The main purpose for irrigating is to supply needed water for crops. Plant growth is dependent on photosynthesis. While the plant exchanges gases with the air for photosynthesis, some water evaporates. Water is taken up from the soil by plant roots to replace this water. The water leaving the plant is called transpiration.

Although established alfalfa can access deep subsoil water, dry topsoils limit the availability of many nutrients.

An interview with Glenn Shewmaker, Forage Extension Specialist, University of Idaho Q. What is your background in forages?

I have food on my mind more than usual lately. About two months ago I started “The FAT BOYS’ Club”. The upside is that my weight is down almost twenty pounds – to where it was when I should have started the club.

I was in Colusa, California in the beautiful northern Sacramento Valley.

Dismal mailbox prices for milk and a historically low milk-to-feed price ratio hang over producers this June Dairy Month. Rallies and demonstrations against low milk prices have already rained on the usual celebratory parades and breakfasts that accompany Dairy Month.

We want to give a special thanks to Janelle Thorpe of Twin Falls, Idaho, for her winning contribution to the T-shirt design contest. She will receive a ceramic Proud to Dairy mug.

While attending a workshop for developing supervisory skills, a speaker offered the following: “The key to success in business is to help other people be successful in their jobs.”

Editor’s note: The following opinion was submitted for publication by the Milk Producers Council in response to Progressive Dairyman Editor Walt Cooley’s editorial “When we can’t borrow our way out?” in the April 13, 2009 issue.

Buried in red ink and no good news, producers are crying, “Do something! Anything! Just do something!” The cry reminds me of a meeting with producers decades ago in similar bleak economic times.