Show county agents j column other things being equal utah dairy farmers will do well to main tain straight bred herds in prefer ence to crossbred or dual purpose cattle that is the essence of the latest bulletin published by utah state agricultural college exten s on service entitled dairy breeds and returns on dairy farms summit county utah the bulletin prepared by lyman H rich extension dairyman dee A broadbent former axtens on ec gnomist and E L guymon sum mit county agricultural agent re ported the find of a compre hens ve study of production and profits on dairy farms in summit which was selected as a typical dairy county dairymen owning herds of dairy cattle in summit county lost approximately worth of milk sales in a single year be cause of maintaining low prodoc ing cows most of which were cross bleds the bulletin states the survey showed that the straight bred jersey guernsey and holstein herds averaged 63 pound butterfat higher than crossbred herds and produced 87 pounds butterfat higher than the dual purpose or shorthorn tow the data shows that 53 percent of the herds and 49 percent of the cows were in the crossbred or mix ed herds the 61 jersey cows in 43 herds showed the highest aver age with pounds of butterfat sold per cow ranked second with a to total al of pounds of butterfat holsters sold per er cow the fat sales for holsters Hol stems in summit coun ty averaged only pounds per cow sold only ibs lbs fat per cow while shorthorns the dual purpose were lowest with pounds summit county herds average about 15 cows so on an average farm the owner of the crossbred herd realized less gross in come from butterfat sales than the dairyman with an average straight brel herd in a 10 year period this difference in income reaches the astonishing total of 9 a farm after expenses of operating the farms were deducted from total re the net farm income on farms with straight bred cows was approximately 1000 per farm per i year greater than the net income on farms with crossbred and dual purpose cows expenses of operation on the farms with the dual purpose cows were considerably less than for the other two groups and conse the farm income received was greater than that received on farms with crossbred cows in other words the time of the operator spent working and mana ging farms with straight bred cows was worth more than twice as much as the time of the operator who was producing milk with the crossbred cows the bulletin also points out that it is more profitable for farmers running dairy herds to own larger herds that is to specialize in dair ying for every day spent working with the dairy enterprise on farms with highest production 17 51 was realized compared to 1040 per day on low producing farms it is interesting to note that the third of the farms with the highest production also had the largest herds one of the big advantages of large herds comes in efficient u utilization of labor average labor earning for the most profitable group was compared with for the least profitable group a difference of percent the most profitable farms were larger than the average with 30 6 cows per farm compared with 19 3 cows for all farms and 12 32 8 cows in the least profitable group so far as is known here this is the first time such a study of straight bred vs crossbred and the dual purpose cattle has ever been conducted anywhere copies of the publication exten sion bulletin number may be obtained from the office of county agricultural agents or by writing to the extension service in logan certified grain growers in utah were urged by the utah cr crop op im provement pro association to exercise care in harvesting to prevent broken kernels seed certification regulations a al low for a maximum tolerance for inert material of three percent in eluding cracked kernels the asso elation reported growers were advised that for gram grain not to exceed three percent inert material proper cylinder speed and concave adjustment are necessary last year several lots of seed gram grain could not be certified be cause of excess percentage of bro ken seed the association reported more time and care in harvesting will pay dividend divi dens to certified seed grain growers the crop improve ment officials advised |