On the morning of Dec. 23, our remote-sensing thermometer had just climbed up to 0º, having plunged to -7º a few hours earlier under a half-moon in a clear sky. There’s a good chance that night would prove to be the coldest one in 2024. In the preceding 48 hours, downtown Hartwick accrued about five...

Several months ago, my friend Corey called me with a cattle feeding question. He oversees a small biodynamic dairy in Columbia County, NY. He had just gotten the bulk tank results back from the lab. They told him that milk urea nitrogen (MUN) was running 25 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl). MUN is a...

As this year’s first cutting hay-making season was going great, I expected that warmer-than-normal conditions might harm hay quality. I knew that Northeast growing degree days were piling up unusually fast. To wrap my mind around ongoing crop performance data, I contacted Mike Reuter, an analytic se...

The first week of December, Old Man Pre-Winter dumped two separate doses of snow over much of the Northeast. This clumpy snow doesn’t slide smoothly into my snowblower’s intake. My machine is a 15-year-old unit which my sons bought me, new … after I commented about “heart attack snow.” Snow falling ...

According to the Albany Times-Union, a tiny hamlet in Lewis County just north of Tug Hill State Forest had the distinction on Nov. 30 of having one of the highest snow readings in New York – officially 45 inches of the white stuff. This pre-winter “bonus” arrived as lake effect snow pushed across La...

I’m writing this column three days before Thanksgiving, so here’s background on the holiday, I believe, is relevant, in appreciating the Native Americans who helped make the celebration a reality. In researching such events, we learn about the farming practices that empowered these indigenous people...

Tom Kilcer’s Advanced Ag Systems newsletter (for October/November) arrived in my inbox on Nov. 10. He’s a Certified Crop Advisor whose cropping wisdom I tap into as needed. I’ve known Tom for over a half century, having met him at a CCE conference in 1977. We were both field crop agents – me in my l...

A recent New York Times article by Julie Turkewitz addressed the record-breaking drought that keeps plodding through its second year, punishing much of South America, especially the Amazon rainforest. This rampant moisture starvation provides alarming glimpses into a future increasingly impacted by ...

According to Steve Barnhart, Extension agronomist at Iowa State University, the first few frosts of autumn bring the potential for prussic acid poisoning when feeding forages. Some forage species, primarily sorghums and closely related species, contain cyanogenic glucosides. These are converted quic...

Over Columbus Day weekend Sue and I were out of town for a mini-vacation, visiting my sister who lives near the Connecticut shore. Prior to leaving Hartwick, we covered up the tomato and pepper plants. Upon returning Monday evening, we noticed that pumpkin foliage (not under cover) was quite scorche...

Increasingly, headlines spotlight weather and climate events – most of which are bad news. In the last week of September, Hurricane Helene received her fair share of media attention. Hurricane Milton got his turn with TV and online coverage Oct. 1 – 10. Now, a month into autumn, tropical cyclone sea...

Originally, the Christmas holiday season started with Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. But in recent years the commercial thrust for getting people to buy presents inches forward on the calendar toward Halloween. For too many shoppers and merchants, the dollar signs are becoming more important than t...

My first contact with Tom Kilcer was toward the end of my Cooperative Extension career. My last year as an agronomy professional educator was 1977-78, which was also Kilcer’s first. Our contact over the following years was hit-or-miss. Fast forward to 2012, when I interviewed a prominent Midwest see...

Most Northeast haymakers were less than satisfied with their 2024 first cuttings’ quality. At most locations, perennial forage tonnages were exceptional, but rarely does extra quantity make up for lost quality when it comes to balancing rations that support high milk production. During May, the grow...

My sister, who lives in central Ohio, very recently told me that her vicinity, from June 1 – Aug. 31, received approximately 5 inches of rain, nearly 8 inches below normal for this time of year. As part of that problem, Midwestern farmers face the harsh reality of when too much sun combines with not...