Happenings never have singular, simple sources of ideas or objects that make them possible. Within a mile of where I live, there is an auto repair business that includes a towing service.

After a long period of harvesting in the hayfield throughout the summer, I’m sure you found it very tempting to just back your haying equipment into the shed for the winter. However, doing a thorough winter inspection or pre-inspection and performing maintenance where it is needed is time well spent.

I have a good friend who is a genuinely good, generous, down-to-earth kind of guy. Like a lot of us, he bounced around a few places at different jobs before he settled in in southern Idaho.

It’s not exactly a crystal ball, but new technology allows farmers to determine the best planting depths, distance between crop rows and other data aimed at increasing crop output. Those who have tested the technology say they won’t plant without it, but it leaves others a little worried.

The Penn State Extension dairy team has released its third mobile app: CropCents (CC). The app calculates the cost of all home-raised feeds by including direct and indirect costs.

The non-profit Pollinator Partnership (PP) released the 2013 Preliminary Report and Provisional Recommendations of the Corn Dust Research Consortium (CDRC), a multi-stakeholder initiative formed to fund research with the goal of reducing honey bee exposure to fugitive dust emitted from planter fan exhaust during mechanical planting of treated corn seed. View the report with provisional recommendations starting on page 23.

Rock River Laboratory Inc. introduces FeedScan, a smartphone and tablet application for electronic sample submission. The new tool provides a convenient means to submit feed, forage, water and fecal samples directly to the lab for analysis.

The large, air-filled spaces or “macropores,” in untilled soil often resemble the branching vessels of the human circulatory system. Taking advantage of this similarity, a team of Nordic researchers led by Per Schjønning combined computed tomography (CT) scanning with traditional measurements of air exchange to “diagnose” the long-term impacts of soil compaction on the hidden, but vital, soil pore network.

Monsanto Co. and DuPont Co. each recently struck deals aimed at expanding “data-driven analysis of dirt for farmers,” according to a report by Jacob Bunge of The Wall Street Journal.