Death loss on dairies is always concerning to the producer and management team. There are obvious financial losses as well as public perception of animal welfare challenges. Every cow or calf death on a dairy should tell us something. In order for it to tell a story, it needs to be properly recorded...

This title is what Certified Crop Advisor Tom Kilcer assigned his August 2022 newsletter. The title also serves as a timely subject forgrowers attempting to optimize the performance of the next growing season, already in its planning stages ( advancedagsys.com/newsletters ). I’ll hit the newsletter’...

On Jan. 28, 2022, the three-person New York Farm Laborers Wage Board stunned New York agriculture with a Friday afternoon recommendation to Gov. Kathy Hochul to lower the overtime threshold for farm laborers from 60 hours to 40 hours. Since then, the decision has been mired with closed-door, intense...

Four Empire State farms have been selected as finalists for New York’s Agricultural Environmental Management – Leopold Conservation Award (AEM-LCA). Named for noted naturalist and conservationist Aldo Leopold, the award recognizes farmers and forestland owners for their environmental protection effo...

Part 1: A parasite primer Anyone who raises sheep or goats is well aware of the parasite issues that come with those species. Dr. Andrew Weaver, assistant professor and Extension small ruminant specialist at North Carolina State University, provided up to date information on how to best manage small...

Early last month Ann Clark forwarded me an article titled “Colorado’s San Luis Valley’s Drought.” The subhead read “Ground Water Conservation Works, Hopefully.” Clark is a retired agronomy professor from Ontario’s Guelph University. Clark’s comment, which appeared online on the Canadian Public Radio...

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) summer business meeting recently took place in Reno, NV, providing an opportunity for representatives from throughout the nation to discuss issues affecting the beef industry. Colin Woodall, NCBA CEO, said the summer meeting is about developing policy...

Weather, pests, diseases, finances, equipment breakdowns, family dynamics – farmers have plenty of sources of stress. Although it’s not possible to eliminate them all, farmers can mitigate the effects of stress through stress management tools. PA Farm Link recently hosted Jennifer Schwytzer, a NY Fa...

In an effort to combat high inflation, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates – again. As of July 27, federal interest rates are now set to a range of2.25% to 2.5%, which is much higher than their near-zero setting at the start of 2022 but still probably low enough to stoke the economy, accor...

If you haven’t had labor issues in the past 24 months, you will, but a lot of autonomous equipment is coming down the pike for smaller farms, not just those with thousands of acres. That’s according to Mark Ledebuhr, principal of Application Insight LLC, an organization focused on the design and eva...

There are many tools to help manage the birds that can damage a farmer’s crops. With help from Dr. Page Klug, a research wildlife biologist with the USDA National Wildlife Research Center, we are offered a plethora of suggestions as to how to make it work safely. According to Klug, “successful bird ...

La Niña is a climate phenomenon which continues impacting most of the U.S. crop growing regions this year. Continuing to play out far west of us in the Pacific Ocean are prolonged cooler-than-normal sea surface temperatures. With such La Niña events, strong winds push warm waters toward Asia, with s...

There are plenty of unwritten rules among those who live in farming communities, and one involves what neighbors do when livestock end up somewhere other than their home farm. Perhaps a tree fell on a fence, a gate was left unlatched or lightning hit the fence charger. Animals find their way out, th...

Those who attended the North American Manure Expo recently in Chambersburg, PA, had a unique opportunity to learn about an important topic they hope will never happen. Robb Meinen, Penn State, and Jerry Clark, University of Wisconsin, tag-teamed to present a real-time scenario on how to manage a man...

It’s that time of year when you hear “It’s really hot and dry out there” and “I hope we get some rain soon.” In many regions of the Northeast, extended dry periods have been commonplace in 2022, interrupted by a quick-hitting batch of rain (in some cases, a deluge event). However, these stressful ti...