In 2016, dairymen and women were among the agricultural coalition that helped flip traditionally blue states red – places like Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio – during Donald Trump’s journey to the White House.

An interview with Meghan Hauser, Table Rock Farm, New York Dairy farm nutrient mass balances (NMBs) are gaining traction in some parts of the U.S. and the European Union is considering widespread use on farms.

With so many challenges in the dairy industry today, farm managers realize they need to be “better than average” to be in business for the long-term. Running a whole-farm nutrient mass balance (NMB) can help achieve this.

Key performance indicators, such as milk urea nitrogen, ration nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) levels, corn stalk nitrate testing, and soil fertility assessments are only useful if we know what to strive for.

Sorghum, mainly a crop of the deep south, is being planted on more acres across the northeast. Originally relegated as an emergency summer feed when earlier crops had failed, or for part-time livestock farms, the crop is going mainstream because of the number of economic and practical advantages it offers.

Near infrared reflectance (NIR) spectroscopy has been used to evaluate forage quality since the early 1980s.

Recent research at Miner Institute has focused on the relationship between undigested and physically effective NDF (abbreviated as uNDF and peNDF).

Farming is ever-changing and improvements to perform timely field operations can impact soil health. Larger, road-ready trucks and equipment with higher tire pressures and larger axle loads made to spread manure, plant, spray and harvest quicker can cause severe soil compaction.

People are the greatest resource on a farm. Accidents are never planned, but those few minutes can have long-lasting and traumatic impact. Proactive steps can help reduce risk during corn silage harvest and feed-out.

January 2019 U.S. milk production continued a four-month streak in which year-over-year growth was less than 1 percent. However, while cow numbers were down from a year ago, the U.S. dairy herd increased about 2,000 head from December, ending a string of seven straight months of contraction.