The race for the presidency heats up with the primary season just around the corner and the general election only a year away. Lost among the debates, the negative ads and the relentless analysis by pundits is the fate of farming on voting day.

The year is coming to a close, leaving in its wake a thousand memories both good and bad. Memories of camping in the mountains with my family, the birth of a new grandchild and time spent with my aging parents.

“Keep shields (guards) in place!”  We’ve all seen these warning signs on nearly every piece of equipment we own. So why is it that so many PTOs, shafts and pulleys have no cover and operate almost daily on our family farms?

On October 28, 2015, the National Dairy Promotion and Research Board (NDB) honored Bill Ahlem and Joe Bavido as the 2015 recipients of the Richard E. Lyng Award for their extensive contributions and distinguished service to dairy promotion. 

I started a project recently that has me thinking about legacy. My legacy. Your legacy, too. 

Thanksgiving is a time for reflection. Warm memories, overstuffed afternoons and family. Yet rising from this cornucopia of good feelings, like a rubber chicken from a shopping cart full of cut-up fryers, is that runner-up for national bird ... the turkey.

Wet weather in the nation’s leading cotton-producing state, Texas, is expected to trim cotton production. The nation’s crop took an additional hit when torrential rains hit the Carolinas just prior to harvest, decimating a significant portion of that region’s 2015 cotton crop.

Total 2015 beef production in the U.S. is expected to decrease about 2.5 percent year over year from 2014 and would be the lowest annual beef production in the U.S since 1993.

1. How windrow width impacts hay quality

Published June 4 Follow-up question for author Jordan Milewski (New Holland): With wide weather swings and short hay-drying windows, conditioning and windrow width are playing a bigger part in successful hay harvests. What is perhaps the next most overlooked production practice that could help producers get hay up faster with better quality?

Zdenek Schaffelhofer
Classifier
Holstein Canada
Guelph, Ontario