Ohio Beef Newsletter now available

The May 24, issue # 488, of the Ohio BEEF Cattle letter is now posted to the web at: http://fairfield.osu.edu/ag/beef/beefMy24.html

After over a week of precipitation, what a great opportunity to harvest hay and other forages! This week’s letter focuses on management of those forages – before, during and after harvest.

Articles include:
* Forage Focus: When Ensiling Grasses, Don’t Forget the Risk of Listeria
* Listeria a Concern in Ensiled Crops
* What to do with wet hay?
* Storing Alfalfa as Round Bale Silage: Frequently Asked Questions
* Alfalfa Insects
* Deworm Strategically
* Does Deworming Pay?
* Weekly Roberts Agricultural Commodity Market Report

Stan
———-
Stan Smith
Program Assistant, Agriculture
OSU Extension, Fairfield County
831 College Ave., Suite D
Lancaster, OH 43130

Stick With Grazing Sticks

Stick With Grazing Sticks

http://www.hayandforage.com

Indiana graziers unsure of how many animals their pastures and paddocks can support need to get on the stick.

A grazing stick, that is.

The Indiana Forage Council (IFC) is producing 1,500 grazing sticks for sale to livestock farmers and agribusinesses through support of the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative.

Grazing sticks have been around for many years, says Keith Johnson, Purdue University extension forage specialist and forage council secretary-treasurer. Tables and equations for determining a pasture’s grazing potential are printed on the rod’s four sides

FULL STORY

Farmers Pressing Lawmakers on Immigration

Farmers Pressing Lawmakers on Immigration

WJLA-TV, Washington, DC

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) – Growers facing a dwindling supply of farmworkers are pressing lawmakers in hopes of influencing the outcome of immigration reform measures before Congress to ensure they have a work force in the future.Their efforts come as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (website – news) issued a report last week that showed there are 4 percent fewer workers on American farms now than at this time last year. And last year’s farm work force in the spring was already 10 percent smaller than the year before.

“We’re for cracking down on the hiring of illegal immigrants and for homeland security,” said Austin Perez, policy director for the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest U.S. farm group. “But if it doesn’t have a guest worker program, and doesn’t allow farmers to maintain a work force … we’d be looking at a huge production loss.”

FULL STORY

House votes to increase funding for Bovine TB

House votes to increase funding for Bovine TB

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER
Published: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 6:49 PM CDT
The Chippewa Herald

WASHINGTON – The House voted Tuesday to increase funding to help farmers fight for bovine tuberculosis, a disease that has afflicted five cattle herds in Minnesota.

The House voted 345-76 to adopt an amendment by Rep. Mark Kennedy, R-Minn., to boost the funding in next year’s budget by $500,000, to $17.2 million.
The money will be used to help farmers cover the cost of slaughtering cattle stricken with TB and to help the farmers recover the economic costs of losing cattle.

“The continued spread of bovine tuberculosis in cattle throughout Minnesota and other states poses a major risk of devastation to herds across the country,” Kennedy said on the House floor.

FULL STORY

Spring without water

Spring without water

Farmers are the first to feel the Roanoke Valley’s lack of rain.

By Neil Harvey, Roanoke Times, VA

Danny Booth, who operates a farm in Hardy, has seen some disturbing changes in his work this spring.

On a farm owned by Rockydale Quarries, Booth raises hay — oats and wheat — but this year’s crop is not like last year’s.

“The hay crop is running about a third shorter than it’s averaged,” Booth said. “The hay usually runs about 100 square bales to the acre, but now we’re getting 75 … 60 is probably more norm on the average.”

FULL STORY

LIVESTOCK COMPANY CALLS IT QUITS

LIVESTOCK COMPANY CALLS IT QUITS

May 23, 2006
KPVI-TV, OR

Today was a sad day for ranchers in Rexburg. They lost a place to sell their cattle and a place to socialize. Ashli Kimenker was in Rexburg today and has more.

Rexburg Livestock Company has been a place for ranchers to come buy and sell cattle since the 40s but today that came to an end.

Bob Remington, Rexburg Livestock Company owner: “We are sad about closing it up, but the town is building up around us. The developers, they wanted the land awful bad, so we just sold it to the developers.”

FULL STORY

Baucus ramps up beef pressure on Japan

Baucus ramps up beef pressure on Japan

Missoulian.com

WASHINGTON – At a Tuesday meeting in Washington with Japanese ambassador Ryozo Kato, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., pressed for Japan to lift its beef ban, citing that U.S. beef is the safest, highest-quality in the world.

Japan banned U.S. beef in 2003 after a cow in Washington state tested positive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy. In December 2005 Japan lifted the two-year-old ban on U.S. beef from cattle less than 20 months old but suspended imports again in January after a Japan-bound veal shipment was found to contain a backbone. Japan prohibits importation of bone-in meat.

FULL STORY

Stocker cattle performance on novel endophyte fescues

Stocker cattle performance on novel endophyte fescues

By David Bennett
Delta Farm Press Editorial Staff

As Paul Beck speaks at numerous cattlemen meetings, the topics covered make it clear that Arkansas is a cow/calf state. As such, “we have to plan research that’s applicable to most cattlemen,” said Beck, a University of Arkansas Extension animal scientist. “A lot of people hear what I have to say about stocker cattle operations and (how they can) apply to the cow/calf producer as well.

FULL STORY

Beware of cressleaf groundsel weed

Beware of cressleaf groundsel weed

PAUL GOLDEN
Coshocton Tribune

Do we have a new weed? For the past couple of years we have been hearing about a relatively new weed to this area but have seen little of it – or have we?

Cressleaf groundsel has been getting a lot of press lately and is touted as an increasing problem in no-till row crop fields and aging hay fields with less than acceptable stands. Even more important is the potential threat to livestock.

FULL STORY

Lawmakers Threaten Funding For Animal IDs

Lawmakers Threaten Funding For Animal IDs

DesMoines Register

Washington, D.C. — Lawmakers are threatening to cut off funding for a national animal identification system unless the U.S. Agriculture Department details how the program will work.

An appropriations bill under consideration in the House would block the funding for the project as of Oct. 1 until the Agriculture Department issues a formal plan for the ID program.

The program is supposed to enable government investigators to track the location and history of any farm animal within 48 hours.

The Bush administration promised to speed development of the system after the discovery of the nation’s first case of mad cow disease in 2003.

FULL STORY

Clarifying FDA Hay-Tracking Requirements

Clarifying FDA Hay-Tracking Requirements

By Dan Undersander, University of Wisconsin
http://www.hayandforage.com

There has been some concern caused by recent press releases about the need to track hay and grain sold off the farm relative to the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002. The requirements take effect on June 9 for operations with more than 10 employees, and on Dec. 9 for all other operations. The FDA requirements are stated in a fact sheet at www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/fsbtac23.html.

FULL STORY