If you're supplementing phosphorus in a typical Wisconsin dairy diet, you're probably feeding too much of the mineral. Cutting back on supplementation won't hurt production or herd health, and you'll be doing a favor for water quality, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and the USDA Dairy Forage Research Center. Milk prices account for more than half the cash receipts of Wisconsin farmers, and the low prices are putting more and more farms under financial stress. Unless milk prices improve, the state's farm economy could face big problems in coming years, he says. But they might buy even more if they knew the flowers would last longer once they were cut.
Help is in the works.
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers want to breed cut flowers that hold their beauty longer. The horticulturists have found that several genes determine how long cut flowers remain attractive, and they are focusing on one plant trait linked to longer-lived cut flowers. 21 or 22 High school juniors and seniors, their parents, and other prospective students are invited to visit the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and see if the Farm and Industry Short Course will meet their needs. Fires in boreal forests can dwarf those that ravaged the West in 2000 University of Wisconsin-Madison forest scientists are heading into Canada to determine how fires in the great boreal forest alter its uptake and release of carbon dioxide. Their findings will help policymakers understand the region's role in global warming.