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Agriculture This Week: Farming always evolving

When you have grown up on a farm in the 1960s and ‘70s it is almost beyond belief the changes in farming we see today. 

It was a mixed farm for me, and that meant pigs and grain. 

In my youth I hauled a lot of ground grain to feed the pigs using cleaned five-gallon pails that originally were filled with some weed spray, or another. 

Looking back over some 40-years it seems like it was such a crazy thing, but repurposing the pails was pretty standard. I’m pretty sure potatoes came from the garden to the cellar bin in similar pails. 

Of course I clearly recall Dad taking plugged nozzles off the sprayer, his gloves getting soaked in the process, and then simply blowing out the nozzle with his breath. 

Knowing what we do now it’s a wonder what health problems were caused in a time we didn’t know better, or were reluctant to change. Dad lived to a considerable age, his heart giving out one day, but one wonders. 


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Measuring Methane Emissions From Cattle with Unique Technologies

Video: Measuring Methane Emissions From Cattle with Unique Technologies

PhD Student Madison Kindberg, and Air Quality Specialist and Professor, Dr. Frank Mitloehner explain the unique Cattle Pen Enclosures and how they will capture emissions from cattle using state of the art technology. The enclosures are well equipped with one-way airflow fans, smart scales, and smart feeds that can tell you what an animal ate, when they ate and how much they ate. All enclosures are connected to one mobile air quality lab which uses gas monitors and analyzers to collect precision data. This data will be used to determine if an early-life methane reducing bolus can reduce emissions from cattle long-term.