by Laura Rodley
Inside the 24-stanchion milking barn at West Branch Farm, the smell of warm milk was intoxicating in the middle of a late winter snowstorm. The vacuum pump infused the air with a continuous heartbeat of pumping milk that was deeply soothing. It was evening milking time.
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by Sally Colby
Dr. Billy Smith of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine tells dairy farmers what they already know – colostrum is important. Well-managed dairy farms ensure newborns receive a gallon (or four liters) of colostrum shortly after birth.
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by Tamara Scully
The recent Cornell Pro-Dairy and Northeast Dairy Producers Association Operations Managers Conference featured a full agenda, with a focus on developing the dairy farm workplace culture on three levels: people, crops and cows.
(more…)by George Looby
Dairy farmers have a long history of dealing with a wide variety of problems that have made their already difficult jobs a little more challenging. When one problem has been addressed, another surfaces to take its place. As Gilda Radner was fond of saying, “It’s always something.”
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by Troy Bishopp
FAIRLEE, VT – “Have you Googled your farm lately?” was the opening question by Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund’s Communication Manager Kelly “The Optimizer” Nottermann. The query was a homework assignment for farmers attending her SEO (search engine optimization) workshop at the 2019 Vermont Grazing and Livestock Conference. The mission for savvy farm marketers: Be on page #1.
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by Laura Rodley
Fort Morrison Farms is named after the fort that was built on the property during the French and Indian War fought from 1754 to 1763. All that remains of the fort is a landmark granite boulder with a brief inscription of the fort’s history by a lone flagpole. The main farmhouse was built just yards away from the site where the fort once protected Colrain, MA, which became a town in 1745 and was officially incorporated in 1761.
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Most U.S. agronomists agree on one major cause of global warming (or climate change if you prefer that term). That is the reduction of organic matter (OM) on U.S. cropland, arguably a greater issue than lost OM at any other farmed location on our planet. [Brazil may be a close second, as this equatorial nation keeps plowing up and/or burning more tropical rain forest]. The lower the OM level in our nation’s summer annual cropland (non-sod, basically corn and soybean), the lower the amount of carbon sequestered in our soils — and the lower the total plant biomass.
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by Karen Van Wyk
Lisa Kaiman, the owner of Jersey Girls Dairy, went to the University of Vermont to study animal science. She wanted to be a veterinarian and had been interested in food consumption and food animals since grade school.
(more…)by Elizabeth A. Tomlin
“Has your syrup ever been disqualified?” asked Les Ober, CCA, maple syrup production specialist at Ohio State University Extension.
(more…)by Tamara Scully
For the growing number of farmers utilizing cover crops in their operations, a key challenge has been getting cover crop seeds planted in a timely fashion without disturbing or encroaching upon the main crop. There are variety of cover crop application methods – all with pros and cons –which can be utilized to get the seed to soil contact needed for successful cover cropping.
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by Sally Colby
It doesn’t take long for manure to accumulate on a farm, even with small numbers of livestock. It also doesn’t take long for water to become contaminated if manure isn’t properly stored, hauled and applied.
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by Katrina Klobucher, Allison Morse and Echo Ball, UMass
From Jan. 6 – 11 a group of students from the University of Massachusetts, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Vermont and the University of Maine came together to travel to Prince Edward Island to tour dairy farms in the area. The tour was made possible by a generous grant from the Northeast Farm Credit’s AgEnhancement Program.
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