Farmers by trade are an optimistic lot. Many embrace the ol' saying, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." But, the most recent DTN/The Progressive Farmer Agriculture Confidence Index (ACI) shows farmers' moods have fallen from spring 2018. That should surprise no one.

As I meet with clients and prospects post-tax season, one of the topics of conversation is entity choice. Sometimes, the entity choice does not match the client's needs. When asked why they picked that type of entity, I typically hear "because." This is followed by "my...

In the ranking of numbers, it's hard to top the number seven for either perfection or luck. Yes, numbers like three and five have their positive associations; but number seven pretty well takes the cake for association with perfection or luck.

Generally, when I speak to audiences about markets, there is seldom a time that goes by when I don't mention the importance of paying attention to seasonal influence, especially for corn and soybeans. Not only has the seasonal influence for corn and soybean prices been...

Farming is in our family's genes, but this time of year, we can be found in our well-worn jeans at the annual county 4-H fair.

Dandelions may be a sure sign of summer, but for me, the pretty yellow blooms are also a yearly reminder of one of my Gran's grand schemes.

DEBRIS TRAP (Editor's Choice):

We had a heifer we had to pull a calf from. We started to milk her to give the calf colostrum, and her bag was hot and hard, and the milk was a brown color. We thought we had an orphan and a cull cow on our hands. We figured the cow had mastitis. We gave the calf a...

I have a 570 New Holland twine baler. It seemed to be losing its twine on one side out of the twine disc whenever I tried making the twine tighter on the bale. I tightened the twine disc adjustment so that it would hold the twine tighter, but now the baler will not tie on...

Dietz Lankhorst's long journey back to Krone North America ended in January, when he was named president and CEO of the hay and forage equipment manufacturer, based in West Memphis, Tennessee.

During the course of working day in and day out with family farms and ranches in transitions, we spend significant time talking about structure and strategy. Structure has to do with the way the farm or ranchland, the equipment, livestock and other assets are owned...

Japanese beetles are the insect bullies of the corn and soybean field. The oafish beetles make a big show by mostly munching around field edges, but when push comes to shove, they don't always inflict enough damage to be economic.