It was the very first day of the new year, a Sunday, and although I’m not really a resolution-maker per se, I was determined to start the year off right. It was a few minutes before daylight when I slipped out the door to get after the morning chores.

I worked for Don Tobler years ago, and closely with his son Harmon. At first it was an all-Jersey dairy farm. Then the butterfat premium for the milk they sold was changed, and they slowly moved to an all-Holstein herd.  

Drought is not often associated with catastrophic damage such as water; however, it can have catastrophic impacts – especially for animal feeding operations.

No sirens or flashing lights here. I know the dangers of mentioning “fire” in a room full of farmers, so I wanted to clear the air as fast as possible.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reminds agricultural producers with perennial forage crops of an option to report their acreage once, without having to report that acreage in subsequent years, as long as there are no applicable changes on the farm.

It’s a solid argument that the biggest advancements in the forage industry in the past 100 years are largely due to technology in equipment.

The agricultural industry looks much different today than it did hundreds of years ago. Mechanization changed agriculture’s reliance on human labor and horsepower.