‘Finish the job’ heart It was the summer my brother Neal was my main hay bale-throwing helper. He was the only one of us to whom football was important. (This good-sized kid, almost as big as me, was infuriated he was not quite big enough for a serious college football career.)

Farm show season is here, signaling a glorious time to be dreaming of new equipment for your operation. As fun as looking at new machinery and gadgets can be, it is also a stressful time due to the decision-making process.

I was sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop open, completely focused on the information in front of me. We had scheduled a couple of loads of fat cattle to be shipped later that week and, with the razor-thin margins, I was ever so interested in what the market was telling me that morning.

“The good news is that prices were up on Supreme and Premium quality alfalfa [in early 2018],” said Seth Hoyt as he reported on the state of the Western alfalfa and hay markets at the annual California Forage and Alfalfa Symposium in Reno, Nevada. “The bad news is that prices flipped from May to October.” Hoyt noted the decline in hay prices due to depressed milk prices and struggling dairies, as well as the tariff impact from the trade wars with China as affecting overall prices.

I guess we’re not all about safety, because Progressive Forage readers think a great upgrade for their pickup trucks would be an off-switch for the seatbelt warning beep.

Government policies on both sides of the globe have altered the U.S. hay export picture. But despite the substantial decline in alfalfa hay shipments to China, September exports were the highest since June, totaling more than 229,250 metric tons (MT).

You might think getting hay dry in the arid West wouldn’t be a problem, but with afternoon thundershowers, it is often difficult. Finally, producers have an alternative to drying windrows to 12 percent moisture for baling. Instead, they can bale at 20 percent moisture with the assistance of a portable bale dryer.

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue today issued the following statement regarding the decision by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to extend the registration of dicamba for two years. The extension is for “over-the-top” use to control weeds in fields for cotton and soybean plants genetically engineered to resist dicamba.