When Melissa Cantor was raising calves at the University of Kentucky as an undergrad, she realized there was a need to identify animals that were getting sick. Cantor also speculated that machine learning might be a tool to help detect illness prior to animals showing clinical signs. Today, Cantor i...

So, what’s the difference between the United Soybean Board (USB) and the American Soybean Association (ASA)? Tracy Snider, senior manager of state relations with the ASA, explained how the organizations differ at the recent 2025 New York Corn & Soybean Summer Crop Tour hosted by Rodman Lott & Son Fa...

Three growing seasons ago, during the middle of summer, I took a few soil samples on a southern Herkimer County dairy farm. One of the fields sampled that I found particularly interesting had been planted to a mix of forage soybeans and brown midrib sorghum two weeks earlier. There appeared to be mo...

New York State’s Woodmen’s Field Days, held annually at the Boonville-Oneida County Fairgrounds, is a crown jewel of the Northeast’s logging industry and a fan-favorite of anyone who works in proximity to forestry and logging, farming or just enjoys the “buzz” of everything from the latest hand tool...

Beyond cow comfort, it’s important to reduce the effects of heat stress in a dairy herd. Heat stress causes direct financial losses – and not just from reduced milk production. “It affects reproduction substantially,” said Jon Mills, herd manager at Morrisville State College Dairy Complex. “Their in...

“My dream is to have a cell phone-based device that I can take to the farm and tell you exactly which bacteria are making your animal sick, and exactly which antibiotic at which dose is going to make it get healthy fast. But we’re a long way away,” Erika Ganda said during a recent interview on the “...

The Gould family of Canandaigua, NY, has plenty to crow about, considering their wins at the Ontario County Fair. “It went great,” said Lisa Gould, mom of Emma, 10, whose rooster won Reserve Grand Champion Male in the 4-H show. “He’s such a good boy and he deserves the trophy,” Gould added. The 4-H’...

The official hurricane season for the Mid-Atlantic runs June 1 through the end of November. Some predictions say this tropical storm season might be bad, so there’s plenty of monitoring going on. The potential for dangerous flooding may increase if heavy rain falls on already soaked ground. Thankful...

Turn back time a half century, to my Cooperative Extension career as a dairy and field crops agent. I tried to get farmers to mentally break down their businesses into three parts: cows, heifers and crops. Perhaps an oversimplification, but this approach helped them home in on possible “weak links” ...