In speaking with many of you across our region lately—whether you're in the dairy, livestock, or field crops sectors—I've heard a theme: everything costs more, and margins feel tighter than ever.

Following the challenging weather of the 2025 growing season, many dairy farms are facing tight forage inventories and looking to 2026 to rebuild forage supplies. The current economic conditions of escalating input costs and tight milk prices increase the difficulty of accomplishing this goal. Despite all of this, farms can still look for the best practices to achieve their forage inventory goals.

It's no secret that last year's spring was a particularly cold and wet one. While it seems like this spring should be warming up and drying out sooner than last year, it's still important that we know how to stay flexible in chaotic conditions and make the right management decisions for our short and long-term goals.

Knowing that we will likely continue to experience volatile N pricing, coupled with less than stellar commodity prices, it's a critical time to evaluate your nutrient management strategy. So,what can you do to maintain your crop yields while also protecting your bottom line?

March 2026 has been wet, hovering around 150 percent of normal precipitation for much of New York. While this has some manure storages approaching or exceeding their operational capacity, it is critical to follow the prohibited spreading conditions within the CAFO permit and spreading plans in your CNMP. 

Check out this spring forage checklist from Joe Lawrence as we fly into spring and the upcoming growing season. 

As last year has certainly shown most of us, water is one of the biggest drivers of success or stress in a cropping system. Not only is it difficult to manage something so unpredictable, but sometimes the things you do to keep water in your fields during a drought are the same things that can turn the field into a muddy mess for weeks. 

I participated in Cornell Workforce Development's Lean Management for Dairy workshop in February. Lean Management, often referred to simply as "Lean", is a methodology frequently used in the business world to add value, maximize efficiency, and trim waste. How can applying principles of Lean Management work for the dairy industry in southwestern New York, and what could taking a Lean approach mean for your business?

The EPA has approved federal registration of three over-the-top dicamba products in soybeans. While dicamba has remained on the market, this is approval specifically for OTT use, marking the strongest environmental protections for dicamba products. 

Every day, you are having to filter through data from consultants, salesmen, newsletter articles, and winter program presentations about possible best management practices that could be implemented on your farm or certain products. An important skill for making these decisions is being able to interpret research data, ensuring that its scientifically supported.

A follow up article to "Drones in Agriculture" in October 2024, this article dives into the opportunities to integrate drones into spray programs.

Custom manure applicators who have registered as Third Party CAFO Land Appliers under 6 NYCRR Part 361-2.3(c) with New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) are required to submit an annual report each year no later than March 1.