is a professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Science’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University. His research focuses on the U.S. dairy industry. The university has provided Novakovic's recent comments on the spikes in the prices of milk and other dairy products.

Jeb Gent Product Specialist Ames, Iowa TechMix

As the snow begins to melt, frost leaves the ground and rain showers fall, farmers are busy applying manure and other nutrients to their fields in advance of spring planting.

The Discovery Farms Program continues to churn out on-farm research results in relation to the actual performance of environmental best management practices. Since 2002, this University of Wisconsin program has set up monitoring stations at surface, tile and stream sites and, in total, has collected 160 site years of information.

The Penn State Extension dairy team has released its third mobile app: CropCents (CC). The app calculates the cost of all home-raised feeds by including direct and indirect costs.