Calculating Alfalfa Stand Quality

Every year, I get fooled by some article on milk pricing and the forecasters predicting the price that we will see in the future. They take on the nearly impossible quest of prediction with the same confidence of the newscaster reading the weather on my tv, and we all know how that went this spring. In February the mailbox price was in the $15 cwt range and now, fast forward to June, we are around $19 cwt. On a 600-cow dairy, that’s about $75,000 a month difference equating to just under a cool million in a year. How does your farm handle this volatility? I don’t think there’s a magic cookie cutter answer in how we manage this, and it appears volatility is here to stay in commodity prices.  

Environmental conditions play a critical role in disease development. Watching the forecast and paying close attention to individual field conditions to help gauge the risk of disease development.

By the time you receive this newsletter, Independence Day will have gone by. I hope you enjoyed the day off. I should have done this in last month’s newsletter but let me give you some fireworks advice in case you have left over munitions. The most important thing to remember is after you light the fuse, Mr. Fireworks is no longer your friend. Then, while fleeing, don’t zig when you should have zagged. Now you know.