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Droughty Blues

I love listening to my dad tell stories.  He was born in 1925, literally “on the farm”  near Ramona, KS. He was raised on the farm, became a farmer.  He remembers the “dirty thirties” as a young boy……1934 and 1936 were especially hot, dry, dusty years, he related to me.  My grandmother would take wet rags and place them on the window sills to keep the dust out of the house during those dust storms.  Grasshopper plagues of biblical proportions occurred as well.  The roads were covered with them so heavy as to make them “greasy” when you ran them over.  They covered osage orange (hedge) fence posts and chewed off the rough spots…..so much so that the posts looked slick as glass. Pitchfork and shovel handles shared the same fate.  While the 1930’s were an economically tough time, it was especially so for farmers and ranchers due to the widespread, long term drought.

The  “filthy fifties” (1950s) saw several years, in mom and dad’s early farming days and married lives, that were equally as bad.  Particularly in 1955 and 1956, when many Kansas farmers switched from growing corn to grain sorghum (milo), as it supposedly had better drought resistance.  Dad sold his cows in 1956; no feed, hay, or pasture remained.

I myself remember very well that 1980, 1983, and 1988 were exceptionally dry and hot.  The summer of 1980 had several weeks of oppressively hot weather and  no measurable rain for about 90 days.

Oklahoma and Texas, as well as southwest KS experienced exceptional drought last year, and many areas in those states are suffering from the same malady in 2012.  Even northeast KS, where we live, has experienced 18 days in a row (and counting) of days over 100 degrees with little or no rain (0.25″ since June 30th).

What does all this have to do about Angus cattle and beef quality?  Everything!  As many farmers and ranchers pare down herds to match with available feed supplies and high supplement prices for the winter season, it becomes even more critical that we use every available tool to select the replacement females that will do it all for us in every department.  Scaling back has it’s advantages, in that we can become more “lean and mean” with our pool of genetics.

What better time than now to take advantage of DNA technology and test females using the newest tool on the market: GeneMax!

GeneMax will give you another tool in your box to make those final keep/cull decisions.  Why not use it?  For $ 17.00 per head, it is one of the cheapest DNA tests on the market.  It will give you a score for yearling gain and marbling, with the latest addition (at no extra charge) of sire i.d. if those sires were Pfizer 50K tested.  This is a great bargain, and a great way to steer your genetics toward cattle that meet a higher quality endpoint at harvest that puts more money in your pocket.

Don’t let yourself get those “Droughty Blues”!  Seize the opportunity and use GeneMax to hasten your way to higher returns to your business!

~Gary

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