Boise and the Treasure Valley played host to the Beef Improvement Federation’s (BIF) annual research symposium and convention June 1-4. Per event organizers and attendees, the event was a rousing success, with more than 400 attendees gathered to mingle and discuss the latest innovations in beef cattle genetics.

A mad scientist.

That’s what Kimberly Wolter calls her husband, Bradley. She’s teasing, of course, but says it with all the affection in the world. And there is certainly more than a kernel of truth to her assertion.

Graeme Finn could have been happy raising cattle anywhere in the world, so long as there was grass to graze and land to improve. He and his family ended up raising cattle, grazing grass and improving land in the foothill country of western Alberta near the town of Madden.

Located an hour north of the U.S. border near Coaldale, Alberta, U2 Quality Seedstock is a second-generation operation raising Angus and Red Angus cattle with a focus on traits that keep commercial cattlemen in business.

The bull purchase is unlike any other decision that gets made by a cow-calf operation. It carries enormous importance to the success of a herd. The average bull will have a far larger genetic footprint than even the most productive cows, siring well over 100 calves over the course of his time in a herd.

Over the past several decades, beef cows have quietly gotten bigger. In 1975, the average beef cow weighed just over 1,000 pounds; by 2009, that number had jumped to 1,350 pounds, and today, many herds include cows tipping the scales at 1,400 pounds or more.

For Avery Oswald of Rigby, Idaho, winning the Idaho Cattle Association (ICA) 2025 Heifer of the Year (HOY) program was a key milestone in her dream of running her own cattle operation someday.

John Smith and his wife, Laura Laing, recipients of Alberta’s 2025 Environmental Stewardship Award, are the third generation on their 450-head cow-calf operation west of Nanton, Alberta. John’s maternal grandparents, John and Shirley Hay, started the ranch in 1959.

JPD Angus in Oro-Medonte, Ontario, grew into a family operation through evenings after long off-farm workdays and weekends spent raising Angus cattle.

Sometimes it seems as if beef producers are faced with a million details to attend to in order to make a ranch successful and cattle happy and healthy. Selenium is one of those details.