Over the past few years, farmers in the Northeast have experienced both ends of the rain spectrum: too much and too little. Much of the time, farmers don’t find out about these extreme weather conditions until right before they occur, when it’s already too late. What can you do so your crops don’t g...

How crowding affects animals is something I learned about before acquiring a knowledge of how excessive population affects plants. Most of us are quite familiar with the adverse effects of overcrowding on livestock. But it may be difficult to compare too many hoofed animals crammed into too small a ...

With the unusual heatwave we experienced over the past week or two, everyone was scrambling around to come up with ways to stay cool – and for horse owners, it was equally important to do the same for our trusty steeds. In addition to taking a break from hard work and making sure they have plenty of...

Carbon may be element 6 on the periodic table, but it’s number one for farmers – and all life on the planet. While it’s widely distributed in nature, carbon is not particularly plentiful, making up only about 0.025% of Earth’s crust – but it forms more compounds than all the other elements combined....

During my last half of high school and all four of my undergraduate college years, my family called a chunk of real estate bordering Huntersfield Mountain home, on the edge of the Catskills. We raised beef cattle: Charolais, Angus, Herefords and their hybrids. They grazed and we baled small square h...

Dairy farmers might describe their ideal dairy cow as early maturing with a first lactation before 24 months, easy calving, good milk production, easy to breed back, good udder, good feet and legs and disease resistant. “These traits turn into longevity and keep cows around for a long, productive li...

According to USDA-NRCS, sunn hemp – which is not related to that other kind of hemp – can improve soil properties, reduce soil erosion, conserve soil water and recycle plant nutrients. When it’s grown as a summer annual, sunn hemp can produce over 5,000 lbs. of biomass and 100 lbs. of nitrogen/acre....

Farmers need to take care when taking care of their cows. That’s the message Dr. Julia Herman, beef cattle specialist veterinarian for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association , wants farmers to take to heart. Products are only as good as how they’re handled, and proper practices for processing cat...

As I started writing this column the afternoon of June 17, our home’s remote-sensing thermometer registered 87º, which would turn out to be the day’s peak temperature. Right after that reading, at about 4 p.m., a phone recording from the Otsego County Office of Emergency Services stated that during ...