Industry Events
Aug. 27, 2008

Personnel Management Conference
Sept. 9-10, Amarillo, Texas

A personnel management conference will be hosted Sept. 9-10 by the Texas AgriLife Extension Service at the Fifth Season Inn & Suites, 6801 W. Interstate 40 in Amarillo.

The fee for the conference, titled “Effective Employee Management for Agribusinesses,” is $150 for the first participant and $125 for each additional person from a company.

The conference will begin at 8 a.m. both days and adjourn at 5 p.m. on Sept. 9 and 3 p.m. on Sept. 10. Co-sponsors for the event are Purina Mills LLC, Select Milk Producers, Texas Cattle Feeders Association, Texas Pork Producers Association and Southern Region Risk Management Education Center.

The two-day conference is designed with agricultural managers in mind as they deal with the challenges of human resources, Amosson said. Experts from around the country will speak.

General session and breakout session topics include: ag enterprise management, becoming a better boss, conflict management, developing an effective organizational culture, labor and employment law, managing cultural differences, and more.

Checks and money orders should be made payable to Texas AgriLife Extension Service, Acct. #222100-60021 and mailed to Texas AgriLife Extension Conference Services, 2139 TAMU, College Station, Texas 77843-2139.
To register online, go to http://agrilifevents.tamu.edu. For registration questions, call AgriLife Extension Conference Services at 979-845-2604. If additional information is required, contact Margaret Freeman at 806-677-5600.

CSU Beef Field Day
Sept. 16, Kremmling, Colo.

The Colorado State University (CSU) Beef Field Day will take place from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Sept. 16 at the Lewis Ranch in Kremmling, Colo.

The featured speaker for the event, Barry Dunn, executive director of the King Ranch Institute for Ranch Management (KRIRM), will speak after lunch on “Successful Ranching in the 21st Century.”

The afternoon will include a tour of the Lewis ranch and a candid discussion of its operation and intergenerational challenges. Skylar Houston of the Aristocrat Angus operation in Platteville, Colo., will describe why he uses the Lewis Ranch for his bulls.

Houston will discuss the relationships between altitude and pulmonary arterial pressure (PAP) in cattle and how he determined that accurate PAP measurements has led to increased marketability of his Angus bulls. He will also demonstrate measurement techniques.

The Colorado State University beef team (www.csubeef.com) along with the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) will host a variety of breakout sessions on topics such as marketing calves, the new Farm Bill, trichomoniasis and corn/ethanol effects on cattle production. For more information visit www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/2008flyer.pdf. RSVP by Sept. 12 by calling CSU Extension-Routt County at 970-879-0825.

Low Stress Cattle Handling Workshop
Sept. 20, Jackson, Ohio

Less stress for cattle can mean less stress for cattle producers, too. The Ohio State University’s (OSU’s) first-ever Low Stress Cattle Handling Workshop will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 20, at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center’s (OARDC) Jackson Agricultural Research Station in Jackson, Ohio.

Topics to be discussed include: cattle behavior and low-stress handling methods and how those methods can improve the animals’ performance, health and welfare while keeping handlers safe. Cattle flight zones and other behaviors will be discussed. Effective ways to sort cattle and move cattle through working facilities will be demonstrated.

Registration costs $5 per person. Lunch, given by the Jackson County Cattlemen’s Association, and refreshments, provided by the Jackson Soil and Water Conservation District, are included in the cost.

Call 740-286-3803 for more information or e-mail wells.296@osu.edu for details and to register.

Participants are asked to register for the event, sponsored by OSU Extension and OARDC, by Sept. 12.

MU Beginners Grazing School
Sept. 24-26, Linneus, Mo.

Instructors at the management-intensive grazing (MiG) school at the University of Missouri (MU) Forage Systems Research Center (FSRC) must remain flexible in their teaching, says Craig Roberts, MU forage agronomist.

“This year we will talk a lot about dealing with an excess of forage growth in a rotational grazing system,” Roberts said. “Last year, we talked a lot about grazing in a drought year.”

The school, Sept. 24-26, at the MU research farm in Linn County will cover basics of rotational grazing. Instructors are MU Extension specialists from Columbia and rangeland conservationists from the USDA NRCS. They will be joined by panels of producers who use management-intensive grazing in their livestock operations.

The school includes both classroom sessions and pasture exercises at FSRC and a nearby farm. In an opening exercise, participants will learn how much pasture to allocate for a set of steers. Then they will be given portable fencing, posts and rolls of poly tape to build electric fencing around a day’s grazing.

On the first day, topics covered by Extension specialists include grazing economics, nutrient cycling, forage selection, livestock and weed control. The field exercise includes soil sampling and estimating forage quality and yield. The next day, participants check how well they allocated forages for their steers the first day. On the second day, NRCS conservations will teach “graziers arithmetic” and tell how to develop a grazing plan for a farm. The specialists will discuss how to match forage supply to animal needs. A grazing system can be adjusted for drought or wet years.

The last part of the school is devoted to developing a real plan for a real farm. Participants will divide into teams to draw paddock arrangements on field maps of a farm.

Participants are encouraged to bring aerial maps of their own farms for discussion. Fee for the three-day session is $250 per person or $375 per couple. That includes the updated Missouri Grazing Manual and other handouts, plus three lunches and two suppers.

Reservations are taken first-come and limited to 50 people. To enroll, contact Joetta Roberts at mfgc@mchsi.com or 573-499-0886. The grazing school in Linneus is the only state-level school this year. It will train new instructors for the regional schools held across the state.

— compiled by Crystal Albers, associate editor, Angus Productions Inc.