This fall I’m watching Peyton Manning, one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, follow in the footsteps of Bret Favre. They both had stellar careers as heroes of the game. But as their retirement drew near, they signed with a desperate team in hopes of one more year in the spotlight.

The rancher’s dilemma: If it snows, you don’t have enough hay. If it doesn’t snow, you won’t have any hay! See, heavy snows will delay “turning out to grass,” so you’ll be feeding more hay. But if it doesn’t snow the reservoir won’t fill up and you won’t have enough water to irrigate the hay meadows. You’re danged if you do and danged if you don’t.

We have turned into early winter here. The harvesters of machines, green and red, have taken their kernels and bean pods, the trucks parked alongside the road are gone and the stubble disk is moving across the field.

Overall U.S. drought conditions have worsened for the second week in a row, reversing a recent easing in dry conditions in some areas and keeping the country mired in its worst drought in decades with no immediate relief expected for key Plains farming states.

The weekly U.S. Drought Monitor report released Nov. 29 shows that 62.7 percent of the land in the lower 48 states was in some form of drought as of Tuesday, Nov. 27, up from 60.1 percent the previous week. The area in extreme or exceptional drought – the two worst classifications – also rose, to 20.12 percent from last week's 19.04 percent.

Laird Manufacturing recently marked the opening of its new, state-of-the-art facility with a celebration attended by nearly 400 customers, vendors and associates.

The demand for the California-based company’s cattle feed products necessitated the expansion to a facility nearly four times the size of its previous location.

When operating at full capacity, the new facility will more than double the current output.

Iowa State University conducted a recent survey of dairy producers – both large and small – in the Hawkeye State. The university asked producers a number of questions related to dairy farm management, their facilities and their plans for the future in the dairy business. Responses were collected in the spring of 2012 and published late fall. Progressive Dairyman requested ISU extension dairy specialists compare their results to nationwide trends. Click here to see their full results.

Dairy cow health traits have been very difficult to improve genetically. For more than a decade, Semex has been supporting immune response research at the University of Guelph in Canada under the direction of Bonnie Mallard, professor immunogenetics, department of pathobiology.

When it rains, it pours, so the saying goes. But in the past four months, entities creating various international standards for animal welfare appear to be coming as quickly and forcefully as a flash flood! As if there’s not enough on the animal welfare front to manage already at the local, state and national levels, U.S. agriculture’s proverbial head is spinning from all of the newly announced competition internationally.

A cattle industry recovering from the drought will be the focus of the Cattle Trails Cow-Calf Conference, a joint effort between Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, to be held Jan. 15 in Lawton, Oklahoma.