About 60 years after it sold its dairy cow herd, the Spooner Agricultural Research Station is back in the dairy business.

The nation imported 66 million pounds of sheep’s milk cheese in 1994, valued at $118 million.

Many farmers who visited the Marshfield Agricultural Research Station’s New Technology Field Day last month received their first exposure to precision farming – but probably not their last. Precision farming can help farmers cut input costs and reduce pollution.

Two UW-Madison agricultural economists haven’t backed off a millimeter from their conclusion that major cheese traders — particularly Kraft Foods — intentionally drove down prices on the National Cheese Exchange (NCE) in order to shift prices in the broader cheese market in their favor.

Farmers can earn $140 more per acre per year by growing certified red clover, compared with a less expensive “generic” red clover.

At the turn of the century, Edward Kemp bought 900 acres of forest and wetlands near Minocqua, Wis. His aim was to extract raw materials for his forest products business and to establish a summer home in the northwoods for his family. Struck by the beauty of the place, he chose the tip of a Tomahawk Lake peninsula for the site of his estate. This land was never logged, remaining virtually unchanged since the days of European settlement. In 1960, Kemp’s granddaughters, Sally Greenleaf and Susan Spencer Small, bequeathed the buildings and 135 acres to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for research and teaching about the conservation, preservation and stewardship of natural resources. First called the Kemp Biological Station, the site was renamed the Kemp Natural Resources Station to better reflect this focus.

Most dairy producers did a good job of chopping haylage and corn silage to the recommended particle length, but forages often lost their “tickle factor” by spending too much time in the total mixed ration mixer, according to a survey by Irv Possin, Fond Du Lac County dairy/livestock agent.

Not surprisingly, farmers in America’s Dairyland grow more corn for silage than any other state in the nation. Wisconsin’s annual silage crop is worth about $150 million. Surprisingly, there hasn’t been much research on the feeding value of corn for silage, until recently.

Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison indicates that it takes high levels of alcohol to produce the facial changes associated with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Doctors currently prescribe vitamin D compounds for the bone loss people experience because of several human diseases. It’s also used to treat the skin disease psoriasis. Recent studies have suggested that the sunshine vitamin may have an unappreciated role in regulating the immune system.