The new year began with the presence of La Niña in the Pacific Ocean. Water temperatures throughout the equator region were about 1º Celsius (close to 2º Fahrenheit) below average, and the effect of that ocean cooling is making its way into the 2018 crop prospects...

Q: My father has farmed with John Deere tractors since his father traded in a good set of mules at the John Deere dealer for a 1936 John Deere unstyled Model B, which we have restored. He got a little careless last week and topped off the cooling system with diesel on...

In almost every family business I know, there have been cycles of negativity, conflict or mistrust among family members. I have also been privileged to witness several instances in which this cycle of conflict or pain has been changed through specific, albeit difficult, choices...

Q: We have a cow/calf operation, with one group of cows calving in the fall and the other in the spring, allowing us to use one bull. For the past four years, in the fall-calving herd, we have consistently found 1- or 2-week-old calves with a skin condition that resembles...

USDA's set of January reports is set for Friday, Jan. 12. My usual comment on this particular set of numbers is that it's the Super Bowl, Daytona 500 and Kentucky Derby all rolled into one. It has the hype of the Super Bowl and the noise of the Daytona 500, and has come...

As I write this column in early December, we don't know the final outcome of tax reform. We have a House version and Senate bill with significant differences, and no guarantee that passage will occur, much less how the two versions will be reconciled. If this legislation does...

Comments about the large size of the U.S. corn crop have eased from the first round of reaction last fall, but there are still questions of "How did that happen?" That's no surprise; after all, there's a huge pile of grain now to work through.