Each year the Dairy Business Association (DBA) honors those who have made significant contributions to the dairy industry by recognizing them with either the DBA Advocate or DBA Leadership awards at the Annual Business Conference held Nov. 29 and 30. This year DBA recognized Dr. Don Niles and Secretary Ben Brancel.

It's the time of year when Universities publish their 2011 forage trial results. How did the various corn silage, alfalfa and other forage varities perform in field tests during the past year?

AMPLI-Calf Tanbark Challenge, the annual show ring sweepstakes sponsored by Land O’Lakes Purina Feed, has announced four winners from this years’ competitive group of calves. Those exhibiting AMPLI-Calf-fed spring calves at the 2011 All-American Dairy Show in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, or the North American International Livestock Exposition held in Louisville, Kentucky, were eligible to participate.

With funding from the beef checkoff, the industry has been tracking beef tenderness for 20 years with the first benchmarking survey conducted in 1990. In more recent surveys, foodservice cuts were added and a consumer sensory panel was substituted for previously used trained sensory panels because the consumer’s perception of tenderness is the ultimate determinant of a cut’s success.

Livestock Grain Market News report for Dec. 16

Here are the Top 10 most-viewed articles that ran in Progressive Forage Grower or Progressive Forage Grower e-newsletters during the past year.

1. Western alfalfa hay situation and outlook
Dairies in the six western states of California, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Arizona produce around 38 percent of the U.S. milk supply. Dairies in these states consume approximately 65 percent of the alfalfa hay produced in the seven western states. In the past 27 months some dairies in the West have only seen six to seven months of profitability, some a few more months depending on their operation.

No segment in the beef industry has enjoyed as good a run over the past 10 years as the stocker/grower portion, said Tom Brink of JBS Five Rivers feedyard. And the industry’s current structure may lead other producers to follow the same approach.

The beef industry is evolving with more accurate levels of genomic testing, allowing producers to select superior animals and maximize efficiency, said Jack Whittier, beef specialist for Colorado State University at the Range Beef Cow Symposium on Nov. 30.