Penn State Extension program specialist in ag economics, sociology and education Paula Ledney urges farmers to familiarize themselves with Medicare and how it’s regulated to make wise purchase decisions and understand how premiums might increase. One aspect that sometimes catches farmers off guard i...

Baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra once said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.” This phrase linked the French term déjà vu, meaning “already seen,” to the English phrase “all over again,” creating a humorous repetition. Much of the Northeast has recently experienced a major wildfire smoke invasion, comp...

A dairy farm with proximity to urban and suburban areas is ideally situated to create a high-traffic location for marketing farm-fresh products. Klein Farms Dairy & Creamery in Easton, PA, fits that description, and it’s become the area’s go-to for families seeking raw milk, cheeses, yogurt, ice cre...

Recruiting and hiring are the first steps to adding the right employees to a dairy farm, but training and retraining are essential to keeping them. However, Penn State Extension veterinarian Dr. Adrian Barragan said a significant percentage of dairy farms still don’t offer a solid training program. ...

The Brassica genus boasts in its membership many of our most well-known vegetables: cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, rutabaga, turnips, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, collards, kale, mustard and more. My first contact with this genus as a source of soil fumigants occurred about 20 years ago. At the time...

There’s evidence that pair or group feeding for calves is better, but will farmers buy into it? Dr. Marina von Keyserlingk, professor and dairy welfare researcher at the University of British Columbia, has conducted extensive research on pair and group feeding of dairy calves. “There are lot of thin...

Just as summer 2026 was getting started, I stumbled into three situations where cattlemen reported incidence of foot rot in their livestock. Two of the individuals I work with in an advisory capacity – one a dairyman, the other a beef (mostly Angus) farmer. A discussion of foot rot should logically ...

Farmers have a love/hate relationship with phosphorus (P). It’s a dietary requirement for livestock but significant P is excreted in manure and urine. Depending on on-farm conservation practices, P accumulates in runoff and soil erosion and is carried to important watersheds, resulting in eutrophica...

Using winter rye in his crop rotation has freed farmer Sandy Syburg from a chore he never much enjoyed: spreading poultry litter. His biologically active soil now generates enough nitrogen that he no longer needs to import additional fertility onto his farm. Syburg, whose farm has been certified org...