Author: staff

One way to describe the state of agriculture today is variety, and fertilizer products are no exception. Two decisions that farmers face are: What type of fertilizer to apply and how much? Because of the knowledge and skill involved, there’s not always an easy and straight-forward answer to that question. So, let’s look at some of the types of fertilizer that farmers use: What is fertilizer? First off, it’s worth defining things and finding out: What is fertilizer? Fertilizer is something you add to soil to increase the fertility, increase growth rates, and increase crop yields. Fertilizer is composed of…

Image by Nokwan007, Shutterstock Top Third Ag Marketing helps farmers become better agricultural marketers with the goal of marketing crops and livestock in the top third of prices. Mark Gold and his team provide AGDAILY.com with the latest information and a look ahead in their audio commentary. Listen here! https://www.agdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ag-daily-2024-07-29.mp3

Soils are a rare win-win when it comes to burying the carbon released from burning fossil fuels. Typically, soils that store more carbon are more fertile as carbon helps to retain nutrients and moisture, glue soil particles together to create space for roots and gas exchange and provide energy that fuels belowground life. Burying carbon in agricultural lands will improve fertility while drawing down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and easing the heat trapping that is driving climate change. Scientists from Purdue’s College of Agriculture and the United States Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) are working together to…

Scientists believe the bacterial infection brucellosis, which affects millions of people every year and causes significant harm to the welfare of livestock, may have evolved along with the development of farming. They concluded after performing analyses of ancient DNA extracted from an 8,000-year-old sheep bone, in which the Brucella melitensis pathogen was detected. Passed on by the consumption of unpasteurized milk and close contact with infected animals, brucellosis can cause waves of undulating fever and the infection-related loss of pregnancy in pregnant women. Now, researchers have recovered a millennia-old genome of the sheep, goat, and human-infecting pathogen. Recently published in…

The auctioneer’s gavel fell at $60,000 spent on a box of Adeline Swarengin’s 1st place broiler chickens at the Eddy County Fair in New Mexico on Saturday.  On July 19, the Friday before the fair, Adeline’s mother, Liana Swarengin, passed away, leaving behind her husband Lance and their three children, Adeline, 12; Oliver, 8; and Dillon, 6. In December 2023, Liana was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, which spread to her liver and lungs. Her passing left a significant void in the family’s life.  “Lance and the children were the center of Liana’s life. A devoted wife and mother,…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recently confirmed five new cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza among poultry workers in Weld County, Colorado. These new cases bring the total number of human HPAI cases in the United States to 13 since April, with 10 of these cases occurring in Colorado. On July 19, the CDC confirmed two new cases of HPAI in individuals who were involved in the depopulation of infected poultry on a farm in Weld County. A few days later, on July 25, three additional cases were confirmed at a separate commercial egg layer operation in…

For over five decades, FFA members from all over the country have gathered in Washington, D.C. each summer for the Washington Leadership Conference. This event provides an opportunity to interact with legislators, develop civic engagement and leadership skills, and design community impact projects to implement back home. This year, 1,610 members from 44 states attended the conference. They spent the week working with agricultural and leadership experts, facilitators, and FFA staff, participating in workshops, seminars, and small group activities. The goal was to prepare students to make a positive impact in their communities and beyond. They also visited landmarks such…

Christopher Wallace, an 18-year-old, has been arrested in association with multiple counts of alleged animal cruelty and livestock theft in connection with the deaths of over a dozen cattle at Saint Gregory’s Abbey in Shawnee, Oklahoma. According to authorities, Wallace, along with a juvenile accomplice, allegedly used a crossbow to kill the cattle, causing significant financial loss to the abbey. The incident first came to light on June 22, when the Shawnee Police Department received a report about the killed cattle. Further developments occurred on July 22, when a monastery worker spotted flashlights in a field and discovered a crossbow…

The farm bill is already a year late, the stakes are high, and time is running out. The law from which the U.S. Department of Agriculture takes its marching orders is supposed to be revised and renewed every five years. The last five-year farm bill expired in September 2023, so American agriculture has been working under a one-year extension of a six-year-old law. Though it was a good farm bill at the time, there are a lot of pieces of this 2018 law that are badly in need of an update. Six years of tumult — including the highest inflation…

A new Cornell University study provides evidence that a spillover of avian influenza from birds to dairy cattle across several U.S. states has now led to mammal-to-mammal transmission — between cows and from cows to cats and a raccoon. “This is one of the first times that we are seeing evidence of efficient and sustained mammalian-to-mammalian transmission of highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1,” said Diego Diel, associate professor of virology and director of the Virology Laboratory at the Animal Health Diagnostic Center in the College of Veterinary Medicine. Diel is co-corresponding author of the study, “Spillover of Highly Pathogenic Avian…