John Maday
Five Rivers evaluates heifers
Dr. Kent Andersen, with Zoetis (formerly Pfizer Animal Health) describes how Five Rivers, the nation’s largest cattle-feeding company, is using the Angus GeneMax genomic test to evaluate a large group of heifers.
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Farmers anticipate big corn acreage
This week’s highly anticipated Prospective Plantings report from USDA offers the first indication of what we can expect from the 2013 corn crop. As expected with corn prices as high as they are, farmers intend to seed a lot of acres to corn – 97.3 million acres by USDA’s survey-based estimates. That estimate is up slightly from last year’s corn acreage and would represent the highest U.S. planted acreage since 1936.
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Eat beef for breakfast, lose weight
What a person eats – or doesn’t eat – at breakfast could affect their eating behavior much later in the day according to a recent University of Missouri study.
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Bull selection and the NBQA
The 2011 National Beef Quality Audit (NBQA) provides insights on quality attributes that could help ranchers fine-tune their genetic selection. Colorado State University animal scientist Jason Ahola, PhD, outlined some of the key NBQA take-home messages for ranchers during a seminar preceding CSU’s bull sale, held last week in conjunction with Leachman Cattle of Colorado.
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Traits that pay in the feedyard
We often hear that finished weight brings home the green in cattle feeding, and it is true that heavier carcasses earn a bigger check. But what it takes to get cattle to those weights can make an even bigger difference in profitability, says Decatur County Feed Yard owner and manager Warren Weibert.
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The next step in value-based marketing?
Ranchers who sell calves at weaning generally focus on maternal traits and weaning weights when they select bulls, but many purchase bulls that also excel in traits that pay beyond the ranch such as feedyard gains, feed efficiency and carcass value. From weaning to slaughter, differences in genetics can influence calf value by up to $200 per head. Demonstrating that value to buyers has been difficult though, due to a lack of objective measures of a calf’s genetic merit.
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Feedyard vacancy rate increases
Friday’s USDA Cattle on Feed report shows March 1 inventories in U.S. feedlots with 1,000-head capacity or more at 10.9 million head, down 7 percent from a year earlier. Based on USDA’s estimate of total U.S. feedyard capacity at 16.9 million head, occupancy of U.S. feedyards as of March 1 was just 64.5 percent of capacity.
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Commentary: Choosing the best steak
These days whenever I come across an online headline relating to food, especially beef, I cringe a little before reading it. Misinformation seems to be the norm, with articles regularly parroting advice against eating beef because it’s bad for you, bad for the environment and bad for the welfare of animals.
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RFA: Refineries trading credits to avoid blending ethanol
Oil companies could be blending more ethanol with gasoline, but use deceptive practices to avoid doing so, according to Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association. The issue centers around Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs), a type of credit refineries can use to comply with the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS).
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U.S. infrastructure improves, slightly
A “D+” is hardly bragging material, but when it’s up from a “D,” it at least shows some progress. This week the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) released its 2013 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, with the overall rating of D+ reflecting the first improvement since the organization began issuing the reports in 1998. Grades for most individual categories affecting agriculture, such as roads, inland waterways and levees however, remain steady and quite low.
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The future of fertilizer
Farmers have long known one of the best ways to increase crop production is to add nutrients to the soil. Development and adoption of concentrated synthetic fertilizers, along with plant breeding, irrigation and other technologies, helped fuel the Green Revolution during the middle of the 20th Century.
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- Ag commodities were mixed Friday morning
- YSA members gain insight into agribusiness, retail industries
- Meat industry associations quick to attack the new MCOOL rule
- Team up against bovine respiratory disease
- Oil prices pare losses on U.S. equities turnaround
- Future of food discussion with Agriculture Secretary
- Former Eastern Livestock CEO, CFO sentenced for federal crimes
- Post-tornado composting a solution for disposal of dead livestock
- Michigan hay buyers should plan purchases early
- More beef cows in worst drought regions than a year ago
- TSCRA works with sale barns to catch Houston cattle thief
- Seven jobs more dangerous than farming
