DairyCast update for July 15, 2010, What Plants Should You be Concerned With in Your Forages?

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This week is our local county fair. It is always a highlight of the year for me personally to see so many young people proudly displaying their months of hard work in an agriculture project. But it is also an excellent opportunity for all of us in agriculture to share our story with the public.

What more could we ask for than for hundreds, if not thousands, of local consumers actively seeking to learn more about what we do? So regardless of whether you have a young person involved in your local fair, take the time to go anyway just to visit with individuals and families about where their food come from.

Since today is one of the hottest days in the year (at least in Indiana), I wanted to remind you of the Amaferm Beat the Heat Challenge. Learn more about Amaferm and how it can help you become more profitable and your cows more efficient. And discover all of the details of this exclusive offer for you as a DairyCast member here.

Dairy Conversations For Your Operations

Audio: What Plants Should You be Concerned With in Your Forages? - Dr. Larry Hollis, Kansas State Cattle Veterinarian, shares his concerns over some dangerous plants and the potential damage they can cause your cows.
Audio: The Verdict is in on Roundup Ready Alfalfa - Roger McEowen, Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation, explains the affects of the recent Supreme Court case on Roundup Ready Alfalfa.
Audio: Is modern cattle production better for the environment? - Which cattle production practices are best for the environment and offer the least greenhouse gas emission? The answer may surprise you. In Part 1, Alex Avery, Director of Research and Education for the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, weighs in.
Audio: Part 2 of our look at the environmental impact of raising cattle - In Part 2 of our look into which cattle production practices are best for the environment, Alex Avery, Director of Research and Education for the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, provides an information base to compare food grown with organic nitrogen versus food grown with synthetic nitrogen.

Agriculture Telling its Story

As Dairy Transitions Toward The Hog Model, Will The Sun Set On The Large Family Dairy Farm Era? - Post by Dr. Terry Etherton shares an article by Chad Dechow, Associate Professor, Dairy Cattle Genetics, Department of Dairy and Animal Science, Pennsylvania State University. "Conventional wisdom maintains that large family farms are the future of the dairy industry. A 2003 Cornell University study used historical dairy industry data to project the future structure of the US dairy industry and concluded that the number of farms with fewer than 100 cows would decline by 92% from the year 2000 to the year 2020. The conclusion from many when they see such projections is that small farms are a thing of the past and that milk will be produced predominately on large family dairy farms in the future. I believe that is likely to prove incorrect and that we may witness the end of the large family dairy era."
Agriculture Sustainability - What does it mean to be 'sustainable' in agriculture? How do biodiversity and water issues play a part in ag sustainability? This Agchat discussion provides information, resource links, and discussion on agriculture sustainability.
Is There Anything Pure About Purebred? - from There's a Heifer in Your Tank blog - "You walk up to the McDonalds counter and what do you see? You see ANGUS BURGER in giant letters all over the menu. If you don't know what Angus is, you are probably thinking, 'Angus!That sounds delicious! I'll have seven!' But what is Angus beef? Your Angus burger is just beef from an Angus cow. And what you might ask, is Angus? Just a breed of cattle."
Don’t Treat Breeding Season Like It’s A Professional Sports Season - from the BeefBlog - "If you think about it, there are some basic similarities between a beef operation’s herd sires and a professional athlete. Both the sire and the athlete can be impressive physical specimens."