My friend Steve is in the avocado business, which I think makes him an avocadonist or an avocodinarian. He has many distributors (avocodlers) who count on him to keep them supplied. The freeze that hit southern California this winter wiped out the crop. I called him after I heard him being interviewed on national radio. When he answered, he was in Chile! Turns out he was down there, and in Mexico (home of the guacamole), arranging to import Spanish-speaking avocados to fill the gap for the avocadophiles in the United States of Avocado.

Winter has arrived in Michigan. In weather very similar to that of Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan, I have come from the cold and entered the cold. My leave taking of Afghanistan is nearly complete. I am home physically. However, parts of me are still embedded in the U.S. military unit of soldiers, airmen and warriors. I was told by many of my friends in Afghanistan that the return home would be difficult.

Mass balance is the balance between the inputs and outputs within a system. With manure, phosphorus (P) mass balance is used to estimate the acres of land or the amount of “root zone” needed to use livestock manure nutrients. Simply, P balance equals P imported minus P exported.

Fisher Pumps The Fisher Pump is a submersible centrifugal unit that does not require priming, draining or sealing.

As a recent high school graduate and college student, I worked the summer and fall seasons as a sprinkler maintenance technician for a large university. When I took the job I had only a basic understanding of sprinkler systems, but I needed a paycheck and was willing to learn more. I was fairly paid and professionally treated. And although I had a fancy title, it meant little more than ‘grunt’ because that’s the way management had historically viewed the position.

There are a finite number of hours in a day – 24 to be exact. Most humans require or desire to spend 25 percent or more of those hours sleeping. That leaves up to 18 hours of alert consciousness to make the necessary decisions that impact your business, family and yourself. The approach you take to organize and prioritize those decisions goes a long way toward determining the success (or lack thereof) of your dairy business.

This month Cooperative Resources International’s (CRI) director of consulting services Jim Henion will release the final installment of a recent DVD series called “Supervisory Skills for Managers.” Henion has spent the last three years crisscrossing the country to interview dairy producers about management. He videotaped his interviews with nearly 50 dairy producers in 19 states during production of the series. Producers discussed management issues such as recruiting, hiring, motivation and teamwork.

The following article is the first in a series of articles summarizing the “Supervisory Skills for Managers” DVD collection produced by Jim Henion. The series provides helpful management hints for owners and managers working with employees on dairy operations.

Human resources have two roles in risk management. First, people are a source of risk (shortage of employees, people doing sloppy work, an employee refusing to take on additional responsibility or a key employee leaving two months after completion of a one-year training program). Second, people are important in handling risk (people using their ingenuity to solve unexpected problems, employees going the extra mile for the good of the organization, a key employee redesigning her own job to avoid unnecessary delays in getting work done or an employee persuading a talented friend to apply for a position in the business).

On many dairy operations, consultants are an integral part of the decision-making process. Their advice can significantly improve the profitability of your dairy. Getting the most from a consultant’s advice depends on adhering to this three-step process: 1) Build a relationship with the person to establish trust and get the services you desire. 2) Do what they say. Follow through with consultant’s recommendations to solve problem areas. 3) Push the consultant to help identify the next problem areas to solve.