June 24, 2023 Dairy Star - 1st section - Zone 1

Read our Past, Present, Future feature starting on page 13 of the 2nd section!

DAIRY ST R25

“All dairy, all the time”™

Dry days of spring carry into summer

Flash drought causing problems for area farmers

By Jan Lefebvre jan.l@star-pub.com

SPRING GROVE, Minn.

– Darin Bratland was 6 years old when the drought of 1976 hit his family’s farm. He was a teenager when an even bigger one made its mark in 1988.

“I do remember the talk about the centennial year being really dry, but the summer of 1988 between my junior and senior years of high school, I can remember how bad it was,” Bratland said. “Then we just baled hay; we didn’t make any

MARK KLAPHAKE/DAIRY STAR

baleage. Basically, we got a rst crop of hay and that was about it.”

However, Bratland said he does not remember ever experiencing such a fast and early drought like the one that arrived this May.

“For this time of the year, nothing (in the past) has been even close,” Bratland said June 13. “This is by far the driest.”

Bratland and his brother Duron milk 110 cows near Spring Grove in southeastern Minnesota. They also farm 525 acres of corn, 320 acres of soybeans, 111 established hay ground acres and

60 acres of new direct-seeding alfalfa. They pasture milk cows, heifers and most youngstock.

“Pastures have really changed this week; they had been pretty good until the last week whereas they are not recovering now and turning around,” Bratland said. “As far as the crops, no-till soybeans, if we even have a 60% stand, that would be it. I don’t think the soybeans that aren’t coming are dead; they just haven’t germinated yet. I think if we’d get rain, they’d still come out of the ground.”

Minnesota assistant state climatologist Pete Boulay calls this spring’s sudden drought a ash drought.

“We’re getting used to these ash droughts now,” Boulay said. “We had a really sharp drought, a deep drought, in 2021 in the north (Minnesota). Then

DJ Hemmesch checks his soybean eld June 17 at his dairy farm near Albany, Minnesota. Dry condi ons have made for patchy germina on in parts of his elds. Turn to DROUGHT | Page 7

Expanding the dairy market in Southeast Asia Krause visits Singapore through USDEC

By Jan Lefebvre jan.l@star-pub.com

BUFFALO, Minn. – Until this spring, Charles Krause had never left his dairy farm near Buffalo for more than six days in a row. However, June 1 he traveled for two days to reach Southeast Asia with seven dairy farmers from across the U.S.

The group was on a weeklong learning mission to see what the Center for Dairy Excellence in Singapore was doing to promote U.S. dairy exports. The center is part of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, funded primarily through checkoff dollars through Dairy Management Inc.

Krause, who milks 350 cows and farms 500 acres near Buffalo, said the trip had been in the making ever since the center rst opened its doors.

“The center actually opened up through (the coronavirus pandemic), and we’ve tried for three years to arrange this,” Krause

said. “We nally were able to get some farmers over there to see it in person. The center had been running for those three years –about a dozen people work out of the ofce there or call it their homebase.”

Krause, chair of Midwest Dairy’s corporate board, serves as secretary on the national board of dairy farmers through United Dairy Industries Association of which Midwest Dairy has six seats. The board makes up part of the larger national board for DMI.

Having an exports promotion center in Singapore offers several benets for promoting dairy.

“Sixty-ve percent of the world’s population is in the Pacic rim – going from China, India and Southeast Asia – so we thought that would be a good place to start to have a presence on the ground,” Krause said.

“Four of our top 10 export markets are in Southeast Asia for U.S. dairy.”

Julian Cardona of DFA (from le ), dairy farmer Charles Krause, Victor Kan of DFA, and dairy farmers Larry Hancock, Alex Peterson and Kate Fogler gather June 5 at the Dairy Farmers of America Inc. Singapore headquarters. DFA hosted a weeklong learning tour to showcase its Center for Dairy Excellence in Singapore, which works to promote and increase U.S. dairy exports in Southeast Asia.

In Southeast Asia, the USDEC currently focuses on the

Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia out of the Singapore

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Letters

Class III milk prices have slipped into the high $15 level, causing problems for the entire dairy industry. AgResource Company president Dan Basse said it is a demand issue: “It’s really a problem in the whey market; China has not shown up for whey and that’s been leaning on price.” European butter imports into the United States have also surged. The combination has brought milk prices to their lowest level in a year and a half. Basse said the dairy industry is not in a good place. “The big problem would be if feed prices rocket to the upside due to a weather problem,” Basse said. “The only helpful aspect is that the price of beef is at a record high. That’s giving the cull cow market some opportunity.”

USDA drops milk production forecast

According to the June U.S. Department of Agriculture supply demand report, the 2023 milk production forecast is down from the previous month due to slower than previously expected growth in the amount of milk per cow. The annual production estimate is 228.4 billion pounds, down 200 million pounds from the May report. The forecast for 2024 milk production was left unchanged.

Dairy industry quanties its economic impact

The International Dairy Food Association has released its latest economic impact study. The report said the U.S. dairy industry’s economic impact totaled nearly $794 billion and is responsible for 3.2 million jobs. An additional 60,000 new jobs were created in the past two years.

Changes proposed for DMC update

Improvements are being recommended for the Dairy Margin Coverage program in a bill titled the Dairy Farm Resiliency Act. This bill would require the USDA to update the production history calculation every ve years and be based on the higher production year out of the last three years. The proposal also increases the Tier 1 threshold from 5 million pounds to 6 million pounds to reect how the average herd size has risen since the 2018 farm bill. New York Republican Marc Molinaro introduced this bill.

Smith seeks to maintain milk options

Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst have sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, urging USDA to continue to allow non-fat and low-fat avored milk in schools. The letter said a decision to remove avored milk could “have devastating effects on student’s consumption of essential nutrients and their ability to learn in the classroom.”

Wolf delisting bill introduced

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Dairy leaders travel to Singapore

A delegation of U.S. dairy leaders traveled to Southeast Asia to visit the U.S. Center for Dairy Excellence. This Singapore-based education hub opened in 2020, but the in-person visit was delayed for three years due to the pandemic. Southeast Asia is the second largest market for U.S. dairy exports on a volume and value basis. The center is used to educate potential buyers about U.S. dairy ingredients through training and customer engagement. There were a dozen dairy leaders on the trip, including Charles Krause of Buffalo, Minnesota.

Dairy innovation grants available

USDA is making $23 million in grant funds available for the Dairy Business Innovation program. This program supports the expansion of processing capacity, on-farm improvements and technical assistance for dairy farmers. The application process continues until Aug. 10.

Dealing with difcult times

Doud to succeed Mulhern at NMPF

The National Milk Producers Federation board of directors has unanimously voted to name Gregg Doud as its next president and CEO. Doud will succeed Jim Mulhern, who is retiring at the end of the year. Doud was the chief agricultural trade negotiator during the Trump administration. Doud is now with Aimpoint Research. Previously, the Kansas native was president of the Commodity Markets Council, chief economist for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee professional staff.

Wagner moves to IDFA

The International Dairy Foods Association has named Roberta Wagner as its senior vice president of regulatory and scientic affairs. Wagner succeeds Joseph Scimeca, who announced his retirement earlier this year. Wagner comes to IDFA from Consumer Brands Association, formerly known as the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

Anti-BST activist passes

Longtime activist, Ronnie Cummins, 76, has died. Cummins and his wife, Rose Welch, founded the Organic Consumers Association in Finland, Minnesota, in 1998. Before that, Cummins worked with environmental activist Jeremy Rifkin to oppose recombinant bovine somatotropin. He continued his battle against BST after establishing the Organic Consumers Association. In 2008, Cummins was quoted as saying BST “is bad for dairy cows, literally burning them out in three or four years.” Biotechnology was another frequent target for Cummins.

Trivia challenge

It takes 10 pounds of milk to make 1 pound of cheese. That answers our last trivia question. For this week’s trivia, how many pounds of whole milk are needed to produce 1 pound of ice cream? We will have the answer in our next edition of Dairy Star.

Don Wick is owner/broadcaster for the Red River Farm Network, based in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Wick has been recognized as the National Farm Broadcaster of the Year and served as president of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting. Don and his wife, Kolleen, have two adult sons, Tony and Sam, and ve grandchildren, Aiden, Piper, Adrienne, Aurora and Sterling.

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Con nued from USDEC | Page 1

site. In that market, Krause said, the Philippines accounts for the biggest share of U.S. dairy exports at 31%, followed by Indonesia at 27%, Vietnam at 17% and Malaysia at 12%.

“With a large population base there and a growing economy, people have money, and they want to buy good protein and dairy products,” Krause said. “In Southeast Asia alone, there are 600 million people – consumers – very much a growing demographic that we want to reach with U.S. dairy.”

A goal for U.S. dairy exporters is to compete with New Zealand and Australia, which have historically garnered the lion’s share of dairy export business in that area.

“The U.S. has always played second ddle to Australia and New Zealand,” Krause said. “One-third of the population in Southeast Asia is 14 years old and younger. If we can get (U.S. dairy) in their lives when they are younger, hopefully it will follow them through their lives. We want them to not buy from Australia, New Zealand or even the European Union.”

The USDEC was formed around 26 years ago and has since found gradual success in increasing exports.

“At that point, we were basically exporting nothing – 3% – and now last year we were at 18%,” Krause said. “Nearly one out of every ve days of milk is exported out of this country.”

The Center for Dairy Excellence was built in Singapore for a reason. It is the biggest shipping-container port in the world, largely because of its location and its free-trade status.

“We spent a whole day touring (Port Singapore Authority), and it’s amazing the number of ships and amount of cargo that comes in and out of that country every day,” Krause said. “Thirty-seven million containers a year go through that port. It’s a free-trade zone, so it’s very attractive for businesses to avoid paying tariffs on some things and to move their product in and out. The port is very business-friendly.”

Krause compared the large ship trafc there to the few 1,000-foot cargo ships he has seen at Lake Superior in Duluth on a given day.

“As far as you can see (in the port of Singapore), you can’t see the end of the ships coming,” Krause said. “It’s hundreds and hundreds of ships all along the whole coast, coming and going all day long.”

Center for Dairy Excellence staff hope to increase the amount of U.S. dairy coming to port on those ships. The building offers three prongs for achieving this.

The rst is a test kitchen where products are developed, tailored to taste preferences of Southeast Asian consumers.

“We got to sample some of those,” Krause said. “A lot of the things we are exporting are powder products – whole milk, skim milk powder, whey protein isolates. One of the things they are exploring is using milk permeate, which we never really knew existed 15 years ago. They’re using this as a replacement for salt in a lot of the foods.”

Krause said Southeast Asian government entities and consumers, especially in Singapore where the population is older, are salt-conscious with their diets.

“They are able to use permeate and eliminate a lot of the salt but still maintain that same taste prole,” Krause said.

As products are developed, the second prong of the center, a product-feedback lab, is utilized. There consumers are brought in to try the products, recording their assessments of taste, appearance, texture and other aspects of each product.

Some of the products receiving good feedback are three-in-one foods and beverages that are popular now in Asia. Consumers seem to favor a balance of taste and health, especially valuing added protein, so the center is trying to add more of that to products.

Two such products Krause and his group sampled were a honey-ginger-milky beverage and a protein-malty-hot chocolate. Krause said, although they were not

necessarily to his taste, he still liked them.

The third prong of the center is its offering of meeting spaces for bringing in buyers and other groups to experience the center’s product developments and make connections with the center’s team.

“You can’t just have a great dairy product and expect people to buy it unless there is human interaction and you have a relationship,” Krause said. “That’s why we found importance in getting the Center for Dairy Excellence open and having people work on our behalf, being a voice for the American dairy farmers.”

The center even brings in members of the Southeast Asian culinary communities and demonstrates to them how to use U.S. dairy products in various dishes and cuisine.

“Having the Center for Dairy Excellence over there gives the ability to bring in all kinds of different customers,” Krause said. “It could be restaurants, hotels, suppliers to grocery stores and others. We want to reach them and show them the capabilities that U.S. dairy has and show them how we can be an assistance to them, giving them the technical backing that they need and answering their questions.”

Krause and his group also visited a few grocery stores there and saw U.S. cheese on the shelves, primarily from California and the West Coast.

The center’s team has been working to change the old image of U.S. dairy as being too inconsistent in product ow, making it risky for overseas buyers to contract with.

“It used to be 10 to 15 years ago, whenever we had too much milk, we’d dump all this powder on the world,” Krause said. “We were known as an unreliable source as to consistent export markets, and some people were leery about teaming with us because we would only sell stuff if we had too much. That is not who we are anymore; now we are a consistent supplier of sustainably produced dairy products.”

Even if dairy is exported from areas not in the Midwest, Krause said it is a benet for all U.S. dairy farmers.

“If California doesn’t export the majority of their product, it gets put on the domestic market, and we can’t consume all that,” Krause said. “It clears the way for our (Midwest) products to go to other parts of the country.”

Krause said the overall goal is for steady, continuous growth in the export market.

“Ninety-six percent of the world’s population is not in the United States, so we have to go beyond and access the people around the world,” Krause said. “Dairy farmers are very good at what we do. We produce a sustainable, nutritious product, and every year we produce a little bit more. It’s almost a linear line, 1% to 2% more every year, and we need to nd value-added markets and to move that.”

PHOTO SUBMITTED

Port Singapore Authority handles many containers June 5 on the shore of Singapore as the largest cargo-container port in the world. Almost all U.S. dairy exports going to Southeast Asia pass through the port.

in 2022, we had a drought in southwestern Minnesota through the Twin Cities, so it shifted a bit, but it was still a pretty severe drought in both situations. The plus side of it is that, in both, we got completely bailed out.”

Boulay said it was like starting from scratch again in 2023 with the winter snow and early rains, but, in a ash, that changed.

“Now we’re getting dry again, and there’s no way to predict way out in advance what is going to happen,” Boulay said. “Who will get the rain? That’s the key, but it’s really hard to predict where it will fall.”

Near Albany, in the central part of Minnesota, DJ Hemmesch is seeing dry elds and pastures on his farm where he milks 68 cows and raises 38 head of beef cows.

“There’s a lot of mouths that have to get fed; we’re going to have to come up with all the silage,” Hemmesch said. “With the snowfall we had, the rain this early spring and not much frost in the ground, the moisture went down into the ground. The early corn that was planted looks really nice because the roots went down and are getting moisture, but the later corn was planted in dry ground and just didn’t germinate. I have not seen it this dry this early.”

Soybeans are struggling as well.

“We’ve got a lot of beans lying in dry ground yet not germinating,” Hemmesch said. “We had three- to four-tenths inches of rain May 9; after that, we’ve had just a few traces of rain, not much.”

Hemmesch said pastures are dry and meadows are short. He has begun adjusting feed.

“I just had to start feeding the beef cows; I take a bale of hay a day for them,” Hemmesch said. “With the earlier rain we got, (the pasture land) took off fairly good, but now it’s getting pretty skimpy, but the thistles still like to grow in the dry.”

The alfalfa, he said, is coming back, but he does not expect decent tonnage with the second cutting. Where he has newly seeded alfalfa, a lot of seed has not germinated yet.

“If it rains, it could still help a lot,” Hemmesch said.

Some areas of Minnesota have avoided the drought altogether.

“It’s a big state, and it varies quite a bit,” Boulay said. “There are still a few people in Brown County who say we’ve had enough or please turn it off because they had their elds ooded with the heavy rains last month. The people who are in the best shape are on either side of the Minnesota River, one or two counties

on either side, because they had decent moisture this spring.”

Most of Minnesota, however, is far below normal for moisture.

“Once you get north of the Twin Cities, they didn’t get as much rain this spring, so they are farther behind,” Boulay said. “From basically far southeastern Minnesota, coming up through the Twin Cities and east central and much of central Minnesota, very little rain has fallen over the past month – less than an inch – so those are the areas that we’re most concerned about right now.”

Far southwestern Minnesota is part of a dry swath that goes up through the I-29 corridor of South Dakota, known for its higher concentration of dairy farms. Laura Edwards, state climatologist through the South Dakota State University Extension ofce, has been watching that area.

“Down in our southeastern area, we’ve seen expansion and increase in severity of drought,” Edwards said. “We’re keeping an eye on a lot of eastern South Dakota where we are approaching what I might call a tipping point toward more severe drought.”

Edwards said she has not heard of any stress on dairy herds since most farmers today have cooling protocols and systems in barns for such weather, but feed for dairy cattle is a concern.

“The hot temperatures have really accelerated (crop) impacts, and that mostly applies to the forage and feed situation,” Edwards said. “In that part of the state, we don’t see drought a lot. In 2021 and 2022, we saw some, but that was more of a slow, progressing, lingering drought. This one is progressing more rapidly.” Predictions for forage yields are looking less promising than most years.

“We’ve had rst-cutting alfalfa already, and it was decent, but looking in the southeastern area (of South Dakota) in particular, signs are already pointing toward lower yields for the year in general because rainfall in May and June really count a lot toward our forage production,” Edwards said. “May and June are our wettest months of the year, and we are falling far behind normal pretty quickly here.”

Near Spring Grove, Bratland said he has seen some bright spots.

“We’ve had a few teasers over the last week where we got a 10-minute sprinkle or just barely a dust settler – .2 inches at the most – but it seems like the corn has reacted to that,” Bratland said. “That has actually perked up the corn a little this week. Surprisingly, for the most part, it looks pretty good, not quite knee high.”

Another bit of hope came June 15

when the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center updated its predictions for the period of June 23-29. North Dakota and South Dakota and most of Minnesota were given a 33% to 40% chance of having above-normal precipitation. Most of Iowa, northeastern and southeastern Minnesota and all of Wisconsin were predicted to be receiving near normal precipitation in that same timeframe. However, the whole Upper Midwest is predicted to receive above normal temperatures, so evaporation

could be higher.

Meanwhile, Leo Schlangen, who has been dairy farming for 55 years near Richmond in central Minnesota, is taking a practical view.

“It’s very dry right now, but my dad always said, ‘If crops grow up dry, they get a good root system,’” Schlangen said. “Our crops came up so nice and aren’t hurting a whole lot yet. Our alfalfa is not so good, but I’m a person who’s always thankful for what I get. I don’t worry about what I don’t get.”

PHOTO SUBMITTED

A map released June 15 by the Na onal Weather Service shows above or near-normal rain predic ons for June 23-29 across the Upper Midwest. This could be hopeful news for farmers experiencing drought condi ons across the area.

PHOTO SUBMITTED

A U.S. Drought Monitor map released June 15 shows current dry condi ons across Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa. A ash drought in areas of the region is causing concerns for many farmers.

Malechas utilize family members’ talents

By Jan Lefebvre jan.l@star-pub.com

A place for everyone

chas also farm about 2,400 acres of alfalfa, soybeans and corn and raise their beef calves to sell when they are 6 months old.

VILLARD, Minn.

– June 15 found Todd and Louise Malecha traveling to Oklahoma from their dairy farm near Villard to look at a trailer.

The couple did not need to worry about the day’s operations on the farm struggling without them. With ve of their seven adult children and several of their children’s spouses running things at Malecha Enterprises, things were in good hands.

Louise said watching her children step into roles and grow the farm in recent years has been a highlight for her.

“I’m proudest of what my kids have become and what we have all done together,” Louise said.

June 15 was also the 25th anniversary to the day of when the Malechas rst began milking cows in their then newly built, double-16 parlor where they still milk today. Their herd now consists of 1,200 cows, mostly Holsteins, and the milk goes to First District Association in Litcheld. The Male-

Malecha Enterprises consists of other businesses outside the dairy farm as well. The family has custom chopping, custom baling and custom manure-pumping businesses. They also own a gravel pit and sell sand and other rock materials from it.

The farm’s evolution and expansion has made room for everyone’s strengths and talents.

“Todd and I were wearing a lot of ‘the hats,’” Louise said. “We had to bring the next generation in and let them take over leading and managing areas. How do you do that? People will gravitate to what they’re good at and to where their expertise is, and that’s what we’ve accomplished with our kids who are involved in the farm.”

Today, their sons, William and Jonathan Malecha, are operation managers. William serves as integrator and oversees the dairy as well as the cropping and custom chopping crew. Jonathan manages the shop, the custom baling and manure-pumping crews.

“They help each other,” Louise said.

Their daughter, Rebecca

Orr, manages calf care, and her sister, Katelynn Roelike, runs social media for the farm, including the Malechas’ YouTube channel. The youngest sibling, Robert Malecha, will enter his last year of college this fall where he is in the machine and tool program. On the farm, his skillset is already helping in that area.

“He is under William and Jonathan’s management,” Louise said. “He works in the eld and shop.”

The Malechas have large equipment and like to do their own manufacturing in their shop.

“We have built seven super hutches for our calves,” Louise said. “We also have manufac-

tured gears, sprockets and all kinds of stuff.”

The spouses of the Malechas’ children also play important roles. William’s wife, Emily, is Malecha Enterprises’ ofce manager, and Jonathan’s wife, Naomi, is nanny for Emily and Rebecca’s children. All

Turn

PHOTO SUBMITTED BY KATELYNN ROELIKE AT MALECHA ENTERPRISES

The Malecha family – Katelynn Roelike (from le ), Rebecca Orr, William Malecha, Emily Malecha, Todd Malecha, Louise Malecha, Jonathan Malecha and Robert Malecha – stand in front of their dairy in the summer of 2021 near Villard, Minnesota. The family milks 1,100 cows and farms close to 2,300 acres.

three women are expecting a child, which will bring the number of Todd and Louise’s grandchildren to 19.

Louise said the way the family business grew throughout the years was more organic than calculated. She said most ideas came from Todd, who is the head of nance for Malecha Enterprises. He also holds the title of “the visionary,” Louise said.

“He’d think of these ideas and create new things, get new things happening,” Louise said. “For instance, we had the gravel pit on the farm. Now we sell sand from there and assorted products. He comes up with ideas like that. At the end of the day, that is how you become what you are.”

Todd continues to come up with ideas. His latest is premium ice cream using cream, sugar, vanilla extract and no high fructose corn syrup or food coloring.

“We are looking into it,” Todd said. “We made around 170 containers of it, and it has been a lot of fun. We are just researching it at this point. Right now, it might be just a hobby that will turn into a business.”

The Malechas have embraced the idea of trying new things without fearing failure.

“We have always had a commitment to … constant and never-ending improvement,” Todd said. “We are far from perfect; for every success, there is a lot of failure right alongside it. We surely have not succeeded at everything we have done, but we just try to remain true to our values.”

When their oldest child was about 8 years old, the couple hit a crossroads, Louise said. They decided they were going to grow the dairy or stop milking cows altogether because milking in a tiestall barn was too labor intensive for their bodies. They considered different avenues, such as creating a at parlor or guring out how to rely on other income from the farm instead of dairy, but when they would start to make plans, something always came up to change their minds.

“It was like a telltale sign that that’s not the way we were supposed to go,” Louise said. “We then just started working toward building a bigger dairy.”

Once the parlor was built in 1998, other aspects of the farm grew fast.

“When we built the bigger dairy, we needed bigger equipment, so how were we going to pay for it?” Louise said. “Well, we did more custom work.”

Todd and his dad were already doing custom work, but now that part of their operation grew and continues to grow. They also bought a drag hose for pumping manure and expanded their pumping business. They added crews of workers on the road. The farm also needed more straw to bed the increased herd, so the Malechas looked for straw to buy and bale. When they baled straw in wheatelds in the western and northern parts of the state, they ended up buying extra to sell to other farmers.

“All these different things were a need for ourselves, and then we just created another line of income,” Louise said.

The couple rst met and married in 1989. Todd’s family had moved to the farm site when he was 9 years old, so he is the second generation there. Louise grew up on her family’s dairy farm to the north, just across the highway.

The pair did not know each other while growing up. Todd went to school in Villard, and Louise attended a private school started by a group of homeschooling parents.

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Adding unique value to cheese byproduct

Eight bolts later, it will look like it was born there. Legendary kernel processors for pull-type forage harvesters. Legendary dairy nutrition and profits. Turn a wrench and turn it loose.

Copper Crow Distillery creates whey-based spirits in Wisconsin

By Danielle Nauman danielle.n@dairystar.com

BAYFIELD, Wis. – When an injury brought forth the time for Curtis Basina to retire from his law enforcement career with the Wisconsin State Patrol, he was ready to look for a new place to direct his energy and interest. He found that in what would become the Copper Crow Distillery LLC near Bayeld.

“I have always enjoyed math and science,” Basina said of how he became interested in distilling. “Looking at it from a business standpoint, no one in the immediate area was doing any distillation. The Greater Bayeld Area is very highly visited with the national park.”

For several years, Basina and his wife, Linda, attended conferences on the topic of distilling and toured distilleries, wineries and breweries as they traveled.

“After a while, I told Linda no one was doing distillation here, and we saw it as an opportunity,” Basina said. “So, we made the investment, and six years later, here we are.”

For Basina, uniqueness is part of the intrigue in operating the distillery.

At a conference Basina attended in Seattle, Washington, Basina connected with course leader Rusty Figgins, who encouraged him to try something new and different in his distillations: creating spirits distilled from whey.

“Rusty grabbed me and took me off to the side and said, ‘You’re from Wisconsin, the dairy state; you need to look at doing something from dairy,’” Basina said. “He told me I needed to look at working specically with whey. He told me it wasn’t easy, and that it involved a lot of math and science, but he offered to get me going in a general direction. It wasn’t necessarily my rst choice, but I decided to give it a whirl.”

Distilling with whey is a complicated process, Basina said, because lactose sugar does not ferment well.

According to Basina, there are two ways to make lactose sugar ferment.

“There is a really expensive yeast that should be able to ferment all the available sugars; lactose

is composed of glucose and galactose,” Basina said. “The way we chose to do it is to hit that lactose sugar real hard with an enzyme and bust those sugars apart.”

Through a series of small-scale experiments, Basina determined what enzyme would most efciently accomplish the result he wished to achieve.

“We soon determined we could readily ferment the glucose, but the galactose did not want to ferment very well,” Basina said. “We accepted that and started up the experimentation to the point where we’re at now.”

To create the whey spirits, Basina procures his whey from Burnett Dairy in Grantsburg. He travels to the plant at least once a month and picks up three totes of whey on a trailer. The whey is pasteurized again by Burnett Dairy, eliminating a step for Basina.

Once the whey arrives at the distillery, Basina processes it, preparing it for fermentation.

“We cut it down slightly with water and heat it just to a temperature that the yeast likes,” Basina said. “The whey comes out of Burnett Dairy at about 48 degrees Fahrenheit, and the yeast doesn’t like to grow at that temperature. We heat it up to between 80 to 85 degrees, adjust the pH, add the enzymes. We separate three totes into four totes to allow for expansion from the fermentation. Then, we add the yeast.”

Once the whey goes through the rst segment of the distillation process, Basina said about 50 gallons will remain.

“Once we save enough from the stripping runs to charge the big still, then we will do the nish run and make very big cuts, keeping only the very best,” Basina said.

Currently, Basina is producing a whey gin and a whey vodka.

“By denition, vodka is supposed to be neutral –no smell, no taste – and it needs to come out of that still at 190-proof,” Basina said. “Gin is essentially the original avored vodka. We do a little bit different process to make gin than others do, but essentially, you are adding a bunch of botanicals and juniper because gin is supposed to have a juniper forward.”

Basina received a Dairy Business Builder Grant from the Dairy Business Innovation Alliance to help increase his whey-based distillation efforts into new products.

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DANIELLE NAUMAN/DAIRY STAR

Cur s Basina displays a batch of bi ers he is working on developing May 10 in Bayeld, Wisconsin. Basina is developing the bi ers as part of the Dairy Business Builder grant he received.

“The grant doesn’t cover our existing whey-based products, but we can use it to develop new products,” Basina said. “That is where we came up with the idea of aging some of the vodka and gin. We are producing an amaretto that uses whey and an aquavit. We are maybe going to try and do an absinthe and a coffee liqueur. One of the things we’re really excited about is using whey as a base spirit to make bitters.”

The Copper Crow Distillery is the rst Native American-owned distillery in the U.S., and the rst distillery to be located on tribal land, Basina said.

Basina grew up in nearby Washburn where his father was a teacher. Basina’s father, a tribal member, grew up on the Red Cliff Indian Reservation near Bayeld and was one of the rst tribal members to attend college. His wife is also an enrolled tribal member from Red Cliff and grew up in nearby Bayeld proper.

“We were living in Superior, and when I retired, we bought a house in Bayeld and some property in Red Cliff,” Basina said of how the distillery came to be located on tribal land. “We sold the house in town and built one in Red Cliff.”

When naming the newly launched distillery, Basina said he chose the name Copper Crow for a variety of reasons.

“Copper is a very useful metal

Val Schumann

35 years with DHIA

in the distilling process,” he said. … “It is also somewhat native to this area. Finally, it’s a little bit of a play on words, being I used to be a cop. If you know about crows and watch them for a while, they are extremely smart and very family-oriented. In our culture, they help us nd our way. The building was designed to somewhat resemble a crow, if you get back away from it. There is some really great lore that goes along with native culture and crows.”

DHIA PROFILE

What has been key to your longevity with DHIA? An appreciation for the members that we serve at Minnesota DHIA. I love working with them and the cows.

What is your current title and some of the jobs you do? I am the data ow manager. During my time with DHIA, I have done just about everything to do with the service to our members. Quality control, software support, putting data together for our annual summary, day-to-day processing of records, working with DairyComp 305 programmers to implement improvements and upgrades, relief testing and training. Currently, I am the main trainer for new eld techs.

What do you like about your role for DHIA? Getting on your farms and having that one-on-one interaction. When I have helped one of our members, and they tell me, “You’ve just made my day or my job easier.” Sharing what we offer to eld techs and members so they can implement changes or improvements.

What message would you like to send to the dairy farmers you work with? Thank you for allowing me to serve you. It’s been a fun, challenging, sometimes frustrating but always interesting job.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time? We enjoy getting away to property up north to relax. I enjoy deer hunting, gardening, reading, spending time with my grandkids, kids and other family members and napping; naps are good.

DHIA: Now MORE than ever

“Thank you for allowing me to serve you.”

DANIELLE NAUMAN/DAIRY STAR

Cur s Basina explains the rst-run dis lla on process May 10 at Copper Crow Dis llery in Bayeld, Wisconsin. Basina has been producing a whey gin and a whey vodka.

“We didn’t know each other until nine months before we got married,” Louise said.

However, Louise was ready to step in as a full dairy partner. She even milked the cows on her own when Todd and his dad were custom baling.

“I liked dairy,” Louise said. “I was all in. The vision was for us to do the milking and for Todd’s dad to do the eldwork.”

They milked about 120 cows in the farm’s tiestall barn, a big herd compared to the 13 cows milked there when Todd’s family rst started dairy farming.

Malecha Enterprises has grown since then to have different entities and cover more acreage. They employ around 27 full-time employees and bring in an additional 20 H-2A workers from South Africa for seasonal work.

Louise said the business benets from these workers bringing skills with them.

Seven years ago, Todd and Lou-

ise formally started their transition to the next generation. The family began working with a transition-planning consultant. Since then, the strategy has been mapped out as to how the farm’s legacy will continue.

“Our vision of our kids taking over was not a conscious thought planned out until we started transition planning, but we always looked at building for the future,” Louise said. “Many people wait until their kids are 50 years old and then just sell them the farm. We did not want to do that. Our youngest was 12 years old when we started transition planning. Now he is going to be 20.”

Louise said the plan has brought peace of mind.

“We can hand over the torch to our kids and see where they can go with it,” Louise said. “It’s hard to step back sometimes, but you must for the next generation to take over. It also gives me more time to enjoy my grandkids.”

Part of that enjoyment for Louise came in the form of writing. In 2020,

she wrote and published her rst children’s book, “Going to Papa and Nana’s Farm.” On June 21, her second book came out, “Ginger’s Big Day.” Both are illustrated by Katelynn and available online. Louise plans to continue writing more books.

“I wanted to write our story for our kids to see where we come from, and I’m still in the process of writing this story,” Louise said. “With these children’s books, I want to teach kids around the world what happens on a farm and where our food comes from.”

As a sign of how far the family’s farm has come, the Malechas became 2022 Farm Journal’s Top Producer of

North America. The couple traveled to the awards ceremony in Nashville last February, where they were announced as the winner among three nalists.

More than receiving awards though, Louise said dairy farming brings the biggest rewards.

“I like the outdoors, and no one day is the same as the next day,” Louise said. “There’s always a challenge, whether it is the weather or an animal. There is always something that’s making you a better person or testing your limits. It is an enjoyable life.”

Dairy Star intern Alex Christen contributed to this article.

PHOTO SUBMITTED BY KATELYNN ROELIKE AT MALECHA ENTERPRISES

Cows gather to eat at Malecha Dairy in the summer of 2022 near Villard, Minnesota. The cows are milked in a double-16 parlor that was built 25 years ago.

PHOTO SUBMITTED BY KATELYNN ROELIKE AT MALECHA ENTERPRISES

William Malecha cuts hay with a Krone triple mower in the summer of 2022 near Villard, Minnesota. William serves as the head of opera ons for Malecha Enterprises.

New application made easier up front

MDA’s grant helps dairy farms evolve

By Jan Lefebvre jan.l@star-pub.com

Although the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s dairy business planning grants have been around since 2002, the application process is now less complicated.

“We revamped the application,” said Kami Schoenfeld, farm nancial assistance administrator at MDA. “Before, it used to ask for a lot of information up front. Now, we want people to submit projects that are going to change and advance the dairy farm, and then we want more information at the end as to those projects and how well they impacted farms long term.”

The new application form rolled out June 7.

The grant money available each year, $80,000, resets every July 1. Schoenfeld said some of the money has been left over the past few years due to fewer farmers applying. The new application may help address that.

“Sometimes it’s hard (to ll out an application); you want to do a project and you’re asked questions that you don’t necessarily have a solid answer for, such as why you were looking at building a new barn or adding robots or how you are going to do farm transition,” Schoenfeld said. “Sometimes you don’t know that until you get into the project. Now, the application is easier up front, and then we want more information at the end.”

The application is now only three pages in length.

MDA has also expanded the definition as to what the grant can be used for.

“It’s meant to help dairy farms expand, grow, change with a thirdparty consultant,” Schoenfeld said. “Dairy farmers are really good at farming but may not be good at other parts of the business, so this helps them hire somebody who can help them grow their business and research what they are looking into.”

The denition has been expanded to include feasibility studies and business development for valueadded projects.

“We’re trying to support dairy farms as they expand and change in today’s world,” Schoenfeld said.

“If farms are looking at how to do a small farm processing, this grant might be a way to help a farmer hire a consultant to help write that plan or help do research on markets. We tried to expand it to include more things than just a robotic system or farm transfer.”

Both existing and beginning Minnesota dairy farmers are eligible to apply. The grant pays 50% of the cost to develop a business plan – up to $5,000 – with the farmer covering the other 50%.

MDA’s website has posted the new parameters of the grant.

“This grant can be used to help cover the costs of hiring a qualied, independent third party to create a business plan for dairy operations,” MDA said. “Dairy producers have used grant funds to evaluate the feasibility of expanding an operation, plan environmental upgrades, create strategies to transfer the operation to a family member or other new owner, and other business activities.”

The application states that grant money can also be used to help pay for stray voltage testing.

Grants cannot be used for capital purchases, nutrition consulting, retirement and investment planning, tax planning and tax return preparation, intergenerational transfer planning that discontinues the dairy enterprise, loan origination or documentation fees, chattel real estate appraisal, crop consulting, nutrient management planning (except as required in the business plan), veterinary/herd health consulting or the cost to complete a dairy business planning grant application.

A benet for both MDA and farmers in gathering more information at the tail end of the grant process as opposed to the front end is in seeing the good the grants do in helping farms achieve goals.

“We really want to see the impact as to how the grant is helping the farm,” Schoenfeld said. “It allows us to tell the story about how the grants are working for dairy farmers.”

Having legislators see the value of dairy business planning grants helps secure continuation of the grants.

“Dairy farmers today need all the help we can nd for them,” Schoenfeld said. “Dairy farms need to evolve. We want this grant to help them evolve, and that’s looking very different now and in the future.”

To view the full eligibility requirements as well as access the application, visit www.mda.state.mn.us/dairy-business-planning-grants. Kami Schoenfeld is available to answer questions at kami.schoenfeld@state.mn.us or 651-201-6643.

How does this year’s first-crop hay harvest compare to previous years?

Joe Nickelotti La Crescent, Minnesota Winona County

80 cows

Tell us about your rst-crop hay harvest. I’m by myself, so harvesting is slow. I started May 24 and nished June 15. I’m harvesting 150 acres for haylage.

What was the yield? The yield was good because most of my hay was new seeding from the past two years, but is there going to be a second crop because of the drought? It will all be fed to the dairy cows.

How does this year’s rst crop compare to previous years? The rst crop is comparable to other years, but how do we know if we will get a second crop with as dry as it is out here on the farm? The acres are the same as other years.

What challenges have you had and how did you manage to work through them?

My problem is nding help. I have three wagons, so I chop three loads, unload three loads, then chop three loads. When you are milking cows morning and night too, you don’t get much done in a day.

How are you planning to manage your hayelds through the rest of the season? I was hoping to get four cuttings on the early stuff, but with the drought, I’m thinking I might just get three cuttings. I might have to wait longer on cutting second crop, hope for a rain and hopefully get a third crop. The interval will depend on what is there in the eld.

Tell us about your farm. I have a stall barn that holds 68 and a freestall barn that holds 40, so I have to switch cows for milking. I sell to Elba Creamery. It’s a threehour process for chores morning and night between switching and feeding cows. I used to have 100 cows, but I went to the hospital in February with several herniated discs, so I cut back my cows to 80. I breed all my cows to beef, sell the calves and purchase my replacements.

Allen Blommel

Clarissa, Minnesota Todd County

50 cows

Tell us about your rst-crop hay harvest. We put up 70 acres of alfalfa. We chopped the rst half June 10 and put it in our Harvestore silo. The second half, which was 25 acres, was cut June 2 and baled and net wrapped June 10, which will be stored in our shed. We also cut some meadow hay.

What was the yield? I am very pleased with the yield. It was a nice, heavy stand; one of the better yields I’ve had in years. When we cut, it was 24-28 inches tall.

How does this year’s rst crop compare to previous years? It was much better than in previous years. It was good drying hay weather. Now if we could get some rain so that we can get a good second crop. The regrowth is very slow at coming back.

What challenges have you had and how did you manage to work through them? The hay we chopped got half an inch of rain on it. That pushed us back a day on chopping.

How are you planning to manage your hayelds through the rest of the season? I will put potash down as fertilizer on all 70 acres, as I do every year.

Tell us about your farm. My wife, Charlet, helps me with every aspect of the farm. We farm about 400 acres total of corn, soybeans and hay ground along with milking our 50 cows. I am the second generation on this farm, and I started in 1981. We sell our milk to First District Association. We also have goats and donkeys running around just for fun. We nished out our steers on our other farm site that is a mile down the road. We have 10 children and 25 grandchildren.

Tell us about your rst-crop hay harvest. We cut 40 acres of alfalfa May 30 and baled and wrapped it two days later as baleage.

What was the yield? The yield was really good. This crop was running 1.5 ton to the acre. This crop will all be fed to the milk cows.

How does this year’s rst crop compare to previous years? This is the best rst crop I've ever had. This eld is irrigated but has dry corners. Usually by mid-June, it does not grow anymore.

What challenges have you had and how did you manage to work through them? It was a good cutting. The neighbor’s wrapper was having issues, so we had to call a different neighbor to wrap hay, which sure is nice having neighbors to call on for help.

How are you planning to manage your hayelds through the rest of the season? Right now, we will just keep turning the irrigators on to keep the hay growing. I seeded down another 40 acres of alfalfa and am trying to get that to establish as well. Each year, we hope to get four cuttings.

Tell us about your farm. We are just a simple dairy with an old red barn with a retrotted parlor and freestall barn on the side. I take care of all the day-to-day chores. My ancée works full time as a calf and heifer nutritionist and helps as much as possible on the farm. The majority of our herd is Holstein with some registered Jerseys. My ancée shows the registered Jerseys. I'm the third generation on this farm. My dad helps with eldwork and random things in between, and my brother helps haul hay and will milk if we want to get away for a night, which is really nice.

Roger Mohr New Ulm, Minnesota Brown County

100 cows

Tell us about your rst-crop hay harvest. We have 70 acres of alfalfa. We chopped 60 acres of it and round baled the last 10 acres. The stuff we chopped we put in 200-foot bags. The chopped hay will go for the milk cows, and the bales will be for the heifers.

What was the yield? We got 3 tons to the acre. The relative feed value was about 170.

How does this year’s rst crop compare to previous years? This is by far better than what we’ve had in the past.

What challenges have you had and how did you manage to work through them? We’ve had a lot of rain this spring, so we were worried about nding enough days to make hay, but when the time came, the land and the hay making went really good. How are you planning to manage your hayelds through the rest of the season? I foliar sprayed them and used an insecticide with the foliar feed. We are having some bugs in the hay. We hope to get four cuttings of hay this year. We usually bale and chop each time, depending on weather.

Tell us about your farm. Our farm is run by my wife, Anita, our son, Scott, and me. Together, we farm 350 acres of corn, soybeans, alfalfa, peas and kale. We use the peas and kale as a forage. I am the fourth generation on this farm. We milk 100 cows in a double-11 parlor. We ship our milk to Associated Milk Producers Inc.

Michael Rose and Kayti Lyseth Kimball, Minnesota Stearns County 50 cows

Joe Wilcox Marcus, Iowa Cherokee County

75 cows

Tell us about your rst-crop hay harvest. We chopped and bagged our 25 acres of old crop alfalfa May 25. We chopped and bagged 25 acres of new crop alfalfa/oats June 14 and big square baled 20 acres of grass hay June 12.

What was the yield? The old crop alfalfa, which we mowed and chopped, yielded about 80 feet of a 10-foot diameter bag. That will be fed to the cows. Our new crop oats/alfalfa was mowed and chopped and yielded about 60 feet of a 10-foot diameter bag. This will be fed to the cows and the heifers. The pasture yielded 44 big square bales, which will be fed to youngstock calves.

How does this year’s rst crop compare to previous years? The yield of the rst crop of haylage was on par with last year’s. We seeded more acres to account for our aging old seeding and the lack of a winter rye crop. We increased our dry grass hay by about 33% over last spring. That yield bump was due to rainfall.

Dennis Reuter Hastings, Minnesota Dakota County

140 cows

Tell us about your rst-crop hay harvest. We chopped hay May 25. We put up 70 acres as haylage. We did it all in one day. We even had a three-hour breakdown in the middle. We have what the experts would say is oversized equipment, but we like it. We have a selfpropelled chopper and a large merger.

What was the yield? We got about 1.75 tons of dry matter per acre. Our hay got dry; it was dry when we started and then the breakdown made it even dryer. We will be feeding it mostly to the milk cows and a few pounds to the dry cows because we only have the calves and the cows on our farm.

How does this year’s rst crop compare to previous years? The yield was a little less. Our timing of harvest is similar each year. Even on years when we have a late or early spring, we cut at about the same time. Field conditions were dry. We have irrigation, though, so we began wetting the eld once we were

What challenges have you had and how did you manage to work through them? The lack of rainfall has been the biggest challenge. We planted 30 acres of cereal rye on our chopped corn silage ground last October. It was too dry last fall, and the rye didn't germinate. The rye didn't germinate until later this spring and was very spotty. We ended up terminating the rye to grow a better soybean crop. The lack of rye prevented us from terminating a few older alfalfa elds that we were scheduled to rotate. We also decided to add an oat nurse crop to the new alfalfa seeding to add some feed sooner in the summer.

How are you planning to manage your hayelds through the rest of the season? We typically have 28 days between alfalfa cuttings for silage and fertilize between each cutting. We recently received an inch of rain, the rst substantial rain in about six weeks, on the second cutting of alfalfa. That will cause us to push back the second-cut harvest date in order to maximize our tonnage potential. We hope to get four cuttings of old crop alfalfa for chopping and three cuttings of new crop alfalfa.

Tell us about your farm. Our farm, which is located south of Cleghorn, Iowa, has been in our family since 1876. We milk 75 Holsteins and farm about 800 acres of row crops. I operate the farm with my parents, Mark and Sara, and my wife, Jill. Jill and I have a son, George.

done. We harvested similar acres compared to other years. It will be similar feed value compared to other years as well.

What challenges have you had and how did you manage to work through them? We did not have any winter kill. Because there was no rain, we just went with the size of the plant for cutting time. With our equipment size, chopping went quickly. Our bagger did break, but a guy brought a bearing for it while we tore it apart. Within three hours, we were back to bagging.

How are you planning to manage your hayelds through the rest of the season? Someone from the co-op regularly walks through with a sweep net, and that determines spraying from the pest thresholds. We plan on every 24-28 days on cutting depending on the plant development. We only ever take four cuttings. Whenever we take a fth cutting, it leads to too much winter kill, so we do not do it unless we plan on plowing it up.

Tell us about your farm. Reuter Farms is my brother, Carl, and I and my son, Phil, who works for us as our herdsman. My son, Jake, works part time for us when we need help. We farm about 600 acres, with alfalfa, corn, soybeans and grass for the dry cows. Heifers are all custom raised. They all leave at 4 months old and return a month before they are due. Any feed I put up has to be dairy quality. We sell our milk to First District Association. We milk with two robotic milking systems.

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Describe your farm and facilities. We milk in a newly renovated tiestall barn.

What forages do you harvest? The cows’ main forage source May through October is typically fresh pasture using intensive rotational grazing. Over winter, we usually feed corn silage and dry hay in round bales.

How many acres of crops do you raise? We have over 100 acres of alfalfa-grass mix hay, over 50 acres corn for both grain and silage, and nearly 50 acres of pasture.

What quality and quantity do you harvest of each crop? We cut hay and rotate pastures to maximize quality of the grasses. It took several years to realize the grass was ready long before the alfalfa. Rest on the pastures is key to maximize regrowth, and leaving a 5- to 8-inch grass stubble greatly increases how fast it regrows. Corn silage is harvested when moisture is below 65% for our upright silos.

Describe the rations for your livestock. Our summer ration is typically pasture plus a grain mix fed at milking time. Winter ration is corn silage and dry hay plus grain. We hope to add another silo and have corn silage year-round in the future. We also plan to make haylage again like we did in the past.

Describe your harvesting techniques for alfalfa and corn silage. Hay is cut based on the maturity of the grasses to maximize quality. We cut with a pull-type Discbine with steel roller conditioners. The interval is usually under 28 days. We usually either chop it for the silo or make dry round bales. Chopping of hay and corn is done ourselves with a New Holland 900. We hope to add a kernel processor in the future for corn silage. We do our own round baling with a Vermeer 604K.

What techniques do you use to store, manage and feed your forages? We use upright stave silos for corn silage and haylage. Dry hay is usually made as round

Dairy FarmersSaluting LOCAL

The Bongards Cooperative is made up of hundreds of familyowned farms – many run by farmers carrying on a legacy that reaches back multiple generations. These farms supply the milk used to craft Bongards’ distinctive brand of cheese using old-world craftsmanship paired with cutting-edge technology. The result is cheese that delivers unforgettable taste and unparalleled quality. Learn more about our co-op, products, and current job openings at www.bongards.com.

bales and occasionally small square bales. We component feed everything. Corn silage is fed via an electric feed cart or bunk feeder. Round bales are unrolled by hand in the manger or fed outdoors in a feeder. When baleage is made, it is usually fed outside in feeders.

Throughout your career, have you changed the forages you plant, and how has that decision helped your operation? We needed to maximize yield on our home acres after some rented ground was sold. This rst led to intensive rotational grazing of our existing pastures, which simultaneously increased quality and yield compared to what we came to expect from pasture. Pasture is just a hayeld harvested with cows. Corn that would typically have been harvested as high-moisture shell corn was also being chopped to increase tonnage. The milk and milk solids yield seems

Sam Olson | Dallas, Wisconsin | Barron County | 50 cows

PHOTO SUBMITTED

Bri any and Sam Olson and son Titus milk 50 registered Holsteins and Jerseys on their dairy farm near Dallas, Wisconsin. The Olsons rely heavily on rota onal grazing to make the best use of the forages grown on their farm.

Turn

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Udder Comfort is...

Softer udders More comfort Better letdown Faster, more complete milking Better quality More milk

“ This is the one that does what it’s supposed to do. Using Udder ComfortTM on all fresh cows for 7 days after calving, we saw our quality keep getting better, and now we rarely have to treat for mastitis.”

- Parlor manager, PA, 500 cows

“ When we spray Udder Comfort 1x/day for a week before calving, our cows, especially 2-year-olds, come in with a little more milk and a lot more comfort. They milk faster and adapt faster. Unit attachments are quicker because edema is gone, or it’s very minimal. This reduces our fetch

Robotic dairy owner, MN, 340 cows

“ Udder Comfort makes sense, and the investment per fresh cow is minimal. It wasthe missing piece, helping us get the most from all we do for comfort and quality. When we adopted the fresh cow routine with Udder Comfort, SCC dropped like a rock, we were down to just 4 hospital cows, and our production average moved higher.”

“ It is the best tool to get cows through transition and into milk faster with healthier udders. In 3 months of getting our fresh cows sprayed more consistently with the Udder Comfort Battery-Operated Backpack Sprayer, our SCC came down from 165 to 137,000, and if we do get clinicals, they clear faster and don’t become repeat offenders.”

- Herd health manager, IA, 750 cows

to be better when we are able to feed corn silage. We started planting grasses, primarily festulolium, with our alfalfa. The goal is to increase stand longevity, increase digestibility, and allow for better and faster dry down to make dry hay.

Describe a challenge you overcame in reaching your forage quality goals. I quit watching the weather when deciding to start cutting hay. If it’s ready, get it cut. Having to make baleage out of highquality hay that got rained on once is preferable to having tons and tons of stemmy, full-bloom alfalfa bales.

How do quality forages play a part in the production goals for your herd? Excellent quality pasture has cut protein costs signicantly over the summer months.

What are management or harvesting techniques you have changed that have made a notable difference in forage quality? Adding grasses to our alfalfa stands allows for faster dry down and earlier harvesting, which greatly improves quality. Treating the pastures as another hayeld quickly improved forage yield and quality. We have learned to keep the cows off them for 28 to 35 days between cuts and don’t let pastures turn into golf course greens.

ROUND BALERS

1000 PTO, 5 ft. bales, 13500 BC, #543058 ............................ $28,500

Kuhn VB2190 2012, 1000 PTO, 4 ft. bales, 16000 BC, #543785................ $26,000

JD 560M 2020, 1000 PTO, 5 ft. bales, 5500 BC, #544100 .......................... $47,900

NH BR750 2005, 540 PTO, 4 ft. bales, 6000 BC, #544396 .......................... $13,500

JD 569 2015, 1000 PTO, 5 ft. bales, 9200 BC, #545913 .............................. $33,900

JD 560M 2022, 540 PTO, 5 ft. bales, 1516 BC, #547391 ............................ $61,500

Vermeer 605N Cornstalk 2017, 1000 PTO, 5 ft. bales, 6768 BC, #548033$46,500

JD 582 Silage Special 2006, 540 PTO, 4 ft. bales, 7685 BC, #550012 ....... $26,500

JD 560M 2019, 1000 PTO, 5 ft. bales, 7000 BC, #550210 ..........................

1000 PTO, 5 ft. bales, 10094 BC, #556680 .............. $34,900

NH BR780 2005, 1000 PTO, 5 ft. bales, 7700 BC, #557075 ........................ $13,500

JD 560M 2021, 1000 PTO, 5 ft. bales, 8233 BC, #557166 .......................... $51,500

JD 460M 2022, 1000 PTO, 4 ft. bales, 2600 BC, #557280 .......................... $57,900

JD 459 Silage Special 2015, 540 PTO, 4 ft. bales, 19000 BC, #557420 ..... $19,500

JD 460M 2019, 1000 PTO, 4 ft. bales, 5898 BC, #557634 .......................... $53,500

JD 568 2010, 1000 PTO, 5 ft. bales, 14683 BC, #559585 ............................ $30,000

JD 567 2003, 540 PTO, 5 ft. bales, 13500 BC, #561591 .............................. $17,900

JD 560M 2022, 1000 PTO, 5 ft. bales, 900 BC, #563551 ............................ $57,900

NH Rollbelt 460 2021, 1000 PTO, 4 ft. bales, 6846 BC, #563911 .............. $41,900

ROW CROP TRACTORS

JD 8R 370 2021, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 956 hrs., #535131 .............. $392,500

JD 8R 370 2021, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 608 hrs., #535161 .............. $431,600

JD 8R 410 2021, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 468 hrs., #541906 .............. $466,700

#550330 ............ $437,500

JD 8R 310 2022, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 525 hrs., #553951 .............. $410,000

JD 8R 340 2020, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 1341 hrs., #554058 ............ $382,500

JD 8R 340 2020, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 1396 hrs., #554059 ............ $375,500

JD 8R 310 2020, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 1416 hrs., #554060 ............ $362,500

JD 8R 340 2022, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 677 hrs., #554166 .............. $419,900

JD 8R 370 2022, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 159 hrs., #557151 .............. $504,900

JD 8R 410 2022, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 234 hrs., #557154 .............. $514,900

JD 8R 250 2022, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 605 hrs., #558224 .............. $374,400

JD 8R 370 2022, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 311 hrs., #559372 .............. $477,900

JD 8R 310 2021, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 938 hrs., #559593 .............. $349,900

JD 8R 370 2022, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 323 hrs., #559674 .............. $499,800

JD 8R 370 2022, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 400 hrs., #559680 .............. $475,900

JD 8R 370 2022, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 269 hrs., #559753 ............. $479,900

JD 8R 250 2022, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 603 hrs., #559754 .............. $364,900

JD 8R 250 2022, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 307 hrs., #559757 .............. $379,900

JD 8R 370 2022, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 395 hrs., #560057 .............. $468,000

NH T8.300 2012, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 2057 hrs., #561011 ........... $159,900

International 966 1971, 2WD, 540/1000 Rear PTO, Singles, 6534 hrs., #562559 .................................................................................................... $15,500

JD 8R 370 2022, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 569 hrs., #562744 .............. $459,900

Case IH Puma 240 2021, Cab, 540/1000 Rear PTO, Singles, 312 hrs., #563034 ..................................................................................$229,900

JD 8R 340 2022, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO, Duals, 402 hrs., #563581 .............. $424,500

JD 8R 340 2022, Cab, 1000 Rear PTO,

Lending a hand during times of sorrow

There are many qualities of a dairy farmer I truly admire: hard-working, dedicated and tough are just a few I can mention within these lines.

Perhaps a trait I admire most is their willingness to help even though they really don’t have the extra time to do so. Think about it. Many farmers consider a 10-hour day an easy day. But if the neighbor’s cattle are out or someone has a at tire near the farm, they will halt what they are doing to help.

It’s the fabric that most farmers are. They are good neighbors willing to adjust their day to help anyone in need.

Just last week, this quality came to forefront on a modest 100-cow dairy near Norwood Young America, Minnesota.

The younger of two brothers, who had been dairying together for more than two decades, suddenly passed.

Dealing with the emotion of losing perhaps his best friend and operating a business as diverse as dairy farming would not be comprehendible.

By Mark Klaphake Editor

The farm couldn’t stop because of the vast amount of daily activities that occur on a farm. The animals needed to be fed, the cows needed to be milked, and the constant challenges that each day brings needed to be dealt with.

But the surviving brother needed to halt to process the grief of suddenly losing the other half who was equally committed to doing his best to make their dairy farm journey a success.

They saw each other many times every day. The duo probably had thousands of conversations in the barn, farmyard or elds about the plans for the dairy and the next hurdle to overcome.

But now, that was gone forever.

So, on a warm week in Carver County, while the dairy farmer and his family were accepting condolences for the loss of their brother and a son, uncle and neighbor, the farm was bustling with activity.

First-crop hay was being laid down in the eld, rakes were combining the rows, and, later, big square balers were rolling through the elds, stringing together bales for the animals on the farm.

A nearby dairy farm neighbor was the ringleader to the event. Upon realizing that part of the rst-crop hay wasn’t complete at the time of the passing, he sprang into action.

He connected with local farmers, some up to 20 miles away, to bring their equipment to conquer the job. He synchronized the farmers for different roles, whether they would be cutting, raking or baling hay for the dairy farmer in need.

The volunteerism started on a Monday, and by Saturday, around 70 acres of hay were put up to yield 215 big square bales as well as round bales.

This all occurred while operating their own individual farms and dealing with their vast daily challenges and problems that arose from those farms.

The price tag for the good deed was $0. The display of farm equipment on procession for the farmer’s funeral signaled the truth: That’s just what dairy farmers, and farmers in general, do – help when needed.

Alberts advocates for women in agriculture

By Alex Christen Staff Intern

PINE ISLAND, Minn. – Growing up in the world of dairy has led Mackenzie Alberts to recognize the importance of women in the agriculture industry.

“My dad has really installed in me the importance of having women in agriculture,” Alberts said. “I have looked up to many women working in the dairy industry both on and off the farm, and now I have the opportunity to follow in their footsteps.”

Alberts, the daughter of Eric and Angie Alberts, now has the opportunity to represent the dairy industry as a woman in agriculture as she serves as one of the 10 nalists vying for the title of Princess Kay of the Milky Way. The Alberts milk 500 registered Holsteins near Pine Island.

As a dairy farmer herself, Alberts sees the time and dedication farmers put into their passion for their career. She wants to be able to apply that passion to her role as a dairy princess.

“Being a dairy princess and being out in the public is a great way to represent the farmers who are at home working 365 days a year,” Alberts said. “It truly is a blessing to be able to pass on the legacy my family has had over the last seven generations.”

On the farm, Alberts is known as

Sharing her legacy

a jack of all trades. She plays multiple key roles on the farm but spends most of her time with the calves.

“I love to feed the calves, and I developed a passion for calf care,” Alberts said. “I ll in as a substitute milker as well if needed.”

In 2020, Alberts had her rst experiences with the machinery side of the farm when her dad put her in a tractor.

“He hasn’t been able to get me out since,” she said. “I love helping haul hay or corn during harvest or manure and anything in between. Now, I am learning more of the mechanical side of the tractors and farm equipment.”

Outside of growing up on her family’s dairy, Alberts also found a passion for the industry through her involvement in 4-H and FFA. As the retiring Minnesota FFA state secretary, she has had the opportunity to connect with others all over the state and build lifelong friends. She hopes to continue building those connections and friendships within the Princess Kay program.

“I love to make connections with others,” Alberts said. “Being Princess Kay, you are given the opportunity to talk to a wide variety of people, so being able to make those connections will be important.”

Alberts is attending South Dakota State University, majoring in agricultural communications and leadership. She is planning to use her degree to nd a career in connection with what she loves most – the dairy

industry. In the future, she also has a goal of writing a book about her experiences growing up on a farm and hopefully raising a family on a farm.

When the nalists were announced

in May, Alberts and her family had plans to watch it on the television in her house; however, as often happens in the

AMY KYLLO/DAIRY STAR

Mackenzie Alberts relaxes on a hay bale June 15 on her family’s dairy farm near Pine Island, Minnesota. Alberts is the seventh genera on on her family’s farm.

Like mother, like daughter

Ratka contends for Princess Kay title

By Alex Christen Staff Intern

COLD SPRING, Minn. – As someone who has attended the Minnesota State Fair every single year of her life, Megan Ratka is no stranger to the world of agriculture, show rings and the Princess Kay of the Milky Way butterhead tradition.

Ratka was named as a 2023 nalist for Princess Kay of the Milky Way exactly 30 years after her mother, Kathy (Kuechle) Ratka, was named as a nalist in 1993.

Ratka, the 20-year-old daughter of Kevin and Kathy Ratka from Cold Spring, did not grow up on a dairy farm but instead found her passion for dairy in the show ring.

Her journey to the butter booth began in rst grade.

“I was watching the 4-H show at the state fair with my parents, and I told them that I wanted to do that,” Ratka said.

From there, Ratka’s parents connected her with Jerry and Linda Jennissen, owners of Jer-Lindy Farms near Brooten. They agreed to lease Ratka a calf named Cocoa, and Ratka continued to lease from them through the years.

When Ratka reached ninth grade, she also began purchasing her own cattle to show. Together, Ratka and her brother and sister, Tyler and Allison,

Megan Ratka walks Mara, a Brown Swiss winter calf, at her family’s home May 20 near Cold Spring, Minnesota. Ratka and her siblings, Tyler and Allison, own a total of nine dairy ca le.

now own nine dairy show cattle. They raise the heifers at home, and once the cattle reach milking age, they are moved to Jer-Lindy Farms.

While Ratka loves her show cattle,

the show ring is not her only connection to the dairy industry. Both of her parents grew up on dairy farms and now work within the dairy industry. Ratka has also participated in dairy judging

and knowledge bowl through her involvement in 4-H and FFA programs.

As one of the newly named nalists, Ratka spoke of the importance behind having dairy representation available to the consumer.

“I want them to remember the dairy princesses as the friendly face of the dairy industry that they can trust,” she said. “It gives them a personal connection to our industry.”

Ratka said she would be honored to represent Minnesota dairy farmers.

“Princess Kay has the opportunity to connect with such a broad scope of people, both within and outside of the dairy industry,” Ratka said.

As a sophomore at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Ratka is majoring in animal science with an emphasis in dairy production. She said she wants to use her passion for dairy to work in a lab doing research on dairy cattle reproductive technologies.

In addition to her mother, Ratka has other family members who have been crowned within the dairy princess program, including her aunts Karen (Kuechle) Johnson and Janelle (Kuechle) Daberkow.

Ever since she rst attended her aunt Janelle’s dairy princess coronation as a young girl, Ratka has hoped for her own opportunity to represent Stearns County’s dairy farmers.

“I’ve always dreamed of being a dairy princess,” she said. “The dairy community has given me so much, and I’m excited to share their stories and give back.”

Turn to RATKA | Page 27

ALEX CHRISTEN/DAIRY STAR

This year’s nalists were announced on a livestream via the Princess Kay Facebook page May 14. That day, Ratka and her family waited at home for the announcement.

“It was nice to be surrounded by family,” Ratka said.

Now that Ratka has been named a nalist for Princess Kay, she will continue serving as a county princess for the rest of the summer.

“I am most excited for our county events where I get to have conversations with people and share my dairy story,”

Con nued from ALBERTS | Page 25

Ratka said.

The 10 nalists will spend time together during the Minnesota State Fair, and each will have their likeness carved in a 90-pound block of butter. There they will share the goodness of dairy with fairgoers and do interviews with various media.

“I am excited to connect with other nalists,” Ratka said. “This will be a group of girls that I will stay in touch with for the rest of my life and that share the same passion as I do.”

world of dairy farming, plans changed.

“My dad got caught up doing spring eldwork, so we all met up at the shop just down the road, and my family hovered over my shoulder to watch it on my phone,” Alberts said.

Alberts said she is excited at the possibility of representing Minnesota’s farmers and the contributions they have made. Vying for the role of Princess Kay gives her the opportunity to connect with consumers across the state.

“There are a million different ways for consumers to incorporate dairy into their diets,” Alberts said. “Not only is dairy super healthy for them, but it is something they can enjoy and feel good about purchasing. As Princess Kay, I would have the opportunity to create new diverse experiences for the consumer. I want our consumers to be aware of their options and know that

they can always rely on dairy.”

In addition to nutrition, Alberts said she wants customers to know that on the farm, animal care comes rst.

“Our animals have all that they need every day to be happy, healthy and comfortable as well as able to produce a wholesome product,” Alberts said.

Alberts also wants consumers to know that dairy farmers are very good at what they do and to know they can trust the dairy industry.

“Trust is a huge thing for me, and I have no doubt that consumers can trust our farmers and the quality products that they produce,” Alberts said.

At the end of the summer, Alberts will attend the Minnesota State Fair for the coronation of the 70th Princess Kay of the Milky Way. No matter the outcome, Alberts said she will always be an advocate for women in agriculture.

AMY KYLLO/DAIRY STAR

Eric and Angie Alberts stand with their daughter, Mackenzie Alberts, June 15 at their dairy farm near Pine Island, Minnesota. Mackenzie is represen ng Dodge County as a Princess Kay of the Milky Way nalist.

ALEX CHRISTEN/DAIRY STAR

Megan Ratka feeds heifers at her family’s residence May 20 near Cold Spring, Minnesota. The Ratka family owns a mix of Brown Swiss and Holstein show ca le.

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IN DAIRY women

Tell us about your farm and family. My husband, Shawn Omernik, and I and our children – Brentley and Madison –make up our third-generation farm. We farm over 2,000 acres and milk 850 registered cows in a double-12 parlor. We raise all of our own youngstock.

What is a typical day like for you on the dairy? I am the herd manager on the farm. I focus on the computer every morning, making sure cows are not sick and grabbing any fresh cows that need to be milked with the employees. I look at all the milk weights from the previous shifts, making sure everything is done right. Then, I move any cows around in pens as needed. I take care of our show cows and feed, clean and bed stalls.

What decision have you made in the last year that has beneted your farm? Changing our breeding program has beneted us. I started ushing cattle to high genomic bulls and started increasing our heifer numbers. I look at genomics, high quality milk, good feet and legs, etc. I want a big, quality, sound cow. Comfort is another factor. We bed our cows with sand and can totally see the difference it made.

Tracy Lepak Omernik Custer, Wisconsin Portage County 850 cows

Tell us about your most memorable experience working on the farm. My most memorable experience on the farm was when I was 10 years old. My father put in a tractor to help chop hay, and he left me out in the eld to chop. He would bring me a chopper box when it was empty, and I would hook up and ll it up for him as he ran back to the farm to unload them.

What have you enjoyed most about dairy farming or your tie to the dairy industry? I enjoy showing cattle for our dairy. I like showing people what genetics and high-quality animals our herd has to offer and advertise.

What is your biggest accomplishment in your dairy career? My biggest accomplishment was last year when we took one of our cows to World Dairy Expo as a senior 3-year-old. She was third in the junior Holstein show out of 11 cows. We showed her again in the open show, and she placed 14th of 44 cows that day.

What are things you do to promote your farm or the dairy industry? We held a breakfast on the farm for June Dairy Days last year for people to come

and tour the farm. We also have 4-H kids who show our dairy cattle in the county fair every year. They come help take care of them and learn and build responsibility.

What advice would you give another woman in the dairy industry? I would tell another woman in the industry to always keep her head up high. Girls can do anything we put our minds too. Never give up on your dreams. Dreams really do come true if you work hard at it.

What is a challenge in the dairy industry you have faced and how did you overcome it? The world economy right now and the high price of everything. You always have to be watching what you spend and how you spend it. You have to be very intentional about how you manage things.

When you get a spare moment, what do you do? I enjoy gardening, planting owers and putting them around my yard. I also enjoy making sure the grass is fertilized and green.

DANIELLE NAUMAN/DAIRY STAR

Tracy Lepak Omernik stands in the freestall barn June 16 on her family’s 850cow dairy farm near Custer, Wisconsin. She works as the farm’s herd manager.

DANIELLE NAUMAN/DAIRY STAR

Tracy Lepak Omernik and her daughter Madison shake up hay for the show cows June 16 on their family’s Portage County dairy farm near Custer, Wisconsin. The Omerniks enjoy exhibi ng their cows at shows.

www.extension.umn.edu/dairy

Human heat stress: Signs, symptoms, prevention

Summer is well upon us with some areas seeing some extreme heat early in the season. It is important to be mindful of heat stress and related illnesses while working in hot environments. Heat illness can strike quickly, and learning the symptoms of it could save your life. Staying hydrated and keeping cool are key, but taking breaks and wearing the right clothing, among other things, are important as well.

By Brenda Miller U of M

As farmers and farm workers, it is near impossible for us not to be in hot environments throughout the year. Therefore, we need to protect ourselves and keep an eye on those around us as well while working in the heat. The biggest factor is to stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water. Sports drinks are ne as long as they have some electrolytes in them, and chocolate milk is a great re-fueling source too.

when it is not so hot. If you are in the heat doing a job with others, be sure to consistently check in with fellow workers to make sure they are doing OK and take breaks when needed. If working alone, make sure to tell someone where you will be, so if they do not hear from you after a while, they can come check on you.

• Decreased urine output

First Aid

• Rest in a cool area

• Drink plenty of water or other cool beverages

• Take a cool shower, bath or sponge bath

Heat cramps

Heat stress includes a series of conditions where the body is under stress from overheating. Heat-related illnesses can include heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heat rash or heat stroke, each with its own symptoms and treatments. Symptoms can range from profuse sweating to dizziness, cessation of sweating and collapse. People of all ages can fall victim to heat stress, especially while partaking in physical activities during hot weather conditions or while in hot environments. Heat rash and heat cramps are not fun to deal with and can be prevented with proper hydration, clothing and other preventative measures.

Whenever possible, stick to shaded areas or out of direct sunlight and heat. Wear light-colored, loose clothing that is breathable and will wick sweat away from the body. However, if working around equipment with moving parts (power take-off, belts, gears, etc.) wear appropriate, close-tting attire so the clothing is not caught in those. There is a happy medium, or clothes can be changed in the required situations.

If there are outside jobs that need to be done in areas without shade, try to do them rst thing in the morning or later in the day when the temperatures are usually cooler. Or, if possible, postpone them for another day

Twine, Wrap & Net Wrap IN STOCK!

Heat stress is serious. If you nd yourself feeling off, tell someone and get to a shady place to start cooling down. We, as farmers, take extra actions to keep our cows cool and comfortable in the hot weather, but we must also take care of ourselves and those working with us.

Heat stroke

A condition that occurs when the body becomes unable to control its temperature, and can cause death or permanent disability.

Symptoms

• High body temperature

• Confusion

• Loss of coordination

• Hot, dry skin or profuse sweating

• Seizures, coma

First Aid

Call 911: Request immediate emergency medical assistance

• Move the person to a cool, shaded area

• Remove excess clothing and apply cool water or cold wet cloths to their body

• Circulate air around the person to speed cooling

Heat exhaustion

The body’s response to an excessive loss of water and salt, usually through sweating.

Symptoms

• Rapid heart beat

• Heavy sweating

• Extreme weakness or fatigue

USED TRACTORS

CIH 215 Magnum, 2,500 hrs., FWA .....$138,000

CIH 8950 1,600 hours ..............................$165,000

CIH 8920, 2WD, 1000 hrs. .........................$13,000

CIH 8910, 2WD, 4,100 hrs .........................$72,000

CIH 7240, 2,500 hours, coming in ...........$110,000

CIH MX120, 2WD, 3,800 hrs......................$72,000

CIH MX110, FWA, 1600 hrs. ......................$65,000

IH 1466 restored, new 20.4x38 Firestones$38,000

IH 1456, cab ..............................................$22,000

IH 1086, nice..............................................$21,000

IH 806 ....................................................$11,000

JD 2755, 5,600 hrs. ...............................$16,000

TILLAGE

CIH 527B ripper .....................................$13,500

CIH 530B................................................$18,000

CIH 870 7-shank ....................................$38,000

CIH Tigermate II, 26’ ..............................$28,000

CIH Tigermate II, 26’ w/rolling basket ....$32,000

CIH Tigermate II 26’, w/28’ pull crumbler $31,000

CIH Tigermate 200, 30’ ..........................$44,000

CIH Tigermate 200, 28’ w/rolling basket$40,000

CIH Tigermate 200, 32’, w/4 bar drag ....$33,000

JD 714 11 shank chisel plow .................$14,000

CIH 5700 chisel plow, 23’ ...................Coming In

CIH 4800, 25’ ...........................................$6,500

CIH RMX 340 25’ disc w/mulcher ..........$42,000

CIH 25’ 3900 disc ..................................$15,000

CIH 183 12R cultivator .............................$4,250

Brillion 9-shank disc chisel ......................$4,000

DMI 530 Ecolo-Tiger w/basket ...............$12,000

DMI 530 ripper w/leads..........................$14,000

DMI 530B w/lead ...................................$16,500

HAYING & FORAGE EQUIP.

Sitrex QR12, QR10, QRS rakes ....................New Kuhn 10-wheel rake w/center kicker wheels, like new ..................................................$8,500

Many sizes of rakes available

All Sizes of Sitrex Rakes.........................On Hand

GRAVITY BOXES & GRAIN CARTS

(2) Demco 365 ..........................$7,800 & $5,000

Many Sizes of Gravity Boxes ..................on Hand

Brent 657 gravity box, green & black, fenders ................................................$23,000

(2) Brent 644 box .......................................$18,000

Brent 644 ...................................................$16,500

J&M 385 ......................................................$6,500

J&M 540 box .............................................$13,500

Parker 4800 box...........................................$8,500

Unverferth 7250 grain cart .........................$29,500

MISCELLANEOUS

New Red Devil & Agro Trend Snowblowers

GREENWALD FARM CENTER FARM

• Dizziness, headache

• Nausea, vomiting

• Irritability

• Fast, shallow breathing

• Slightly elevated body temperature

Dana Adams, adam1744@umn.edu

320-204-2968

Joe Armstrong armst225@umn.edu

612.624.3610

Luciano Caixeta lcaixeta@umn.edu

612-625-3130

Gerard Cramer gcramer@umn.edu

612-625-8184

Marcia Endres miendres@umn.edu

612-624-5391

Joleen Hadrich jhadrich@umn.edu

612-626-5620

Affect workers who sweat a lot during strenuous activity. Sweating depletes the body’s salt and moisture levels.

Symptoms

• Muscle cramps, pain or spasms in the abdomen, arms or legs

First Aid

• Stop all activity and sit in a cool place

• Drink clear juice or a sports beverage, or drink water with food. Chocolate milk is good too.

• Avoid salt tablets

• Do not return to strenuous work for a few hours after the cramps subside

• Seek medical attention if you have the following: heart problems, are on a lowsodium diet or if the cramps do not subside within one hour

Heat rash

Heat rash is a skin irritation caused by excessive sweating during hot, humid weather.

Symptoms

• Red clusters of pimples or small blisters

• Heat rash usually appears on the neck, upper chest, groin, under the breasts and in elbow creases

First Aid

• Keep the rash area dry

• Apply powder or a specially designed anti-chafe, antiblister balm, such as Body Glide®, to increase comfort

• Do not use ointments or creams as they may impair cooling; warm moist skin can make the rash worse

Les Hansen hanse009@umn.edu

612-624-2277

Brad Heins hein0106@umn.edu

320-589-1711

Nathan Hulinsky huli0013@umn.edu

320-203-6104

Karen Johnson ande9495@umn.edu

320-484-4334

Emily Krekelberg krek0033@umn.edu

507-280-2863

Claire LaCanne lacanne@umn.edu

507-332-6109

Brenda Miller nels4220@umn.edu

320-732-4435

Erin Royster royster@umn.edu

Isaac Salfer ijsalfer@umn.edu

320-296-1357

Jim Salfer salfe001@umn.edu

320-203-6093

Mike Schutz mschutz@umn.edu

612-624-1205

Melissa Wilson mlw@umn.edu

612-625-4276

Isaac Haagen hagge041@umn.edu

612-624-7455

Farm transfer

According to the 2017 U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture, the average age of farmers was 57.5 years old. This is getting close to the average age of retirement in the U.S., which according to a 2022 Gallup survey was 62. Many farmers are thinking about transferring the farm to the younger generation. The same census found that 9% of the nation’s farmers are age 35 or younger. With the age of farmers increasing over the last couple of decades, there needs to be farm transfer happening in the next few years across our nation.

helpful to draw a family tree to show who all has an interest or share in the farm. This may include off-farm heirs who might expect a portion of their parents’ estate.

shared goals that everyone can work together to achieve and differing goals that need to be worked out.

come to the farm.

By Nathan J. Hulinsky U of M

All too often, the farm transition process starts with how the family transfers the ownership of the physical assets while paying the least amount of taxes and protecting the farm assets from the nursing home or estranged family members. While these are good things to pay attention to and acknowledge, the focus should be on transferring labor, income and management rst. Teaching the next generation how to manage the land, animals, crops, diets, fertilizer application or equipment will help ensure the farm continues to the next generation.

There are three sections I will discuss, starting with where are you now? Is there a successor chosen? Does that person know they are the successor? Who are the people involved with the farm? It may be

Finances are also important, both personal and business. Who owns which assets? A balance sheet is helpful in determining what the farm owns, what the older generation owns and what assets the younger generation has. It also shows what debts or liabilities are associated with these assets for everyone. For the older generation, where is their retirement income going to come from? Is it going to be farmland rental income from the younger generation, social security, pensions, IRAs, investments or other income streams? Is the farm making enough income to support both the older and the younger generation? Can the younger generation afford to buy the farm from the older generation? These are important questions that need to be discussed; nancial statements can help answer these questions.

The next section is where you want to be. This is all about goal planning. It is important for every single person involved to have short- and long-term farm business and personal goals. It is equally as important to write down these goals and share them with others involved with the farm. This will help highlight

We

Give us a call to schedule a visit.

If the younger generation wants to expand the farm quickly, but the older generation wants to stay the same size, this needs to be discussed before it creates a greater problem, and a plan needs to be decided for a way forward.

What is the older generation’s plan for retirement? What are they going to do to stay busy? Several Midwest farmer surveys indicate around 50% of farmers do not plan to retire. What does that mean for the younger generation? There will most likely be a slow transition of the labor and management on the farm, starting with the younger generation doing more and more of the labor and gaining management authority and becoming the nal decision maker on various tasks. It can be helpful for the younger generation, over the course of a year or several years, to gain purchasing power and the right to the checkbook for business sections.

A SWOT analysis is helpful. This is determining and writing down what the farm’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are. Maybe the farm has production numbers as a strength, but limited expansion opportunities exist with urban sprawl as a weakness. With the urban sprawl, there may be an opportunity to have an agrotourism venture for the farm, but with that a threat would be liability concerns with having strangers

It is also benecial to discuss the Ds. These include death, disability, disaster, divorce, debt and dysfunction, among other items. This is not all doom and gloom but a chance to plan for certain scenarios.

One nal sticky item is how to treat the off-farm heirs in the estate plan. If the parents give the whole farm to one of their children, through a sale or actual gift, it can be difcult for the parents to decide how to treat the off-farm heirs. If they want the farm business to successfully continue, it may be tough to break up the farm. What assets do we leave the other children after the parents pass on? Fair versus equal is a tough decision for the parents to make among their children.

The last section is how you get there. With the goals that have been written and shared with the family, how do we make them reality? This will include action steps. It is important for the older generation to take initiative and make their goals known to everyone. Once goals have been discussed, they need to be shared with all family and farm members. It may be time to bring in professionals, lawyers or accountants. Lawyers and accountants can help make goals a reality by drafting a bill of sale, a will, a new trust or other items. Think things through and communicate with your family along the way. Attending a University of Minnesota Extension farm transfer workshop may be helpful.

Larson actively uses barn built in 1879

By Amy Kyllo amy.k@star-pub.com

KASSON, Minn. – Every day that Jim Larson milks cows in his 144-year-old barn is another moment of living history.

Larson milks 30 Holsteins and farms 500 acres of cropland raising corn, soybeans and alfalfa south of Kasson.

Larson’s great-greatgrandparents, Peter and Martha Larson, emigrated from Norway in 1850. They initially settled in Wisconsin before moving to the current farm in 1869, a mere 11 years after Minnesota became a state.

According to a Post Bulletin article published April 30, 1963, Peter purchased the then 260-acre farm for just $3,000 dollars, making the price per acre about $11.54.

The whole family moved into a small log cabin that was on-site when they arrived.

In 1879, Peter’s son, Lars, built the barn that stands to-

Milking in history

day. The three-story structure took about one year to build. The barn is set into a hill going down into the bottoms of Salem Creek. The side of the barn has an inscription stone with his initials and the year.

The barn features redpainted wood settled on a limestone base. The limestone was quarried from the place the barn sits and used to build the lower walls. All three levels of the barn are accessible on foot thanks to its hillside design. If one approaches from the middle of the farmyard, the hay mow looks like it is the rst level.

Slightly down the hill, the entrance to the tiestall portion of the barn can once again be accessed at ground level.

Unique to this barn is the middle level oor which features several metal grates. At completion of milking, these grates can be opened and the manure pushed through them. The manure goes to the bottom level where it can be hauled out with a manure spreader.

A limestone retaining wall shelters the barn from the nearby Salem Creek.

Larson said he has been told that their unique barn is a Norwegian design, but he does

not know more about the design than that.

In the aforementioned Post Bulletin article, the writer referenced R.E. Hodson, a retired superintendent of the Southern School of Agriculture ex-

perimental farm in Waseca, as saying that he believed, at that time, the barn was likely the only one of its kind in the state of Minnesota.

The house Larson and his wife, Kristie, live in was built

a few years after the barn in 1883. Before that, Larson ancestors lived in the four-room cabin still standing on the property.

AMY KYLLO/DAIRY STAR

Jim Larson smiles from a doorway of his 144-year-old barn June 9 on his farm near Kasson, Minnesota. Larson milks 30 cows and farms 500 acres.

Turn to LARSON

The Post Bulletin article also said that, in 1883, a tornado swept through the area, sucking a team of horses out of the barn and depositing them into a eld half a mile away, unhurt.

According to the National Weather Service, three tornadoes occurred Aug. 21, 1883, which is likely the date the story occurred. The three tornadoes caused 40 deaths and 200 injuries. These tornadoes shed light on the need for more medical facilities in the area.

“After this disaster, the Mayo family and the Sisters of St. Francis realized the need of a hospital in Rochester,” the National Weather Service said. “They banded together to form St. Mary’s Hospital, which ultimately led to the creation of the Mayo Clinic.”

Tornadoes are not all the farm survived. It faced the Great Depression, sending a family member to war and the 1980s farm crisis.

Larson has never left the farm.

“I was the only son, so even if I wanted to do something else, it probably wouldn’t have (happened),” he said.

Larson said he remembers writing that he was going to be a farmer from the time he was in early elementary school. Growing up, he spent time shing in the creek, hunting in the woods and, of course, working on the farm.

“It seems like whenever Dad was milking, we were down in the barn helping,” he said.

Larson has seen the farm change. He remembers the transitions between can coolers and then later to the bulk tank in 1987. He farmed with his dad until he passed in 1998.

Larson credits the farm’s continued viability to scal responsibility through the years.

“We’re cheap,” he said.

Today, Larson farms with one full-time employee. He enjoys getting to be his own boss as a dairy farmer.

Larson milks his cows in

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the 23 tie stalls twice a day at 1:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. He chose this time years ago to

accommodate his children’s schedules. Now, he and his wife’s two children are grown, but he still continues to milk at the same time.

Larson does not use a total mixed ration. He feeds corn silage, alfalfa hay and grain. He grains the cows inside when they are milked. Besides grain and corn silage, the cows get access to ample pasture and dry hay. He feeds his calves milk replacer and has been using homebred bulls for the past three decades.

Larson knows he will not be milking in the barn for many more years. Health issues and having no farm successor give him an end date. But for now, he will continue to milk another day forward in history.

AMY KYLLO/DAIRY STAR

Jim Larson’s barn stands June 9 on his farm near Kasson, Minnesota. The barn was built in 1879 and is used daily for milking.

AMY KYLLO/DAIRY STAR

A cabin stands on the edge of the lawn June 9 on Jim Larson’s farm near Kasson, Minnesota. The cabin was on the property when the Larson family purchased it in 1869 and housed the family un l 1883 when the current house was built.

“I was the only son, so even if I wanted to do something else, it probably wouldn’t have (happened).”

JIM LARSON, DAIRY PRODUCER

Dry conditions during dairy month

By Steve Frericks Stearns County FSA executive director

June is dairy month. Congratulations to all the central Minnesota youth who competed in the Dairy Days Show June 9 at the Stearns County Fairgrounds. The future of the dairy industry is bright seeing all the talented and hardworking youth who have a passion for the dairy industry. We salute all dairy farmers for your dedication in providing such a wholesome and healthy product. Thank you for all your hard work and dedication this month and always.

It’s no secret that central Minnesota is getting extremely dry. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, Stearns County has entered a D1 drought rating. This is not a good sign for early June.

For counties reaching a D2 drought rating for eight consecutive weeks or D3 at any time during the normal grazing period, the Livestock Forage Disaster Program triggers for payments.

The only way we can act upon this potential option is if producers timely certify their pastures by the crop reporting deadline. In 2021, FSA had many producers pay late le fees to report pastures. For this reason and many more, help us by reminding producers to schedule that appointment to certify their crops, report pastures and review eligibility for all current programs.

The last day to complete 2023 acreage reports is Monday, July 17. After this date, there is a charge for this service.

USDA offers assistance to help organic dairy producers cover increased costs

CELEBRATING

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced assistance for dairy producers with the new Organic Dairy Marketing Assistance Program.

ODMAP is established to help mitigate market volatility, higher input and transportation costs and unstable feed supply and prices that have created unique hardships in the organic dairy industry. Specically, under ODMAP, USDA’s Farm Service Agency is making $104 million available to organic dairy operations to assist with projected marketing costs in 2023, calculated using their marketing costs in 2022.

“Minnesota organic dairy producers have faced signicant and unique increases in their marketing costs, compounded by increases in feed and transportation costs and the limited availability of organic grain and forage commodities,” said Whitney Place, state executive director for FSA in Minnesota. “Without assistance, many organic dairies, particularly small organic dairies, will cease production, which not only impacts the domestic supply and consumption of organic milk but also the well-being of many rural communities across the country. This program will keep Minnesota small organic dairies in operation as they continue to weather a combination of challenges outside of their control.”

Eligible producers include certied organic dairy operations that produce milk from cows, goats and sheep.

FSA is providing nancial assistance for a producer’s projected marketing costs in 2023 based on their 2022 costs. ODMAP provides a one-time cost-share payment based on marketing costs on pounds of organic milk marketed in the 2022 calendar year.

ODMAP provides nancial assistance that will immediately support certied organic dairy operations during 2023, keeping organic dairy operations sustainable until markets return to more normal conditions.

Minnesota FSA ofces are accepting applications until July 26. To complete the ODMAP application, producers must certify pounds of 2022 milk production, show documentation of their organic certication and submit a completed application form.

Organic dairy operations are required to provide their USDA certication of organic status conrming operation as an organic dairy in 2023 and 2022 along with the certication of 2022 milk production in hundredweight. ODMAP complements other assistance available to dairy producers, including Dairy Margin Coverage and Supplemental DMC, with more than $300 million in benets paid for the 2023 program year to date.

To learn more about USDA programs, producers can contact their local USDA service center. Producers can also prepare maps for acreage reporting as well as manage farm loans and other programs by logging into their farmers.gov account. If you don’t have an account, sign up today.

PROUDLY CELEBRATING JUNE DAIRY MONTH

A true partner is defined by those they support. That’s why at Compeer Financial we’re defined by our longstanding partnership with the dairy industry. We’re proud to work alongside hard-working dairy farmers, processors and others every day to support your hopes for the future as well as your needs today. And as the dairy industry and agriculture continues to evolve, so will we, together.

Farm Service Agency is an Equal Opportunity Lender. Complaints about discrimination should be sent to: Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., 20250. Visit www.fsa.usda.gov for necessary application forms and updates on USDA programs

STEM education soon to be incorporating dairy

The dairy checkoff is bringing a new approach to growing trust with young Americans by helping high school curriculum writers across the country incorporate accurate science behind food and agriculture in classroom lessons. Midwest Dairy is proud to have co-funded and co-led this academic-focused pilot over the last three years with the National Dairy Council, which will help inform the strategy and scale our reach and impact.

By Eir Garcia Silva Vice President, Dairy Experience-Marketing, Midwest Dairy

Midwest Dairy knows it is important to continually grow trust with today’s youth and believes this is an inuential route to do so. All high school students must take science before they graduate, and 91% have no interaction with an agriculture program like 4-H or FFA. This initiative will help youth be careful consumers of scientic and technical information to evaluate misinformation while equipping them for their chosen careers.

One effort of the pilot includes the On The Farm STEM program, which brings leading science educators and curriculum developers to dairy farms and the broader supply chain to discover ideas that can t into high school science curriculum. The experience – created in partnership with the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture – will offer sciencebased information about how dairy is responsibly produced by farmers and its contributions to health and wellness.

As we continue to get dairy in the classroom, checkoff has learned that science is no longer learning and memorizing what scientists have

done; it is about doing and experiencing scientic phenomena to uncover and understand systems. Food and agriculture are great ways to learn because everyone eats, and everything we do is rooted in science.

Midwest Dairy hosted an On The Farm STEM immersive experience last year for educators from 15 states and Puerto Rico to visit dairy farms and other industry entities in Minnesota. These participants saw rsthand how farmers use many STEM-aligned aspects to care for the environment and their cows, ultimately building trust. This experience also led to the development of two complete units of curriculum expected to be

implemented in several states in 2024.

Currently, the National Dairy Council and Midwest Dairy are creating an implementation handbook that other state and regional checkoff organizations can customize based on their needs. The checkoff is also building relationships with key education organizations such as the National Science Teaching Association and respected curriculum reviewers to bring awareness to STEM content. The goal is for this pilot program to go nationwide, building the platform to bring dairy to all classrooms.

To learn more about this effort, visit www. usdairy.com.

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Country living

Living in the country comes with some distinct advantages.

For one thing, it’s pretty quiet out here. I might spend the entire day writing, and when my wife gets home from work in the evening she might ask, “How was your day?” to which I might reply, “Not bad, except for all the trafc. I didn’t keep track, but I’ll bet three cars drove by here today.”

But country living also has a few downsides

and I’m not just talking about the fact that the nearest coffee shop is over 10 miles away. What I mean is that we sometimes nd ourselves sharing our living space with some of nature’s less-desirable creatures.

My wife, like many women, cannot abide spiders or snakes. Actually, she can deal with spiders, usually by spraying them with enough insecticide

to drown Godzilla or by smushing them a few hundred times with one of my shoes.

Snakes are a whole other matter. I discovered this some years ago, back when our two sons were quite young. My wife and the boys had been sitting on the couch, reading a book together, when she saw something slither behind the refrigerator. My wife instantly recognized that something as a snake.

She later related how the hair had stood up on the back of her neck as she tried to hide her rising panic from the kids. She knew one thing for certain, and that was that the snake had to go.

My wife had armed herself with a broom and a dustpan and was about to do battle with the reprehensible reptile when I came into the house after completing some eldwork. She was greatly

relieved by my presence and anxiously described what had happened.

Her account led me to believe that a gargantuan boa constrictor was coiled behind the refrigerator, patiently waiting for an opportunity to spring out and wrap itself around one of our kids. She may have been inuenced by the fact that she had been reading “The Swiss Family Robinson” to our boys, a story in which the family’s donkey suffers a similar fate.

She told me that, since I was the man of the house, it was up to me to rectify this snake situation. I took the broom, carefully moved the fridge and … came face to face with a herpetological horror.

Dear County Agent Guy

By Jerry Nelson Columnist

Except that it wasn’t exactly the serpent my wife had described. It was, in fact, a baby garter snake and wasn’t much larger than a nightcrawler.

I snatched the squirming serpent and showed it to our boys. I let them pet it, and they marveled at its smooth, scaly skin and its slithery forked tongue. The whole time my wife was shrieking in a high-pitched voice, “Get it out, get it out!”

The boys and I released the garter snake at the edge of a nearby hayeld. It has never been back; no doubt its cold-blooded feelings were hurt by my wife’s chilly reception.

A summer or two later, I had just gotten home at the end of the day when our youngest son came running up to me and breathlessly reported that there was a monster in our haymow. I was skeptical about his tale as the lad was known for his vivid imagination. Still, I thought it best to humor him and check it out.

I poked my head up into the haymow, where our kids often played, but saw nothing. “No, Dad,” the boy insisted, “Look higher. See it?”

I did as he suggested, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck. There, on a small platform near the roof of the haymow, sat a humungous boar raccoon. Our eyes locked, and the beast guttered out a menacing growl.

I went to the house and returned with my .22 rie. I pumped a couple of slugs into the foul-tempered intruder, and he fell onto the haymow oor with a satisfying thump.

Examination revealed that the raccoon was mangy and had dozens of ticks. He also weighed about 40 pounds. He didn’t look anything at all like the jolly, fuzzy cartoon portrayal of that particular critter.

I later described the masked monster to my wife, tossing in the factoid that raccoons are known carriers of rabies. I was again lauded as the household hero and rewarded with copious kisses.

Which just goes to show that there’s nothing like a little animal alarm to raise a country guy’s stock in his wife’s eyes. Who knows? Maybe she’ll nd a salamander behind the toilet someday.

That is, if I can manage to catch a salamander.

Jerry is a recovering dairy farmer from Volga, South Dakota. He and his wife, Julie, have two grown sons and live on the farm where Jerry’s great-grandfather homesteaded over 110 years ago. Jerry works full time for Dairy Star as a staff writer and ad salesman. Feel free to email him at jerry.n@dairystar. com.

Improve alfalfa quality, protability with wide-swath hay

In an era of higher feed prices and lower milk prices, it is hard to argue the value of high-quality forages. The idea of wide-swath cutting is not a new concept. However, it seems questions arise as producers ne-tune this process, upgrade hay equipment and consider the return on what can be a substantial investment, depending on current machinery inventory.

When alfalfa is cut, it usually has a moisture content of 75% to 80%. This freshly cut forage needs to be dried to approximately 55% to 60% moisture for haylage and closer to 15% for dry hay. Exact numbers vary depending on storage structure and harvest method.

Something to Ruminate On

By Barry Visser Nutritionist

Plants continue to respire during the wilting and drying process. This respiration process consumes plant sugars within the plant cell and produces oxygen and water. Respiration rate is the highest at cutting and gradually declines until the plant moisture content has fallen below 60%.

The longer it takes forage to dry to the ideal moisture content for harvest, the longer the forage is respiring in the eld. Therefore, rapid initial drying to remove the rst 15% of moisture from the plant reduces the loss of fermentable carbohydrates and preserves more total digestible nutrients in the harvested forage.

The concept of “hay in a day” has gained widespread popularity over the past several years to shorten harvest windows and ensure maximum retention of nutrients.

Once alfalfa is cut, the largest portion of the initial water loss is through the leaf surface openings called stomata. These gas-and-moistureexchange sites open in daylight and close in darkness. By laying forage in a wide swath, the amount of forage exposed to the sunlight is maximized, thus keeping the maximum number of stomata open. Many more stomata will close if put into a narrow, denser windrow where it is darker. Research at Penn State University showed that wide-swath cutting increases the drying surface of the swath by 2.8 times. In many trials, it has been shown that moisture reduction from 85% to 60% can be reached in as little as ve to seven hours.

Some producers may be reluctant to go to a wide swath because they do not want to drive one or both wheels on the cut hay. Research has shown that this causes less loss than making a swath narrow enough to t between the wheels. Another concern is that driving over a swath will increase ash content in the forage. In most cases, the opposite is true. One theory for lower ash content with wide swath is that that material tends to remain on top of the cut stubble whereas narrow windrows are heavier and result in closer ground contact.

When possible, avoid conditioning on a haylage crop. Conditioning crimps plant stems and disrupts the natural moisture transportation within

the plant, reducing the drying rate. If the stems are left intact, the leaves of the plant can pull more moisture out the stems and the hay will dry more quickly to the ideal moisture for haylage (55% to 60%).

Conditioning is important for making dry hay, as the crimping allows additional moisture to leave the stems at moisture below 60%.

Drying forage to the ideal moisture content as quickly as possible is the single most important factor in preserving the harvested forage quality. Wide-swathing allows for fast drying, and the shorter harvest window also reduces the risk of rain damage, further enhancing the opportunity to feed topquality forage.

Barry Visser is a nutritionist for Vita Plus.

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50 years and counting

The rst time I heard the letter combination of DHIA was in Sherry Newell’s ofce at WJON radio station during June Dairy Month in 1985. I was the new hire to the station’s farm department. I came from an Illinois beef farm and moved to the heart of dairy country in Minnesota. I was facing a steep learning curve. Sherry called me to her ofce to chat. She said if I was going to date Mark Schmitt, I better learn how to read a DHIA test sheet. Her advice turned out to be prophetic.

Sherry almost giggled as she recalled a childhood memory of racing her siblings to the mail-box at the end of the driveway a few days after the tester had been in their barn. I could see Sherry tracing the lines of her favorite cows to study the latest test results and records in progress as she slowly walked back to the house. Many years later, I would witness my own children walking back from the mailbox enthralled with the latest test results as they traced the lines of their favorite cows. Today, nobody races to the mailbox. I just click on the latest report to download the in-formation to my

computer. It is amazing how things have evolved over what feels like just a few years. Despite all the changes, there is also a sense of consistency and dependability.

Mark was serving on the Benton County DHIA board when we were rst married. I can’t remember how many testers came through our barn in those early years. The turnaround was on the verge of frustrating. We would get a tester trained to where and how information was to be hand printed in our DHIA book, and then they would decide they didn’t like the job or the hours. Eventually the board found two perfect guys to do the job of collecting information and milk samples. Ron and Bruce have been testing for Benton County for over 35 years each. Bruce eventually became our tester and a part of our family.

Our connection with DHIA started 50 years ago when Mark’s dad began testing his cows. We have tested cows almost every month since then, and I have every test sheet to boot. I don’t know why I have kept all the printouts and individual cow pages of special cows, but

it is nice to ip through the old books like a photo album bringing back memories of where these favorite girls stood or the list of their progeny throughout our farm’s history.

Just Thinking Out Loud

By Natalie Schmitt Columnist

In the beginning, we tested both morning and night. We received little notice of when the tester would show up in our yard to test cows, but there was always a general time of the month when we could expect a visit. It was thought that this unannounced testing helped protect the validity of the test results. Farmers weren’t able to juggle milking time or milking order to help boost a cow’s production. We depended upon the accuracy of our production records to support the value and sale of our registered animals. Really, if that was happening, it only hurt the dairyman in the long run.

I remember hearing about one tester showing up in a farmer’s yard to test cows one night. The only problem was that the farmer was at a family event and planned to take the evening off. Needless to say, his plans were turned upside down.

We would have an unannounced state tester appear in our yard every once in a while. It was policy to have spot checks when a cow was producing “too much” milk or a herd was testing “too high.” The state would send a tester in right behind the county tester to verify the accuracy of the previous tests. We had nothing to hide, but it meant extra work and added fees. We would also have to put the state tester up for the night as well as feed him supper and breakfast just to prove our county test results were accurate and true.

It is amazing how many things have changed with testing cows, and yet, there is still the same goal of providing accurate production records to help dairymen make informed management decisions based on facts. The integrity of the records is at the heart of testing.

Changes in DHIA are a reection of the changes in the dairy industry. There are fewer farmers and fewer testers but more animals on individual farms. There is no more morning and evening testing. Production records are based on a single milking. There are no more spot checks or unannounced testing. When our landline rings in the evening at the beginning of the month, we know Bruce is calling to schedule a morning test.

Why am I remembering all this history with DHIA? Bruce was here last week for our monthly morning test. Once all the samples were collected, the date entered and reports printed, we headed to the house for breakfast. Mark and Austin nished up the feeding while I started whip-ping up breakfast and Bruce set the table. He is such a part of our family that he knows our kitchen twostep. He pulls down the plates, grabs some glasses, pulls out the drawer for silverware and sets everything out on the counter. He even knows where the jams and syrups are to top off the pancakes.

Bruce is such a part of our dairy routine that it was quite a shock when he quietly said in passing that he was stepping back. His body couldn’t handle testing the large herds any more. He is nearing the magic age of Medicare and thought he would give up the big herds but still help test the smaller herds. At one time our herd was considered a large herd with 100 cows. Now we’re just a little herd and the right size to keep Bruce coming every month to test our cows and eat breakfast with the family.

As their four children pursue dairy careers off the family farm, Natalie and Mark are starting a new adventure of milking registered Holsteins just because they like good cows on their farm north of Rice, Minnesota.

Grounded in gratitude at take off

By the time these words are inked on a page of newsprint, I’ll be at The Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh, Scotland. As I wrote in my column last

Dairy Good Life

can think of only a couple other cases where you truly only get one chance.

Dairy judging isn’t easy. Competitive dairy judges need good time management, observation, critical thinking, and note-taking skills. There’s a lot to keep track of while placing a class and 12 minutes goes by mighty quick.

And then there’s the subjectivity. There’s no time clock or tally of touchdowns to decide who wins. Dairy judging scores are all subjective. Every ofcial judge evaluates classes differently. Placing a contest well comes down to which 4-H’ers saw the class most like the ofcial. Reasons scores are even more subjective.

By

fall, Dan and three of his fellow Stearns County 4-H’ers earned a berth in the International Dairy Judging Contest. What seemed so far away back in October is now just days away.

As I make nal plans and pack my suitcase, lots of feelings are owing through me.

Excitement is bubbling over the top.

I love to travel – the adventures, the sights, meeting new people, experiencing different cultures – all of it.

I’m also really excited to share this experience with Dan. I try not to think about it, because it makes me cry, but he’ll be spreading his wings in a few short years. Time together now is precious.

Anxiety is simmering beneath the surface.

Every time I travel, there’s always a bit of angst to temper the joy. I worry about leaving Glen and the girls and the farm. I worry a little about the travel itself.

Relief is seeping in.

Since October, Scotland planning and correspondence have been permanent items on my to-do list. I told Dan I’ll be ofcially excited once our plane takes off, but I’m already starting to feel relief that everything has come together.

Pride is constant.

Every time I try to imagine what Scotland and The Royal Highland show will be like I am reminded how proud I am of Dan and his teammates: Megan, Tyler, and Lanna.

4-H’ers get one opportunity to compete in the national dairy judging contest during their years in 4-H. That means this team from Stearns County had just one chance to earn a spot in the international contest. In all of 4-H and youth activities, there are lots of last chances due to aging out, but I

Dairy judging practice isn’t any easier. Every set of reasons kids give is followed with, “Good job. But here’s how you can do it better.”

It’s never just, “Good job.” There is always feedback on how to improve.

Dan and his teammates embraced that constructive criticism last fall while preparing for the national contest. Each set of reasons they delivered was better than the last.

Their preparation – and a little luck – helped them make the most of the opportunity. Again, I couldn’t be more proud.

Gratitude is keeping me grounded.

There are so many people to thank for making this experience possible.

To Glen, Monika, Daphne, our families, and employees: Thank you for keeping everything going while we’re gone.

To Dan, Megan, Tyler, and Lanna: Thank you for taking on the challenge of dairy judging and for committing to reaching your goals.

To my fellow dairy judging coaches, parents, and 4-H staff: Thank you for helping with the many, many details this trip entailed.

To all of our families, friends, and business owners who signed on as sponsors: Thank you, thank you, thank you. This opportunity would not have been possible without your nancial support.

When we rst started talking about accepting the invitation to the international contest, we reached out to the companies with whom we do business to ask for their support. I have been overcome with gratitude by everyone’s generosity and belief in supporting youth experiences. We are so fortunate to be part of this incredible business community. Thank you, again.

Sadie and her husband, Glen, milk 100 cows near Melrose, Minnesota. They have three children – Dan, Monika, and Daphne. Sadie also writes a blog at www.dairygoodlife.com. She can be reached at sadiefrericks@gmail.com.

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