A new clay target championship event will be held prior to World Dairy Expo with the goal of raising funds to help support the numerous youth programs. Designed to offer a recreational opportunity for the thousands of visiting attendees, industry employees, cattle exhibitors and general public, this new event will take place on Monday, Oct. 1, starting at 9 a.m. at the Waunakee Gun Club.

Z Tags North America, L.P. welcomes David Jameson as its new regional sales manager for the North Central region. Jameson will be based in Kansas City, Missouri, and oversee all Z Tags sales activities in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota. Jameson brings more than 20 years of animal health industry sales experience to Z Tags.

Bill Swafford, AgriLabs Technical Services, will present the winners of the AgriLabs Dr. Bruce Wren Continuing Education Awards at the 45th annual meeting of the American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP), Sept. 20-22. These annual awards honor Dr. Bruce Wren, a long-time AgriLabs Technical Services veterinarian, in recognition of his lifelong commitment to practical and formal continuing education for veterinarians.

Southern Plains cow-calf producers with fall-calving herds should be watching out for any incidence of premature births in late summer. Research conducted by Oklahoma State University's Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources indicates that excessively hot summertime temperatures can shorten the gestation length of beef cows. "OSU research shows that cows exposed to 90 degrees Fahrenheit or greater during the last two weeks of gestation calve an average of four days earlier than what is considered normal," said Bob Wettemann, OSU Regents professor and animal science researcher.

While a strong winter wheat crop and good spring growing conditions bolstered Midwest and Mid-South farm income expectations during first half of 2012, the summer drought has significantly lowered these expectations for the third quarter, according to a new quarterly agricultural finance survey launched today by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

A mild spring and a little rain at the right time in June made for an early and bountiful winter wheat harvest in Wisconsin, perhaps the best in decades. The early harvest gives farmers an extra few weeks of growing season to do something virtually unheard of in this part of the state – plant another crop. Farmers are devising drought plans that include planting oats and peas over harvested wheat fields or over withered, immature cornfields that were cut midway through the growing season for use as cattle feed because the plants won't reach maturity.

The first National Beef Quality Audit of fed cattle was conducted in 1991, with subsequent audits in 1995, 2000, and 2005. Findings of the 2011 audit have been reported by the National Cattleman’s Beef Association.