News Update
August 25, 2015
Mitigating Summer Heat Stress
In the heat of the summer, University of Missouri professor Don Spiers says it’s important for cattle producers to be extra cautious during times where nighttime temperatures fail to drop below 70° F. Creating a break in the heat becomes of the utmost importance, he emphasizes. A good starting point toward heat mitigation is providing the cattle with plenty of shade and clean water.
Anne Burkholder, of Will Feed Inc. in Cozad, Neb., says they use several methods to keep their cattle cool and comfortable.
“We do lots of things at the feedyard to take care of our animals. Probably the biggest thing is we try to think like a calf. So, we look at what’s important to the calf in terms of [what’s] being offered: And that’s fresh water, fresh feed, a comfortable place to lay down, enough room to be able to run, and play, and frolic, and express their natural herd behavior,” she says.
Burkholder adds the feedyard also provides shade using structures that don’t block air movement from wind. View Burkholder’s full interview on this week’s The Angus Report.
Upcoming Cattlemen’s Boot Camp Events
There’s still time to sign up for the two Cattlemen’s Boot Camps held this fall — one in September in Florida and one in October in Oklahoma.
Sponsored in part by the Angus Foundation, Cattlemen’s Boot Camp is a day-and-a-half event in which the American Angus Association partners with a university to provide knowledge on aspects of the beef industry, from production to marketing.
Open to all beef producers, the boot camps will be Sept. 21-22 with the University of Florida in Marianna and Oct. 15-16 with Oklahoma State University at Stillwater. Registration deadlines are Aug. 25 for the Florida boot camp and Sept. 30 for the Oklahoma boot camp. Registration is $75 per person and covers meals and materials.
Go online to register today or access more information on the upcoming events.
Ohio’s 2015 Wheat Crop Faced Tough Year
Growers wondering how this year’s historic rains have impacted wheat now have proof that it has indeed been a tough year for the crop, according to the results of the 2015 Ohio Wheat Performance Test.
The test results are offered by researchers with the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the Ohio State University (OSU) and can be viewed at go.osu.edu/wheatresults. They provide growers with the latest information on how well 78 soft red winter wheat varieties grown at five Ohio locations in Wood, Crawford, Wayne, Darke, and Pickaway counties have performed this year.
The test is designed to evaluate wheat varieties, blends, brands and breeding lines for yield, grain quality and other performance characteristics, said Laura Lindsey, a soybean and small grains specialist with OSU Extension. The results show that the 2014-2015 growing season was rough for many wheat growers in Ohio, Lindsey said.
“Wet weather in May, June and July led to late wheat harvest,” she said. “Many farmers had reduced test weight and increased disease problems…Yields were also lower than normal.”
For more information, please view the full release online.
IBM Presents Data-driven Agricultural Insights
Thanks to the coupling of real-time data collection with accurate position information, farmers can now manage intricate production details, such as where each seed is placed, to optimize their yields.
How will Big Data innovations such as this usher in a new era in American agriculture? IBM Research Scientist Robin Lougee paints a picture of the possibilities that advanced technology may have in reshaping the ag supply chain at this year’s Women in Agribusiness Summit, Sept. 28-30 at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis, Minn.
Lougee, who is the global research lead for Consumer Goods and Agriculture at IBM, will outline the possibilities across the agriculture value chain based on IBM’s cutting-edge research. Her presentation on building stronger, tighter supply chains will address:
- Sequencing the Food Supply Chain: using pioneering scientific and analytic techniques to profile communities of microorganisms anywhere along the farm-to-table process to improve food safety;
- Transparent Supply Chain: leveraging predictive and cognitive technologies to manage integrated global operations by exception; and
- Data-driven Innovations: advancing the art-of-the-possible in precision irrigation, hyper-local weather forecasts, material sciences, drones and geospatial-temporal analytics for agribusiness.
For more information, please view the full release online.
Upcoming Workshops: Stewardship of Antimicrobial Use
Stewardship of medically-important antimicrobial drugs in food-producing animals is the focus of 12 workshops organized across the United States by Farm Foundation NFP.
These regional workshops are an opportunity for livestock producers, their feed suppliers and veterinarians to gain a comprehensive understanding of two Guidance for Industry (GFIs) issued by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding the use of medically-important antimicrobial drugs in food-producing animals, as well as the FDA’s revised Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD).
The workshops are also an opportunity for other stakeholders, such as state and federal agencies, colleges of veterinary medicine and university extension personnel, to gain insights into the changes needed to meet the requirements.
The workshops will be Sept. 9, Flagstaff, Ariz.; Sept. 11, Amarillo, Texas; Sept. 16, Ames, Iowa; Sept. 28, Denver, Colo.; Oct. 6, Davis, Calif.; Oct. 13, Rapid City, S.D.; Oct. 15, Twin Falls, Idaho; and Oct. 22, Lexington, Ky.. Details on each location will be available on the Farm Foundation website.
For more information please view the full news release online.
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