The 22nd annual Tri-State Dairy Nutrition Conference was held April 23-24 in Ft. Wayne, Ind. at the Grand Wayne Convention Center. This conference each year is hosted by Michigan State, Ohio State, and Purdue universities. Attendance for the conference was up this year compared to last year. The new workshop held on Monday evening pertaining [...]
The month of May has brought a nice stretch of weather for our farmers in northeast Ohio. This has allowed our farmers to get thousands of acres of corn in the ground. Let’s hope our nice weather continues for the remainder of the month. SPCC plan Besides getting some crops in the ground, some of [...]
Budgeting helps guide you through your decision making process as you attempt to commit resources to the most profitable enterprises on the farm. Crops or livestock? Corn, soybeans, wheat, hay? We can begin to answer these questions with well thought out budgets that include all revenue and costs. Without some form of budgeting and some [...]
It caught me by surprise. As I was glancing at all the Facebook chatter, links, updates, and social news, I saw a caption. It was a link to an article titled “How Dairy Cattle Judging Made me Rich!” Nothing could have captured my attention any quicker than this tidbit linked to the “Bullvine” page. Immediately [...]
Some things were tolerable with $2 corn that are out of the question now that we deal with $7 corn. Undigested grain in the manure is one of them. Seeds Corn kernels were not designed to be eaten; they are seeds, and what surrounds the dormant embryo — the endosperm — is there to support [...]
We all know that a heifer is a female bovine animal that has not yet had a calf, well at least those of us that work in the dairy industry know that. But then we use the term of “first lactation heifer,” which is not a “heifer “ but a young cow in her first [...]
Hello Northeast Ohio! I cannot believe that January has come to a close already. 2013 has already been an interesting year due to the passage of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 in early January. This fiscal cliff legislation includes a nine-month partial farm bill extension. Congress will now have until Oct. 1 to [...]
It happens every time. The ice cream is setting before me, and in my anticipation for the first bite of this creamy confection, I rush the process and the result is a “brain freeze.” It is easy to prevent if I would just eat more slowly. Supposedly the cold stimulates a nerve in the roof [...]
I recently saw an article by Stan Moore from Michigan State University Extension that addressed the topic of leadership on farms. This is a topic many farm managers struggle with, but is one of the critical functions that all farm managers must perform well. Below is the article Moore wrote for the Michigan State University [...]
Crop profitability prospects for 2013 are positive for the three major row crops in Ohio. Input costs have increased from last year, but high crop futures prices for 2013 crops will allow producers to plan for positive margins next year. OSU Extension enterprise budget projections show positive returns for corn, soybeans and wheat in 2013. [...]
“The cows are carrying the crops.” A familiar statement that described most diversified crop/dairy farms for the past 15 years. Milk was the original farm-level “value added” product. You add value to your crops by putting them through dairy cows and selling milk. In an about face caused by a wide variety of factors, for [...]