As I wrote this column, the actual holiday was three days away. The happening should be considered more a season, not just a single square on a calendar page displaying the fourth Thursday of each November. A look at early colonial history in Massachusetts supports my reasoning. The first Thanksgivi...

Receiving funding through a grant is a huge honor and success, but it takes a lot of work to earn it. Going through the process of applying for a grant can be really overwhelming, but the Tri-State Extension Dairy Team hosted a webinar to make the process easier to comprehend. UVM Extension Dairy Re...

Virtual fencing is a relatively new farming option in the Northeast, but it’s very effective and reduces labor when moving animals between pastures. Virtual fencing is a way to create boundaries in a pasture without putting up a physical fence. This technology allows farmers to create digital bounda...

The fertilizer market, both nationally and internationally, has been anything but boring since the new administration took over Washington 10 months ago. I keep my eyes on the seesaw economic behavior of fertilizer ingredients more than most people do. Expecting that change might be brewing in the c...

After being in practice for more than 40 years, Dr. Pam Ruegg, DVM, Michigan State University, has seen many changes not only in how mastitis is detected, but how it’s treated. “What I’m seeing around the U.S. is a lapse in people using DHIA individual cow data, fewer people doing foremilking and re...

As water grows scarcer and feed costs climb higher, dairy producers are turning their attention to an old crop with new potential. Sorghum, once seen as a secondary silage source, is moving to the forefront of forage innovation. In “Profit‑Focused Feeding: Sorghum’s Value in Dairy Nutrition,” a rece...

A paper published in May 2025 in “Microbiology Spectrum” examined the practice of applying beneficial biofilms to calf hutches. To the authors’ knowledge, it was the first study to evaluate the use of beneficial biofilms in individual pre-weaned calf housing. One of the authors, Sarah Morrison, a re...

In a recent presentation, Brook Duer, staff attorney, Penn State Center for Agricultural & Shale Law , shared information on H.R. 1 (the One Big Beautiful Bill Act). The legislation enacted on July 4, 2025 created a reconciliation bill that made appropriations to select agencies and programs. Title ...

We are now seeing the end of autumn’s beautiful foliage, with the chill of winter winds reminding us of the cold weather to come. And we’re all getting ready to mark off that checklist of “to-dos” before winter sets in. Safety – Here in the Catskill Mountains of New York, we are at the end of the ea...