If you are in the farming and ranching business, a prolonged drought is impossible to ignore. Limited rainfall over the past couple of years has been hard on pastures, rangeland and hay production, as well as on people.

It’s not just minimal moisture that hurts forage production; one of the most aggravating side effects of drought can be a surge in hungry grasshopper populations.

With the world population recently passing the seven billion mark, many questions have been asked concerning the ability of our planet to feed this growing population. It is predicted that in the next 40 years, two billion more people will be eating on Earth.

Ultra-high stock density (UHSD) or commonly known as “mob grazing” or “flash grazing” is a grazing approach that uses a large concentration of animals to graze a small area or small paddocks for very short periods of time.

Weeds can affect the establishment of any perennial system, especially forages. For example, researchers found alfalfa fields with high densities of weeds resulted in reduced alfalfa plant densities more than 50 percent, and others have documented similar results. Researchers attributed the loss in establishment from competition for soil moisture and light.

It started to snow hard. We were on Highway 6 headed southwest out of Ely, Nevada. I was helping a friend move from Washington State to a wonderfully desolate Shangri-La due north from the fabled Area 51 in Nevada.

Tier 4 regulations for off-road diesel engines in order to create cleaner air is not a new issue. We’ve all watched the agricultural equipment industry – specifically tractor manufacturers – change their engine packages drastically over the past few years to meet the stringent regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the European Union.

Land is often the primary asset of a farm or ranch business, but it is also a major source of liability exposure. Harm to a person on the farm property can bring liability for medical bills, lost wages, attorney fees and other costs.