ANN ADAMS

Ortensi Farm— Improving Land Health and Quality of Life

BY ANN ADAMS

Bernadette “Berni” Ortensi grew up on an equine farm in Massachusetts that was very different from the 500-acre farm she manages today with her husband, Gregory. Her childhood farm was a full service farm that included grazing and taking care of 60 horses. Berni learned how to care for, train, show, and oversee the breeding of horses on that farm. Horses were her life, and she thought she would continue providing many equestrian services as a key component to Ortensi Farm when she married her husband in 2002. But as Berni learned more about what she wanted from the farm, by taking classes like HMI’s Beginning

Women Farmer training, and what the soils needed from her, the focus of the farm has changed and she has begun focusing more on land health and the quality of life on the farm. cropping to improve our soils and they seem to be thriving.”

When Berni moved on to the farm she realized that while she knew a lot about horses, she didn’t know a lot about soils and plants. “I realized this was a huge responsibility, and I didn’t know anything about agriculture,” says Berni. “I didn’t want to start spreading chemicals so I researched organic farming and what it meant to be an organic farmer. In 2005 we were certified organic by New York Northeast Organic Farming Association (NY NOFA). We’ve managed it that way since then. We grew some small grains, and we had some great crops and Learning What’s Important

Transforming a Farm

Gregory originally bought the Ortensi Farm located in central New York in 1997 before he met Berni. They met because Berni was buying hay from him. In 2002 they married and Berni joined in the farm management. The farm had been Gregory’s retirement plan as he hadn’t planned on sitting in an easy chair. The farm definitely needed some help as it had historically been a dairy.

“The land had been leased and rented, raped and pillaged, for 15 years before he bought it,” says Berni. “It was pretty vacant and needed lots of transformation. That’s our mission—get our land in a better place than when we bought it. It has been a slow progression with time and money constraints and weather challenges, but we’ve made progress. I attribute our progress to all the things I’ve learned in grazing classes and soil and human nutrition. We’ve done some amending and used grazing and cover CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

crop failures. Over the years, we decided we weren’t going to grow organic grains anymore. Anything annual we plant now is either a cover crop or baleage.

“That one decision has helped make our farm be more profitable. We had low yields in combine crops and we’re a smaller farm. It costs a lot to own a combine, so we’d hire out our combining. But, being organic is all about timeliness. We had weed pressure with different plants wanting to grow in the soil, and we couldn’t deal with it because our custom worker might be busy. We couldn’t respond in a timely fashion. That whole model was a flop. Some years we’d have a marginal profit and

other years it would be loss. Now we are using four cover crops and we have a lot less input costs. We haven’t grazed cover crops yet, but I’m going to do a spring annual crop and then graze it. Then we will do another annual crop in another field and graze it in fall.” As Berni learned more about soil health and grazing, she shifted the focus of the farm enterprises from the annual grain crops to grassfed protein. Her goal has been to increase soil health and see how she can increase pasture productivity to raise more animals. Right now she has a product weak link as she had more grazing available when she brought the cattle in December for shipping. She uses temporary fencing and will often graze 3rd and 4th cuttings in their hayfields. “I’ve really been able to extend my grazing season with perennials. Any seeding we are doing is paying for the seed and we are showing a consistent profit on the farm. And, we still haven’t The Ortensi Farm focus has shifted over the years as Berni and Gregory have maximized cattle gotten clear what they enjoy most about farming. numbers. We’re at about 90 cows and calves. We’ve got 350 acres for grazing and making hay. I think we can handle 150 cows as soils get stronger and we have more soil nutrients increasing forage production. That’s one of the reasons I pay attention to my grazing and land,” says Berni. “I had already been practicing rotational grazing when I took HMI’s Beginning Women Farmer course. After the class, I started changing some of my grazing management. One thing I did was shorten up my grazing periods and move the animals more. But the biggest thing I’ve gotten out of the Holistic Management training is thinking of quality of life

and time management. I’m really conscious of what is really important. Now I’m really in the frontal lobe, figuring out what’s really important and what is important to me. I make decisions differently now. It made me stop and think.

“In agriculture, the way I have been doing,

I’m on the lower end of profitability. Profit margins are down. It’s a tight margin with our sector of agriculture. It’s really important to think on quality of life. It’s easy to run around like a crazy person.

“I also want to do more with the expense budgets. I haven’t’ figured out anyway to pencil in the profit I’d like yet because I don’t have a lot of direct sales. It’s hard to pencil profit with wholesale markets. We were selling to a buyer in New York and it was going well. When beef prices came down, the market went bust. This year we were ready to go with them again, but three weeks before shipping, they weren’t going to buy and we had to sell to the sale barn. We have organic grassfed cattle so we are looking for a premium wholesale account and make more money on the premium product we have. We do limited direct sales because it was such a hassle and wholesale had been going well. Premium wholesale is where I need to focus next.”

I looked at my plan with my holistic goal and “As we’ve focused just on the cattle and the sheep weren’t working as an enterprise. We the land, we’ve been able to increase our cattle also had a turkey enterprise which went well numbers. Currently we are selling about 20 when we had a good wholesaler in Brooklyn steers and retaining heifers and also doing called Good Egg. But, they went belly up. We some culling for the ground market. Eventually haven’t been able to find a comparable buyer we’ll be able to ramp up to about 50 head for so we stopped the turkey enterprise. Direct sale. I split my cattle that I’m finishing and marketing to the consumer is a full-time job and ones that are being bred. The cow/calve with it’s not one I want. We are 4.5 hours from New the live coverage go out back where there is York City so a good lower production soil. It’s a little wet and there wholesale account is limestone. We can’t really plant annual can work.” fields there, but the cows don’t need as high “We originally a nutrition. I’ve been tightening up the grazing started with an periods to two weeks, then one week, then five equestrian center days. Now I’m down to one day. It’s clear that because of my the increased production and quality is worth background, but now the extra time of moving the animals. I struggle all we do is retirement with more than daily moves. The paddocks boarding. I was doing are 10 acres that I sub-divide for daily moves,” training and lessons says Berni. Right now she has about 50,000# at first but it became stock density with one herd of 25 animals using an issue of time 20 paddocks. management. I like Berni is looking for a spring through fall working on the farm weight gain of 2.5–3 pounds/day and a 1.5–2 in the field, so I don’t pounds/day gain in the winter. She uses free have time for training. choice minerals and weighs her steers every The Ortensis are developing their herd with a When I was running 30 days. She’s looking for them to be between Simmental/Angus cross. the equestrian center, 1,250–1,350 pounds for shipping. I was managing a lot The Ortensi cattle genetics is Simmental with of clients, farm and people, human personality some Angus influence. They AI the Simmental and ‘horsenality.’ Now I’m managing land and or Angus cows when not using a Simmental bull cattle. That’s a big shift in stress. One is not to cover them. They continue to cull any larger more rewarding than the other, but I was ready frame scored cows. “We are getting rid of any of for a career change. We’re managing a lot of the lengthy cows. We want to see the ‘freezer acres for the two of us. We’re busy every day of box’ look with a wide and deep cow with no the week.” protruding bones,” says Berni. Focusing on one enterprise has allowed Berni to really improve soil conditions and cattle health. “Our cattle health is good,” say Berni. “We test all the nutrition in our forage. Because I pay attention to crop harvest, we have really good baleage as well as forage for the cattle. We’re able to market our high quality forage to the organic dairy guys as baleage. We’ve sold about 250 one-ton bales last year. We do some foliar spraying with micronutrients, but we hope to get away from it as our soils and grazing improves. I will Farm Enterprise Focus also be taking a composting class

At one point, Ortensi Farm had a lot of to learn how to create compost different enterprises including cattle, sheep, and compost tea so I won’t need poultry, and the equestrian center. “We used to any other inputs except grazing run other animals,” say Berni. “I had about 50 and cover crops. We have Dorset sheep, but they were getting tough to minerals in the soil; they just need Because of increasing stock density and recovery periods, manage. After the Holistic Management training, to be broken down to be utilized. the Ortensi are seeing increased forage and less need to feed baleage in the winter.

Berni does soil tests every three years. They did do some liming and that helped improve the soil. They haven’t repeated the liming in five years, and they still have the same pH. Berni hasn’t noticed the organic matter shifting as it remains about 7–9%. But, they do continue to improve the nutritional value of their baleage which they sell and feed to the yearlings being finished. 75% of their baleage is sold as they have enough feed for their mama cows. The relative feed value (RFV) is 115–131 and the total digestible nutrients (TDN) is 63.

The focus on soil health has been a result of really looking at how soil management influences animal and human health. “I’ve worked with the Bionutrient Food Association and Dan Kittredge. He had also been involved with NOFA Massachusetts. There he started to question is there more than just being organic. My organic certificate says that I’m not using GMO seed and not using synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides and that’s what the consumer gets,” says Berni.

“Organics doesn’t talk about the quality metrics. How do you create high quality food and nutrition? That’s what keeps me excited.

What can I do with my land and my cattle? Health is directly correlated to nutrition. Because of my work with our soils and grazing I don’t have to call the vet. Our cattle have shiny coats, don’t have illnesses, and don’t have birthing problems. I brought in a young cow with a prolapse. I called the vet and he said ‘Ship her.’ She was a sweet cow. I decided to take a gamble, and see how she would respond to good nutrition. She never had another prolapse. She got the minerals she needed from nutritious, green forage.”

“We also have a 100% conception rate which I think comes from a combination of the nutritional quality of the feed and our decision to use artificial insemination (AI) as well as live bulls. We do AI with Select Sire. We AI all the young stock, the first-time heifers and maybe about five cows per year. We can’t afford a live coverage bull the way we can in the straw. We AI about 15 heifers per year. We have about 50 brood cows, and we use live bull coverage for about 35 of the brood cows. We’re not interested in line breeding so the plan is to eventually have enough cattle to keep two bulls and flip daughters to another bull.”

Berni is also experimenting with soil fertility in the family garden. “I’ve been experimenting with cover crops in my garden,” says Berni. “I did a cocktail mix with purple top turnip. It grew to platter size—we called it “The Great Turnip.” The fertility is crazy there. That’s what I’m talking about and what I want to share with others. It wasn’t always that beautiful. I had crop failures and all kinds of pest problems. I had disease residues. We’ve come a long way by focusing on soil health. We had a wheat crop that was infested with little mites. Those infestations mean something is not right. Disease means you’re not balanced. So we worked to make things healthy for the long term. I want to get my system in place. I don’t have to keep an IV drip tube stuck to my land.

“We also have 150 acres of forest land that has ashbore, and there are projection of maples dying here because of climate change. When I get my compost tea sprays right, I’ll start working on the woodlots next and see if we can get the nutrition right there so they can compete against the pests and diseases like our pastures have.

“My husband is all about successional growth in the woodlots to keep them healthy. We’ve been managing our woods holistically to keep it growing. We cull wood for our wood stove, but nothing mature for a saw log. We look at wildlife need and see it as another ecosystem that works on our farm. We graze our hedge rows also to manage and maintain them. We are always looking for the diversity to come to our land, managing our wooded land for succession for the next generation and the one after that. I’m worried about these pests and disease looming in our area so I’m going to work on the wooded lands to see what we can do.”

“But the biggest thing I’ve gotten out of the Holistic Management training is thinking of quality of life and time management. I’m really conscious of what is really important. Now I’m really in the frontal lobe, figuring out what’s really important and what is important to me. I make decisions differently now. It made me stop and think.”

While the Ortensis have to balance quality of life with soil health, they have worked to increase their stock density and decrease their grazing periods by subdividing paddocks with hot wire. While Berni is most interested in soil health and getting her grazing and genetics to perform better, she is also aware that she wants to share her knowledge and good fortune with others. “There is life and vitality in the soil and animals that I can feel,” says Berni. “I want to be able to share what I have learned. I’ve been struggling with how to share how wonderful my land and cattle are, the overall vitality, with my community. I’m thinking about how I can connect with inner city kids. Utica is only a half hour away and it is in bad shape with no revitalization or opportunities. I’d like to figure out a way to get kids out to our farm to learn. We have a big family garden and they could work in it and take the veggies with them. It’s critical to get the kids on the land, to help them understand and connect with nature. I’m so lucky that I get to do this and be outside and be in nature, and I want to share it with other people and see how they can benefit.” Berni knows there is much more that she needs to learn and she is eager for that opportunity whether that involves making compost tea, teaching inner city children, experimenting with cover crops, or improving the family’s woodlot. She is well aware that continuous learning is part of her quality of life values. “Sometimes we get to the point where we are not thinking and are on auto pilot, missing opportunities and making mistakes. When we think we know it all, then we have our biggest failure. From my perspective, the power of observation and the willingness to adapt are the keys to agriculture—and in life.”