Dairy Excel

Farmers get reprieve on fuel storage regs

Thursday, May 9, 2013 by David Marrison

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 [...]

Read this before you sign that pipeline easement lease

Friday, April 26, 2013 by Chris Zoller

Does anyone really understand the convoluted legal language in pipeline lease agreements? You’d better try. Here’s what landowners should include to protect themselves.

How often should you test forages?

Thursday, April 18, 2013 by Normand St-Pierre

Phone caller: “You tell us to regularly test our forages, but how often should we do that?” Expert: “Um…” Now, there’s an answer.

Field crop enterprise budgets will keep you in line

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 by Barry Ward

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 [...]

Unlike cattle, sometimes we need to move out of comfort zone to grow

Thursday, March 28, 2013 by Bonnie Ayers

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 [...]

‘What’s a fair price to pay to rent farmland in eastern Ohio?’ Well, it depends…

Thursday, March 14, 2013 by Chris Zoller

Just because one farmer offers to pay more per acre doesn’t necessarily mean they will care for the land like someone who offers less per acre.

Squeezing the energy out of your grain!

Thursday, March 7, 2013 by Normand St-Pierre

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 [...]

Heifers: Keep the best and sell the rest

Thursday, February 21, 2013 by Maurice Eastridge

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 [...]

Flexible cash farm leases: Do or do not? (Or give them a try?)

Thursday, February 14, 2013 by Barry Ward

When it comes to cash lease rates, the local diner does not qualify as a reliable information clearinghouse.

Oh, the challenges of dairy farming in the winter (ever see manure boil?)

Thursday, February 7, 2013 by Dianne Shoemaker

Dairy farming is never easy, but even the simple tasks get more complicated in the frigid weather of winter.