HD Notebook

Judging by the mail you've received lately, you'll know that graduation season is upon us. Yes, mortar boards and tassels are being thrown everywhere this month. We've picked up on that graduation theme and are telling you about some outstanding young adults who have taken the brave leap to get into the dairy business shortly after graduation. Read more

Stray voltage by its very name and nature is a difficult entity to trace. And when it is suspected of causing harm on a dairy, it can be a testy condition to eliminate. Such was the case at Bollant Farms in southwest Wisconsin. According to published reports, the Bollant family dairy farm had not one, but two separate stray voltage issues. Read more

Air quality researchers in California’s San Joaquin Valley got an unexpected surprise recently when they accidentally discovered that what comes out of cows may not deserve nearly as much blame for the area’s high ozone levels as it's been getting.

Instead, a bigger culprit may be what goes into them. Read more

There was a 30 percent drop in the value of milk marketed by dairy farmers last year, according to the USDA-NASS publication, Milk Production, Disposition, and Income released last week. That was a drop of more than $10.5 billion. The value of milk and cream sold in 2008 was $34.85 billion. The number for 2009 was $24.34 billion. Read more

Read more

World Dairy Expo just launched an interactive tool on its website that allows users to search for exhibitors by product category, keyword, or even booth location. The search feature allows dairy enthusiasts to search through the 750-plus trade show participants that exhibit at the show. Among the many options are: Read more

We're hearing about more and more young adults heading back to the farm. No doubt dairy's economic woes in recent years were on their mind. However, there is just something about working with cows and family every day and seeing the family farm continue its legacy. Read more

The firestorm of public opinion that has erupted since Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed her state’s controversial new immigration law a week ago appears to be occurring everywhere but in Arizona. Read more

Trying to guess the corn market in the months ahead was among the topics when the financial management team for the Hoard's Dairyman Farm met yesterday. The good news was that our cows just finished eating up the $4.69 per bushel corn that we had contracted for over a year ago. When corn was between $6 and $7, booking corn at $4.69 seemed like a good idea. And, of course, it might have been. Read more

The latest USDA genetic evaluations ushered in numerous changes just three months after January's major base change. Among them were imputed female evaluations and cow evaluation adjustments which put genomically tested female evaluations on a more even playing field with genomically tested male counterparts. Read more