Benjamin Clark, a former employee on a large Montana organic grain farm, now an organic farm inspector, provided perspective on organic grain certification at a Maine Grain Alliance meeting. Clark is a staff inspector for the Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association (MOFGA) Certification Servic...

Keeping an eye on calves has gone high tech. More than just fancy tools, sensors for calf care can help farmers carefully monitor their animals for the earliest signs of poor health to help curtail more serious problems and possibly stall an outbreak of illness. Taika von Königslöw, DVM, assistant p...

Around mid-April, a reader from western New York asked me a question about prussic acid. Before I discuss our conversation, I’ll share some background information. For a long time prior to this phone call, I thought that term had a German origin. With some online sleuthing, I learned that the term o...

Calving is covered in classrooms but there’s nothing like real-life initiation. Veterinarian Lisa Freeze thinks of calving as more of an art than a science. “You can read about in a textbook but it’s something you don’t really figure out on your own until you’re in the middle of things and getting e...

Swine success is never simple. Every season serves a new set of stressors. Fall feels friendly with crisp air and steady gains. Summer, however, sizzles with setbacks. Heat is the headline hazard. For pigs post-weaning, the comfort corridor sits between 65º and 75º F. In that thermoneutral zone, met...

Part 2: Preventing cyberthreats The internet was first hailed as a tool for open information and operability. No one suspected the potential for nefarious activity. Now everything is accessible, which allows bad actors to infiltrate farms and other businesses. Too often, dairy farms are cybercrime t...

Crop diseases reduce yield, but with the right planning, farmers can lessen their effect and realize the full potential of their crops. Jordan Bassler, agronomy leader at Seed Consultants in Washington Courthouse, Ohio, presented at the recent A.N. Martin Open House. “Red crown rot is big in soybean...

Hello, farm family! After a tumultuous winter, spring is finally here, even though the weather seems to be having a hard time getting the message. Farmers are not fooled by unseasonable chills, however. If you’re anything like the farmers I know, you’re already moving full speed ahead: filling up gr...

As I’m writing this column in late April’s pre-dawn, it appears that spring has not quite grabbed the climate reins from winter. Autmn-planted winter annuals are looking pretty good – crops like wheat, rye, triticale, barley and speltz. But perennial crops are taking their sweet time breaking dorman...