If you’re supplementing phosphorus in a typical Wisconsin dairy diet, you’re probably feeding too much of the mineral. Cutting back on supplementation won’t hurt production or herd health, and you’ll be doing a favor for water quality, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and the USDA Dairy Forage Research Center.

Despite the lowest milk prices in two decades, state farmers probably won’t see a repeat of the financial crisis of the mid-1980s – at least not this year, according to Bruce Jones, an economist at the UW-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Milk prices account for more than half the cash receipts of Wisconsin farmers, and the low prices are putting more and more farms under financial stress. Unless milk prices improve, the state’s farm economy could face big problems in coming years, he says.

American consumers spent $9 billion on cut flowers in 1998, according to USDA statistics. But they might buy even more if they knew the flowers would last longer once they were cut.

High school juniors and seniors, their parents, and other prospective students are invited to visit the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and see if the Farm and Industry Short Course will meet their needs.

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Profitability plays a major role in Wisconsin farmers’ decisions to plant or quit planting genetically modified crops, a University of Wisconsin-Madison study has shown.

Interim Farm and Industry Short Courses will be offered the weeks of Jan. 8-12 and Jan. 16-20 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Douglas D. Sorenson, agricultural editor and former professor of agricultural journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, died Dec. 17 at Oakwood Village health care center in Madison. He was 76 years old.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of the family dairy farm have been greatly exaggerated.