News Update
May 17, 2016
Pinpointing Disease
Diagnostic testing for beef cattle diseases just got easier with a new method of diagnostic testing from Kansas State University (K-State) Veterinary Diagnostic Lab. Next generation sequencing detects viruses by surveying millions of DNA bases, simplifying the process into one test, rather than running multiple tests on the same sample.
Ben Hause, clinical assistant professor at K-State explains what this means for cattle producers: “This is a newer diagnostic technique, and the reason I’m excited about it and the reason why Kansas State Veterinary Diagnostic Lab is excited about it is it’s an unbiased way to look for pathogens.”
“We don’t need to run 10 different tests looking for 10 different viruses and bacteria. Now, if a new sample comes into the laboratory, we can just run this sample on this test and ask the question, ‘What viruses are present?’ ”
Hause explains further that this test allows the lab to pinpoint the exact virus that is causing the disease, which is valuable information for a cattle producer trying to identify something like bovine viral diarrhea within the herd.
See more of Hause’s interview on The Angus Report. You can also catch the show at 1:30 p.m. CST Saturday and 7:30 a.m. CST each Monday morning on RFD-TV.
Bruning, as in Nebraska
It’s just an office, nestled in between the house and the feedlot on a southeastern Nebraska farm, but stepping inside tells a bit about the Bruning family’s story.
In one corner, there’s a desktop Rolodex® with all of Fred Bruning’s contacts. It sits next to the small box where every piece of machinery or equipment currently in use at Bruning Farms is indexed on a card with date of purchase, price and service schedule.
Just steps away is a flat-screen computer that his son Reiss recently used to heat-detect heifers with mobile-synching electronic collars. Tech support could monitor from the other side of the world.
These aren’t at odds with each other, but rather, they illustrate how each generation brings its own ideas and skill sets to the family ag businesses, which also include Bruning State Bank and Feedlot Fencing LLC, in addition to their cow herd and small feedlot.
Continue reading in the complete Angus Media news article online.
Along the Angus Trail
Along America’s Angus Trails is remembering his growing-up days on the family ranch near Brighton, Colo., where the main link to the outside world was what today in these cell-phone-obsessed times is referred to as a “landline.”
Back then, the world was connected by interminable threads of copper wire that we were tethered to at the point on the kitchen wall where our telephone was mounted. I’m so old, I remember when we got rotary dial phones and had to learn how to use them, much less decades later when push button handsets came in.
Back when our phone number was 766, you had a crank on the side of the big wall mount phone, to crank to call the operator. If none of the other four parties on our line was using it, the operator came on and asked what number we wanted to call. Since she knew everyone on our little local system, and heard all the calls being made, she might well say, “Oh, they’re over in town, call back when they get home in half an hour.”
To continue reading, access the Angus Media news article online.
2016 Wildfire Season
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell met May 17 with Forest Service Regional Foresters to discuss preparations for anticipated significant wildland fire potential in 2016. The briefing comes as the 2016 fire season has begun with five times more acres already burned than this time last year, following 2015’s record-setting fire season.
Tidwell underscored the Forest Service’s commitment to ensuring the protection of firefighters’ lives. Last year, seven members of the Forest Service firefighting team were lost in the line of duty, and 4,500 homes were damaged or destroyed.
For more information, please view the USDA news release online.
Agricultural Leases to be Covered in June Workshops
Three Rancher Leasing Workshops covering grazing, hunting and livestock leases will be hosted in June in Stillwater, Okla., Fort Worth and Amarillo, Texas.
The free workshops will be hosted by Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and funded by the Southern Extension Risk Management Education Center, said Tiffany Dowell Lashmet, AgriLife Extension agricultural law specialist in Amarillo.
Programs will be:
- June 1, 1-4 p.m., Wes Watkins Center on the Oklahoma State University campus, 207 Watkins Farm Rd., Stillwater, Okla.
- June 3, 1-4 p.m., Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association headquarters in the Brand Room, 1301 W. 7th St., Fort Worth, Texas.
- June 23, registration at 9:30 a.m., program from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension Center, 6500 W. Amarillo Blvd., Amarillo, Texas. Lunch will be sponsored by Plains Land Bank.
For more information, view the complete news release online.
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