The 2018 Beef Improvement Federation (BIF) meetings were recently held in Loveland, CO, with over 600 people in attendance. This year’s meeting marked the 50th anniversary of BIF. With this milestone came an opportunity to reflect back on accomplishments made and given thought relative to the direction of activities going forward. One opportunity that was raised throughout several talks during the meeting was the need to collect phenotypes that are economically relevant but have largely only been collected in research settings.

August to early September is a time when some producers are planting various annual forages or cover crop mixtures for fall forage. This typically includes non-winter hardy small grain cereals such as oats and spring varieties of triticale, barley, or wheat. Brassicas such as turnips, rape, or kale can be mixed with these small grain cereal grasses. Most brassicas have high energy content even when mature and tend to maintain their quality later into the winter than the small grain cereal grasses.

Livestock producers have many of the same risk management insurance needs as crop producers. Price and market uncertainties pose a significant risk to cattle producers with a substantial amount of money invested in breeding livestock, land, and other infrastructure. Price protection through the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) futures contracts can introduce financial burdens in the form of margin calls and may not be a good option for many smaller-scale producers.

Open cattle feedlots combined with hot and drier summer conditions can often times lead to periods of increased dust issues that can become a nuisance. Observations suggest that the worst time for dust to develop is during the late afternoon and at dusk when the temperature begins to drop and wind speed decreases. This is when cattle that have been resting during the hotter part of the day, become more active. This activity creates increased dust that hangs in the cooler evening air.