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Trial, error, success Klaphakes have been organic farming for 20 years
By Jan Lefebvre jan.l@star-pub.com
MELROSE, Minn. –
Twenty-four years ago, when Neal and Karen Klaphake decided to transition their dairy farm to organic, Karen had one request for her husband.
“I told him, ‘Just don’t tell my family. They’re going to really think we’re weird,’” Karen said.
Today, the Klaphakes have traversed varying opinions of organic production and now milk 80 Holsteins in a double-8 parabone parlor on their 260-acre farm south of Melrose.
When the Klaphakes began converting their crop ground, the initial results looked unpromising.
“We had our doubts,” Neal said. “The rst couple years, our elds looked tough.”
Karen agreed.
“We had some pretty ugly corn,” she said. “We didn’t know much about organic back then. There was very little of it.”
One day during a dry year in the middle of the Klaphakes’ transition, an agrono- mist was checking one of their corn elds, and Neal asked him how he thought the eld would do for yields.
“The guy said, ‘About 26 bushels an acre,’ and I thought, ‘Holy cow,’ Neal said. “I asked how his corn was doing, and I think he said it was about 110. I wasn’t very proud.”
A denite learning curve was present.
“We didn’t have anything gured out yet,” Karen said. “There weren’t a lot of people then who could guide you. We were organic when organic wasn’t cool.”
The next generation of the family is following suit.
Neal and Karen’s son and daughter-in-law, Nick and Hope Klaphake, milk 80 Holsteins on their organic farm down the road, and their daughter and son-in-law, Carlee and Jacob Gaebel, have an organic dairy farm northwest of Melrose. Three daughters –Samantha, Apryl and Crystal – live off-farm, but they and their families come by to help or visit. Their youngest son, Josh, who graduated from high school last year, wants to take over the home farm.
It is safe to say the Klaphake family has embraced the organic movement.
“It’s been very rewarding,” Neal said. “Sometimes the family gets together, and
