High-quality forage makes more milk and milk components, boosts longevity and increases income over feed cost. The well-established relationship between forage digestibility and dairy cow performance is that each 1 percentage-unit increase in NDF digestibility translates into 0.39 pounds per day more dry matter intake and 0.55 pounds per day more 4 percent fat-corrected milk.

At the 2015 Pennsylvania Dairy Summit, two dairy farmers shared their experiences in growing grass forages. What follows are the comments from their presentation. Following the presentations, the two farmers were joined by Tim Fritz, president and general manager of King’s AgriSeeds, to answer questions from the audience.

Cupids are flying in heart-covered windows again, and Valentine’s commercials sing over the airwaves advertising everything from cards and chocolates to footie pajamas and flowers to custom teddy bears. All this fanfare to delight our sweetheart and get a little something in return.

As I have been working on and finalizing our 2016 budget for the farm over the last month, I have been very pleased with our numbers. Despite that 2016 is going to be a tougher year cash flow wise due to low commodity prices, we are actually sitting in a pretty good place and are going to have the ability to do some debt reduction that will allow for us to be able to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves over the next three to five years.

Robert LynchDairy Herd Health and Management SpecialistCornell University Pro-DairyIthaca, New York

The growing number of Americans opting for butter over margarine and other oils has given the U.S. dairy industry a much-needed boost.

With every passing day as we work to understand the nutrition, physiology and genetic potential of the dairy cow, we grow closer to formulating and implementing more precise diets.

Dave Jauquet farms with his wife, Stacy, 10 full-time employees and two part-time employees at Jauquet Dairy LLC in Luxemburg, Wisconsin. They milk 535 cows three times a day, with fresh cows milked six times a day. The herd averages slightly more than 31,000 pounds of milk with 3.75 fat and 3.15 protein.

Cows want to do certain things at certain times, and there’s a reason for that. Cows naturally try to synchronize rhythms so that milk synthesis will occur when nutrients are available.

Darigold announced the hiring of Stan Ryan, long-time Cargill executive, as its new president and CEO effective Feb. 22.