Hello, farm family! When I was a kid, we had a couple of old beam balance scales in our barn. A single scale could weigh large pumpkins during our annual Pumpkin Festival and farm kids the rest of the year. When we started growing cabbage and butternut for processing, we would place the two scales f...

What is it? A tick bite can be more than an annoyance. For some people, checking hay for dryness, hand-weeding vegetable crops or taking a hike in the woods is the first step in acquiring a life-changing allergy to meat and any products with mammalian ingredients. The allergy and all that’s associat...

They say “ignorance is bliss,” which essentially describes a state of being carefree because one doesn’t know about something potentially being problematic. It suggests that avoiding knowledge of something can lead to a happier, less stressful life. And I like low stress. But when someone suggests y...

The Northeast All Breeds Spring Show (NEABSS) celebrated its fifth anniversary this past April and welcomed 866 head of registered dairy cattle to the infamous Mallary Complex at the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield, MA. What started as a grassroots effort to continue hosting dairy catt...

“The Americans with Disabilities Act, or the ADA, is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability,” explained Bonita Croyle, the communications manager at Farm Commons. Croyle and Chloe Johnson, a Farm Commons staff attorney, explained the legal obligations that employers hav...

Before delving into the big four fertilizer macro-nutrients – nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K) and sulfur (S) – I’ll address a trace element that often gets under-publicized: zinc. In his “Eco-farm,” Charles Walters wrote, “Zinc is only now [1996] joining the crowd of elements required fo...

GROVETON, NH – Twenty-five natural resource professionals took advantage of the opportunity to meet and talk with Second District Congresswoman Maggie Goodlander (D-NH) on April 24 in the former paper mill town in the Granite State’s northernmost county. Goodlander, 38, was first elected on Nov. 5, ...

Biosecurity is important on any farm, as it helps control what enters the property and what moves throughout the property. Dr. Carolyn Hurwitz, a Maine veterinarian, described biosecurity as “a security system that’s designed to protect against biological threats.” There are many levels of biosecuri...

Part 3: Non-chemical options Those who raise sheep and goats are in a constant battle against internal parasites. The most effective parasite control approach for small ruminants is to use a combination of chemical and non-chemical management tools. Dr. Dahlia O’Brien, Virginia State University, sai...