Cattle just aren’t traded the same today as they were decades ago. Chances are the beef business isn’t going to reverse its ways, said Iowa cattleman Ed Greiman during the Feeding Quality Forum in August.

It might not feel like a quick ascent, but agriculture will climb out of the slump affecting nearly all sectors in recent years.

Life is not always heads or tails, black and white, or pass-fail. When it comes to beef, certain traits, like tenderness, are easier to quantify than others.

Just missed it. Just missing a flight, a deadline for a major rebate or watching your child’s winning shot at a ball game. The feeling is much the same.

Angus bull buyers paid record-high prices in 2015. The calves from those sires are going to market now, and breeders should be helping their customers get the most out of the investment.

Imagine buying a bull with a birth weight EPD (expected progeny difference) of +1.0, only to bring him home and find out he was actually a +9.6.

You have to eat it. That’s really the only way to know if a steak is going to be good or not.

Adding value to cattle doesn’t have to mean added paperwork and special programs. Sometimes it’s as simple as producing exactly what the market says it wants. Darr Feedlot, near Cozad, Nebraska, aims for a specific target: a safe, humanely handled, upper two-thirds choice, yield grade (YG) 2 carcass.

When input and output prices change dramatically, it’s time to go back and crunch some numbers. That’s according to Galen Erickson, University of Nebraska feedlot specialist, who talked about everything from feedstuffs to growing and finishing decisions at the Feeding Quality Forums last month in La Vista, Nebraska, and Garden City, Kansas.

Technology, with a dose of explanation, is just what the expert ordered. As a meat scientist for Zoetis, Brad Morgan sees a lot of industry innovations firsthand.