As owner of W D Farms, a manure application and trucking company, we’ve been hauling manure and other organic byproducts for land application since 1987.

Transportation costs are a fact of life that, for most people, begins and ends at the gas station with today’s posted price of gasoline or diesel.

The need for portable fuel transfer has always been an issue for farmers, but today with expanding farm operations, the need for safe and efficient fuel transfer is greater than ever.

In many cases, farm owners decide to purchase equipment rather than rent it because they have a consistent long-term need for it.

Most people who consider themselves to be mechanically inclined often struggle with the question of whether to tune up or trade in a disc mower-conditioner. For some it’s like admitting defeat to trade in.

Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series on feed additives and supplements. Click here to read the first of the series (More additives, supplements than you can shake a stick at).

Dairy producers and their nutrition advisers have an ever-expanding list of supplements that can be considered when formulating diets. These products include modifiers of rumen fermentation, silage additives, protected nutrients and modulators of nutrient metabolism.

The impact of fiber digestion on dairy nutrition is complex, and all the measurements of fiber digestion listed on the forage report add to the confusion. Understanding fiber digestion requires knowledge of what actually happens in the cow (in vivo) as well as why and how we try to estimate it in the laboratory (in vitro).

If you were at World Dairy Expo last year, chances are you saw a bright yellow self-propelled mixer wagon on display. After all, the mixer was the first of its kind to touch American soil, coming all the way from Italy.

Long, long ago and far, far away, crude protein (CP) was used as the sole measure of the protein value of ingredients. Up until some 45 years ago, it was felt that this (CP [N x 6.25], along with total digestible nutrients (TDN) as a measure of energy), was all that was needed to balance a lactation diet.