The soil under a restored prairie in southern Wisconsin received much less moisture but retained more of it than two nearby corn fields, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison research.

Among the first to identify bacteria that break down nitroglycerin, the active component of dynamite, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers now have identified two enzymes that enable bacteria to degrade both nitroglycerin and TNT, another explosive. The scientists have sequenced the genes that code for the two enzymes.

Ten students have received Outstanding Sophomore Awards from the Wisconsin Agricultural and Life Sciences Alumni Association. They will each receive a $750 scholarship for the 1999-2000 academic year. Applicants were selected based on scholarship, school and community activities, work experience, and a personal interview. Students are nominated for the award by faculty and student organizations at the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Wisconsin’s highest producing dairy farms get the most out of their cows, and they do it without high feed costs. Feed costs averaged less than $4 per hundredweight of milk on six farms with rolling herd averages exceeding 30,000 pounds of milk, according to results of a survey by University of Wisconsin-Extension specialists.

There’s cash in contented cows, a survey of the highest producing dairy herds in Wisconsin has shown.

Overfeeding phosphorus costs dairy farmers about $12 to $15 per cow per year in added feed costs, according to Larry Satter, a dairy scientist with the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center at UW-Madison

Laura Croal, a 1995 graduate of Catholic Memorial High School in Waukesha, recently served on the Women in Science and Technology panel led by Vice President Al Gore at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The panel was created to review the present state of women in the sciences, and to encourage more involvement and identify barriers to participation. The panel included students, faculty, University administrators, and U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin.

With the farm economy in recession, the goal of

Will last winter’s unusual weather pattern result in damage to alfalfa? Many farmers are asking this question as spring arrives in Wisconsin.

Dairy marketing specialist Robert Cropp started warning Wisconsin dairy farmers last December that it might be time to think about locking in some of those record high milk prices with dairy futures, options or forward pricing.