NMC Blog

Mark your calendars — the NMC 48th Annual Meeting will be held January 25-28, 2009 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Nicknamed the “Queen City”, Charlotte is named in honor of Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg, who had become queen consort of King George III the year before the city’s founding. Thanks to its mid-Atlantic location, getting to Charlotte is easy from anywhere in the country or world, garnering another nickname, the “International Gateway to the South”.

The NMC meeting will follow a similar format as past NMC meetings. Sunday, January 25, will feature a pre-conference symposium and short courses. Monday will be filled with committee meetings and short courses. The annual poster session will be held Monday and Tuesday, while the main general session will be held Tuesday and Wednesday, January 27-28.

Mark your calendars and plan to join us in Charlotte! The meeting offers a host of educational opportunities, while the city and state offer recreation and relaxation. Learn and have fun at the same time!

All NMC members have online access to the papers presented during the general session at the NMC Regional Meeting, August 12-13, 2008 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. To view the papers, login to the ‘members only’ section of the NMC website, and go to the online proceedings library. All NMC members who did not attend the meeting will also be mailed a printed copy of the proceedings.

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A special seminar for Spanish-speaking farm employees involved in the milking process will be held during the upcoming NMC Regional Meeting, August 12-13 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

The seminar, “Milking is a Specialist’s Job”, scheduled for Wednesday, August 13 from 9:30 am – 12:30 pm, will be taught entirely in Spanish. Subjects discussed will be related to milk production basics, its harvest and efficiency, and cow management in the parlor. Participants will gain an understanding of the factors that affect parlor throughput and quality of milk harvested. [Read more here.]

Nominations for the National Dairy Quality Awards are currently being accepted. Now in its 15th year, the program is designed to honor dairy producers from across the United States who produce milk of the highest quality. The deadline for nominations is September 10, 2008. [Read more.]

Registration for this summer’s NMC Regional Meeting, scheduled for August 12-13, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, is now open. The conference begins with short courses and a farm tour on Tuesday, August 12. An evening reception will be held at legendary Lambeau Field, with an optional Lambeau Field tour available.

The main general session program will be held all day on Wednesday, August 13. The theme of the program,” Heat, Humidity and High Quality Milk: Tackling the Summertime Blues”, will focus on topics related to managing the environment, the cow and the people involved with preventing mastitis and producing quality milk.

New this year — NMC will offer a special seminar for Spanish-speaking farm employees who are involved in the milking process. The seminar, to be held on Wednesday, August 13 from 9:30 am – 12:30 pm, will be taught entirely in Spanish. Instructors are native Spanish speakers with experience in training milking personnel.

[Program and registration details.]

Applications are now being accepted for the NMC Scholars Program. Successful applicants will receive a travel scholarship to attend the 48th NMC Annual Meeting, January 25-28, 2009, in Charlotte, North Carolina. A maximum of four scholarships will be awarded. At least two scholarship recipients will be graduate students at a university or college outside of the United States and Canada. The application deadline is July 31, 2008. [Read more here.]

The theme for this year’s NMC Regional Meeting is “Heat, Humidity and High Quality Milk – Beating the Summertime Blues“. The conference will cover new information and topics relative to managing the environment, the cow, and the people involved with the processes of producing quality milk and preventing mastitis. The agenda also will include specialized short courses, a farm tour, and a reception at Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers. A special session for Spanish-speaking farm employees also will be featured.

Mark your calendars and plan to join us August 12-13 at the Hotel Sierra (formerly the Regency Suites) in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Complete program and registration details will be posted on the website in mid-June.

During 2007, the average SCC in U.S. herds enrolled in Dairy Herd Improvement (DHI) somatic cell testing was 276,000. This compares to 288,000 in 2006 and 296,000 in 2005.

A majority of states (27) had lower average SCC than last year; 21 states had higher. Variation among states was large. State average SCC’s were often lower than the national average in the Northeast, upper Midwest, and the far West and higher in the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Central states, a finding consistent with previous reports.

The current SCC limit in the U.S. is 750,000. The SCC limit in many other major dairy countries is 400,000. The percentages of herd test days that exceeded 400,000, 500,000, 600,000, and 750,000 during 2007 were 24%, 13.4%, 7.6% and 3.5%, respectively. This percentage may overestimate the percentage of herds that shipped milk exceeding the legal limit for bulk tank SCC on test day because the milk of cows treated for mastitis is excluded from the bulk tank even though included in DHI test data.

As herd size increased, average daily milk generally increased, and average SCC declined until herd size exceeded 3,000 cows. For herds with less than 50 cows, the percentage of test days with SCC over 750,000 was 5.9%. It occurred on only 2.0% and 1.3% of the test days for herds with 50 to 99 and 100 to 149 cows, respectively, and averaged 0.7% of the test days for the remaining large herds.

[Read the details here.]

National Dairy Quality Award (NDQA) winners were announced during the awards luncheon at the NMC 47th Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Top honors went to Platinum recipients Emily, Glenn and Jon Beller, Carthage, New York; Dick Brokish, Hollandale, Wisconsin; Lowell and Karen Davenport, Ancramdale, New York; Randy and Cindy Dragt, Howard City, Michigan; Pete and John Kappelman, Manitowoc, Wisconsin; and Dean and Patti Tohl, Tillamook, Oregon.

You can read about the Platinum winners, along with the Gold and Silver winners (and their nominators) here. Results of the awards program were also published in the January 10, 2008 issue of Hoard’s Dairyman magazine.

Herman Barkema, University of Calgary, and Liliana Sotomayor, a dairy consultant from Ecuador, joined the NMC board of directors following the 47th NMC Annual Meeting, held January 20-23, in New Orleans, Louisiana. They replace retiring board members Joe Hogan, The Ohio State University, and Ken Leslie, University of Guelph.

NMC board members elected Larry Fox, Washington State University, to serve as president; Norm Schuring, WestfaliaSurge Inc., as first vice president; Pamela Ruegg, University of Wisconsin-Madison, as second vice president; Eric Hillerton, DairyNZ, as secretary; and David Reid, BouMatic, as treasurer. [Read more here.]

List of Board Members