Trade has been a hot topic in the news for the last several months, with discussions surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), border tariffs and most recently the Brazilian beef scandal.

Everyone is looking forward to spring and summer rains and a good season for rangelands and pastures. But who knows with certainty what will actually occur? Uncertainty of the amount and timeliness of rainfall is the reason monitoring rainfall, growing conditions and forage accumulation, and planning for contingencies are necessary.

Behind feed cost, reproductive efficiency is the second-biggest driver of profitability in the cow herd. Because of this, the importance of proper breeding season preparations cannot be overstated.

Breeding season is here, and several factors contribute to the success of an A.I. breeding program. Open cows impact profitability, so producers need to identify low-cost ways to maximize their A.I. pregnancy rates. Improving conception rates usually involves attention to detail, and thus requires some preparation.

I hope the grass and calves are growing strong at your operation this spring. Marketing is top priority for most producers right now, it seems. Guarding against market lows with value-added management can improve the bottom line. Pre-conditioned calf crops are in high demand.

My kids are fighting the crud right now – with the sickness here, you'd think we walk around licking doorknobs, light switches and the bottom of our boots. (We don't.) I've made soups, cleaned, disinfected and opened windows. I think it helps.

Selection used to be entirely phenotypic. Everybody was an expert in structural evaluation and based decisions off what was seen by the naked eye. Then came the performance movement of the 1960s and ’70s, and the industry shifted to modern evaluation systems and selection tools such as expected progeny differences (EPDs) as a large part of their selection.

On April 4, the USDA – acting in response to a directive from President Donald J. Trump – authorized emergency grazing on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) lands located in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas – the three states that were most heavily impacted by ongoing wildfires that began on March 6.

Depending on which side of the gate you’re on, it was heartening or worrisome to see cattle and beef prices recover coming into spring. Cattle markets are widely reported in farm and ranch media, but beef and competing protein prices underlie it all.

According to a recent online poll, most Progressive Cattleman readers use a manual squeeze chute.