BCR_Ag Matters_061723

MANAGING SOYBEAN FOLIAR, STEM DISEASES

Beck’s study shows eld tile bene ts

By Erica Quinlan AGRINEWS PUBLICATIONS

LONDON, Ohio — Recent Beck’s Practical Farm Research data can provide farmers with water management solutions to increase profitability and value.

“When it comes to water drainage, the presence of tile is extremely beneficial when increasing yield regardless of spacing,” said Jared Chester, Ohio PFR/agronomy data and information specialist.

“In a five-year corn and soybean study at Beck’s PFR location in London, Ohio, the data indicates there was little yield differentiation when it comes to the actual spacing of tile.”

Beck’s PFR team expanded its tile research by incorporating tile depth at Beck’s Southern Illinois PFR location in Effingham.

When planting soybeans, data concludes that farmers can have a 10 bushel per acre yield advantage with 15-foot tile spacing at a 36-inch depth, whereas farmers can expect a 28 bushel per acre yield advantage with 15-foot tile spacing at a 24-inch depth when planting corn.

When it comes to water input in fields, drip lines are generally placed 12 to18 inches deep every 60 inches and are expected to have a lifespan of over 20 years.

According to a Southern Illinois PFR corn study, drip line paired with tile shows a 20 bushel per acre yield advantage.

Erica Quinlan can be reached at 815410-2070, or equinlan@shawmedia. com. Follow her on Twitter at: @AgNews_Quinlan.

Protect stake in nitrogen Avoid N loss paths in growing season

By Tom C. Doran AGRINEWS PUBLICATIONS

GENESEO, Ill. — Nitrogen is among the costliest and yield-limiting inputs in corn production, and there are three pathways that investment can be lost during the growing season.

Eric Wilson, Wyffels Hybrids agronomy manager, detailed the nitrogen loss scenarios of leaching, denitrification and volatilization, along with management tips.

Here is what he had to say about each topic:

ON LEACHING

Leaching is the loss of nitrate through the soil water profile and the primary nitrogen loss pathway often discussed.

Nitrate is the most abundant form of nitrogen because typically under warm spring conditions all forms of nitrogen

convert to nitrate. It does have a negative charge, so it’s not held by the soil cation exchange and it readily moves with water.

Losses are directly dependent on rainfall and temperature. However, it’s not always associated with heavy rainfall events.

In fact, a lot of heavy rainfall events result in surface runoff that doesn’t move down through that soil profile.

Something to keep in mind, if you had early-season heavy rainfall events, some of that nitrogen that you applied in particular as anhydrous, is likely not converted to nitrate yet.

Temperature is the key. You have to have those warm temperatures for ammonia to convert to nitrate in order for it to be leached through the soil profile.

ON DENITRIFICATION

This would be the primary loss pathway under flooded conditions. This is

very dependent on temperature and losses per day can range from 2%, 50 to 60 degrees, to 5% or greater, 65 degrees-plus.

Significant loss does happen under saturated soil conditions, especially when we have warmer temperatures later in the spring.

ON VOLATILIZATION

Volatilization is typically not a primary loss pathway for a lot of us, but it can happen. It’s directly associated with surface-applied fertilizers that are left unincorporated.

Keep in mind, we have to have a little bit of rainfall to get nitrogen to move down into the soil profile unless we’re doing some early spring tillage to incorporate that.

ON MANAGEMENT

Know when to act if you suspect that you’ve had some nitrogen loss.

Above-average spring rainfall, specifically between May and June, usually justifies additional nitrogen applications above what you’ve already done.

If ponding or saturated soils exist for extended periods, assume significant nitrogen loss to denitrification.

Keep in mind, these are all temperature-dependent. If it’s happening early season, and we don’t have the warm temperatures to get conversion to occur, it’s unlikely that we’ve lost a lot of nitrogen, especially if it’s still in the ammonium form.

Spring soil nitrate testing — if you’re using a spring soil nitrate test and it’s coming back low, that absolutely justifies doing an additional nitrogen application.

Tom C. Doran can be reached at 815-410-2256 or tdoran@shawmedia. com. Follow him on Twitter at: @AgNews_Doran.

OPINION

Connect every rural acre with broadband

By Emily Haxby

I am a fifth-generation farmer, wife, mother of four young children and vice chair of my county board of supervisors. We farm with our family in southeast Nebraska, growing corn and soybeans in addition to a beef cow/calf operation.

Like most farms, broadband has become essential to our work: downloading agriculture programs, livestock monitoring systems, utilizing precision agriculture equipment, basic connectivity for information and emailing and so forth. However, our connectivity isn’t adequate for doing business.

Farms are a tough business case for internet providers when the cost per mile is significant for fiber — up to $30,000 to $40,000, according to some estimates — and there are miles between farms. So, how do we connect them? What can we do?

I was serving on the Gage County Board of Supervisors when we received our American Rescue Plan Act funds during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The board decided that broadband was the best way to invest those dollars to ensure the future of our communities. I led our broadband committee in the quest to get fiber to our rural residents.

We wrote a request for proposal, selected a provider and created a contract, a process that took over a year to complete.

We established a public/private partnership with Nextlink that will cover about 40% of our county with fiber, reaching almost 1,000 homes.

During the fall of 2022, the Federal Communications Commission released its updated draft National Broadband Map and asked for stakeholders to review it to help improve it.

This map is critically important because the National Telecommunications and Information Administration will use it to distribute billions of dollars in broadband program funding to each state.

The map was developed to provide an

accurate and reliable picture of broadband availability across the country.

I reviewed the maps and immediately found inaccuracies. For example, within 12 square miles around my house, there were 12 missing locations — homes not marked as Broadband Serviceable Locations.

My initial thought was, how can federal funds be accurately distributed when so many rural homes are missing? And if I could fix the county, could it be scaled up for the state?

Through our work with the county broadband project, I partnered with the Southeast Nebraska Development District. We developed a methodology to correct the FCC maps with the help of public power.

Utilizing electric meter data locations, we overlaid the FCC map and ran a 250-foot buffer around each meter location. If there was not an FCC BSL identified within a buffer, we manually checked each location.

Through this process, we identified more than 11,000 missing BSLs on the FCC map in the state of Nebraska, the majority of which were in rural communities.

Along with the fabric challenge, I

filed challenges to the availability reported by Internet Service Providers. Identifying these rural locations will ensure tens of thousands of rural Nebraskans are able to get connected.

I encourage everyone to review the map for accuracy in your local area. And consider talking to your local, state and federal lawmakers about this critically important matter.

We are fortunate because our state Farm Bureau, like many across the United States, has made increased access to broadband a priority.

Here in Nebraska, Gov. Jim Pillen prioritizing rural broadband is just as important to rural residents as efforts in 1936 to pass the Rural Electrification Act, which brought electricity to all U.S. citizens.

I want my kids to grow up where I have and become the sixth generation on our family farm. Having broadband will give them the opportunity to participate in the 21st century economy.

Emily Haxby is a Farm Bureau member in Nebraska, where she farms with her family and serves on her county board of supervisors.

Haxby

Managing soybean foliar, stem diseases

By Tom C. Doran AGRINEWS PUBLICATIONS

CARBONDALE, Ill. — Current research efforts are leading to a clearer picture of the incidences and severity of soybean foliar and stem diseases. Jason Bond, plant pathologist and director of the Illinois Soybean Center director at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, detailed the diseases that threaten soybeans each year during the Illinois Soybean Association-hosted Soybean Summit.

“Most of the soybean foliar and stem diseases are continual threats to production, primarily because they overwinter in our fields. Maybe not in a particular field that you’re growing your crop in this year, but maybe a neighboring field,” Bond said.

“Sometimes what’s happening in fields in neighboring Kentucky and Tennessee contribute to what we deal with as these pathogens move into our area.”

Here is what Bond had to say about

the common foliar diseases in Illinois soybeans fields.

ON DOWNY MILDEW

This one that I come in contact with in almost every field. If we’re having reasonable growing conditions, it’s very easy to find downy mildew. It can look pretty dramatic in the field.

I’ve never seen a case where if you sprayed a fungicide to control that pathogen that you get a response. For whatever reason, the genetics that we grow in our environment, it is not a yield-robber.

It is a parasite because it attacks our soybeans and it causes symptoms. So, you can call it a disease-causing agent, but it rarely impacts yield in our areas. Generally in other parts of the world it does cause some yield loss.

ON SEPTORIA BROWN SPOT

This foliar disease is another one that is present in most fields. It’s usually easy to find it as that plant starts shutting down as it approaches maturity and when that happens, a lot of things start popping out on the leaves are a pretty evident.

It is a yield-robber in some environments and in

some cases we do see people spray a fungicide and see a response to controlling this pathogen.

ON CERCOSPORA BLIGHT

Cercospora blight attacks the leaves and pods and infects the seeds and leads to a disease called purple seed stain. It’s pretty widespread. The fact that it causes seed discoloration also tells us that it is seed-borne, so it can move around the country.

So, it is a pathogen that we can actually bring to our fields if it’s not there yet. It does typically cause yield loss, depending on the variety.

One of the complexities of this pathogen is that the timing of when it arrives and it affects those leaves, you don’t immediately get symptoms. You don’t really know what’s there and then it starts showing up when the plant goes through the later reproductive stages.

So, the timing of a fungicide application is pretty difficult and it’s not real clear how much yield protection you get when you spray a fungicide.

Timing is not as easy as maybe some of the other foliar diseases. So, you don’t normally see recommendations, at least in our part of the

country for spraying fungicide for cercospora blight.

ON FROGEYE LEAF SPOT

This pathogen is a major yield-robber and is widespread in our region. It overwinters in residue in many parts of this region. What dictates if you have it or not is generally our environment.

For whatever reason, 2022 was a pretty light year for frogeye leaf spot in southern Illinois and also into Kentucky and Tennessee. Part of that season we had a real dry period in western Kentucky and in Tennessee that slowed the disease.

It was widespread in Illinois, but it was localized on its impact in terms of how much disease was there. Just because it’s in the field does not necessarily mean that yield is going to be lost. It needs a certain level of severity.

It gets the name frogeye leaf spot because of the little brown lesion that is surrounded with a little black border and is supposed kind of mirror that of a frog eye.

Once the disease pressure starts getting very severe and the leaves start getting under intense pressure they start to yellow. Once that happens, they usually start defoliating.

Bond

So, yield loss cannot only come from the pathogen affecting the tissue and causing lesions, but once we start getting to the defoliation stage that yield loss starts ramping up even more.

If you have the pathogen under the right environments with moisture and humidity, it will attack the pods and can even infect the seeds and compounding those yield losses.

ON FROGEYE MANAGEMENT

There are strobilurin fungicide-resistant populations of this pathogen and it’s pretty widespread. We can no longer manage it with a single mode of action.

Strobilurins are a great chemistry and are still very important for use in both corn and soybeans, but not just by themselves. We need two modes of action and we see some companies now even going to three modes of action.

There are options we can take to manage this pathogen well in advance of that beyond just reacting and applying fungicide if we see it in our fields.

When we rotate our crops to a nonhost like corn, wheat or other crops, that is going to reduce the amount of inoculum in that field.

The pathogen is going to live in that residue to some degree and so that helps reduce but doesn’t eliminate the potential for those pathogens to come back.

We can also choose resistant varieties. Most companies always mark some of those that have resistance to frogeye leaf spot.

If they don’t mention it, then it’s probably not been tested or maybe they’re not really that serious or interested to tell you that it’s susceptible.

You can get some pretty good guidance from the brochures or work with a seed adviser and deploy resistant varieties. That will go a long way to help manage this disease.

There are also tolerant varieties. Look at those variety brochures and find some of their varieties that are tolerant.

When should you spray for this disease? Sometimes you’ll hear R4 or R5. If you’re producing soybean seed, seed quality is very important and you’re dealing with pathogens and controlling pathogens that will not only infect foliage, but also attack the seed,

then you might have guidance from whoever you’re producing that seed for to spray at a later date.

Generally, literature and most research shows that that R3 timing is really the best, but most times when we go into fields, even in our disease hot spots, you don’t see much frogeye leaf spot at R3. It comes in a little bit later.

The pathogen is already there at R3 or sometimes even earlier, but what we’re looking for when we go out into these fields is actual symptoms, those little spots, not the pathogen.

For this pathogen to produce the spot on the leaf at R3 it would have had to affect 12 to 14 days prior to that because the spore lands on the leaf, gets into the plant, the plant doesn’t let us know that it’s sick for at least 12 days after that process takes place.

A lot of things could be happening in your field during a period of time where we’re not seeing the disease. So, it’s helpful when your plants are sick for us to know as soon as possible.

These pathogens all have these different timings from when the leaf is infected until symptoms appear. That makes it challenging.

There are no resistant soybean varieties available for helping manage stem diseases anthracnose, pod and stem blight, and charcoal rot, while there are resistant varieties for controlling brown stem rot, stem canker and phytophthora canker.

ON ANTHRACNOSE

Anthracnose is widespread, especially in southern Illinois. Infection occurs in the reproductive stages, but is usually latent and not seed until the plants are mature.

If you ever get into a situation where you’re seeing anthracnose show up on green tissue on pods and leaves, that is an intense disease environment.

We typically do not see that in Illinois, and hopefully we don’t see that in the future, but this pathogen shows up way early in those reproductive stages and has a very long latent period. We typically don’t know it’s there until the plants are mature.

ON CHARCOAL ROT

Last year was an explosive year for

charcoal rot. That’s a soilborne organism that infects the roots soon after planting, but as we get into real hot and dry conditions, it just continues to grow into the vascular tissues and it exacerbates the drought and your plants are suffering in the dry conditions.

There are no resistant varieties known for charcoal rot. Fungicides seed treatments really don’t have that much efficacy against this pathogen. In-furrow fungicides have really failed to take hold on this.

This is one of those diseases that you don’t really talk about at field days too much because the only option to lessen the severity of the disease in-season is to irrigate.

This pathogen is a challenge across all crops. It affects corn, soybeans, wheat, whatever we grow in our fields is a host to this pathogen that cause charcoal rot.

ON RESISTANT VARIETIES

Brown stem rot, stem canker and phytophthora canker can be managed by variety selection. The last few years, we’ve seen an uptick in stem canker from the tip of southern Illinois all the way up to the far reaches of northern Illinois.

Even though it is a pathogen that produces spo-res that are attacking our stems that then lead to cankers, it’s the timing of when you get the fungicide out to protect those stems at the time those spores are moving is not well defined.

Somebody might have great success and you could repeat everything they did, but if I spray a day or two different or have a different planting date, I may not have the same level of success as my neighbor. That’s how erratic this disease is in terms of trying to control it with a fungicide.

So, it’s very difficult to make a fungicide recommendation on that one even though fungicides have efficacy against the pathogen, the timing can be very difficult.

Tom C. Doran can be reached at 815-410-2256 or tdoran@shawmedia. com. Follow him on Twitter at: @AgNews_Doran.

Symptoms and signs of downy mildew are pale green to yellow spots on upper leaf surfaces and tufts of gray spores on lower leaf surfaces during moist conditions. Sometimes producers also might notice white fungal growth on the interiors of soybean pods.

Septoria brown spot lesions usually remain in the lower canopy of the plant, but can sometimes spread to upper leaves. They might have yellow halos, and a ected leaves will usually turn yellow as the disease progresses.

Frogeye leaf spot symptoms include brown to gray circular spots on leaves that are surrounded by purple halos.

Solar power harvested at lower cost, with minimal crop impact

By Erica Quinlan AGRINEWS PUBLICATIONS

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University researchers have improved upon traditional solar energy structures used in agrivoltaic farming. These patent-pending structures and software optimize food production for farmers and maximize solar energy production.

By definition, agrivoltaic farming is a sustainable system that generates electricity from the sun while row crops like corn, rice, soybeans and wheat concurrently grow on the same land. Farmland is already used to generate wind energy, but it has limiting fac-

tors, including wind availability, said Rakesh Agrawal, chemical engineering professor at Purdue.

“Sunlight is available at most locations where farming is done, and photovoltaics, or PV, can be deployed at a much larger scale,” Agrawal said.

“However, use of PV panels on agriculture far-mland requires sharing solar photons between food and energy that must be carefully optimized.”

The new agrivoltaic structures use a dual, off-axis rotation system and sensors to optimize the amount of electricity generated and the amount of light that crops receive.

“The key idea is that when farm equipment needs to pass, the mod-

ules will rotate to form a near-vertical structure,” Tuinstra said. “At other times, the modules will track the sun as usual.”

The structures can be implemented for full-scale farming and use current farm equipment, said Muhammad Ashraful Alam, electrical and computer engineering professor at Purdue.

“The system is designed with row crops in mind like corn, soybeans, wheat and rice,” Alam said.

“The dimensions of these structures have been fine-tuned to allow sunlight, rain and shadows to reach plants as needed. They also withstand harsh weather conditions including heavy rain and strong wind.”

The next steps to bring these improved agrivoltaic structures to market include partnering with a solar energy developer.

“This is translational research,” Tuinstra said. “An industrial partnership or partnership with solar farm installation companies, preferably in Indiana, is the next step.”

Ind ustry partners seeking to further develop the inventions should contact Will Buchanan, wdbuchanan @prf.org about 2020-AGRA68784 and 2021-AGRA-69267.

Erica Quinlan can be reached at 815-4102070, or equinlan@shawmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at: @AgNews_Quinlan.

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Purdue University researchers in the colleges of agriculture and engineering have created agrivoltaic structures that optimize the amount of electricity generated by solar farms. The modules are mounted lower than traditional solar structures and rotate to form a near-vertical structure when farm equipment needs to pass.

Fungicide put to test On-farm trials reveal benefits

By Tom C. Doran AGRINEWS PUBLICATIONS

OGDEN, Iowa

— Strip trials have become standard operating procedure for the Heineman family to test products and practices on their farm.

Brett Heineman, along with his father, Craig, and uncle, Paul, operates the family’s central Iowa farm where they grow corn and soybeans.

In a recent interview with Heineman facilitated by BASF, the fifth-generation farmer, spoke of the benefits of using fungicides based on on-farm trials.

What are your experiences with fungicides?

Heineman: We like to test stuff in our operation. We’ll do strip trials. We do 90-foot strips of whatever we’re trying, then we’ll have a 90-foot

control strip and we’ll alternate that through the field. We usually do 40 to 80 acres of strip trials, depending on what we’re doing, to get a good replication of what we’re trialing.

We have a plan in place where we will test things for three years. If they show profitability for three years then we implement them into our program. That’s what happened with fungicide.

What kind of yield bump have you seen on average by using a fungicide?

Heineman: We’ve probably ranged from 5 to 12 bushels, depending on the year.

When do you decide to pull the trigger on a fungicide application?

Heineman: We want to spray it by V10, but if we see pressure is moving in earlier, we’ll spray earlier. It’s more important to get it on before you have the problem then put it on after you have the problem.

What kind of disease pressure have you seen in your area?

Heineman: Right now, northern corn leaf blight is kind of our biggest deal, but tar spot has been creeping in. Tar spot showed up late everywhere last year.

So, this year we’ll probably be spraying two passes of fungicide to try to help control that because I know that stuff can be really nasty.

What have you seen as the overall benefits of a fungicide application?

Heineman: Standability is one thing, but really my big goal is plant health. In a perfect world, what I’m aiming for is to have a green plant from top to bottom and harvesting 18% corn. That gives us the biggest bang for our buck and gives us the biggest yield.

We cover a decent amount of acres and so standability is also a nice thing about having a fungicide.

Some of our biggest successes with fungicides from what we see is getting it out before there’s any disease pres-

sure, and that’s also where we get our biggest bang for our buck.

What is your go-to fungicide product?

Heineman: It’s whatever makes sense because some years one is cheaper than another. It just all depends.

How is your growing season going so far?

Heineman: We planted our soybeans first and they’re all up into their first trifoliate and look really good. We planted some corn into cooler conditions than I would like, so it’s going to hurt our even emergence some, but that’s just kind of the nature of the beast.

Right now (on May 19) I’m planting seed corn. All of our commercial corn and soybeans are planted.

Tom C. Doran can be reached at 815-410-2256 or tdoran@shawmedia. com. Follow him on Twitter at: @AgNews_Doran.

Heineman

Cows can milk when they want

Better health, production with robotic systems

By Martha Blum AGRINEWS PUBLICATIONS

FORT ATKINSON, Wis. — Dairy cows milked with robotic systems have more behavior freedom and as a result there’s a potential for better health and milk production.

“The key is voluntary milking which allows the cows to milk when they want to,” said Trevor DeVries, professor at the University of Guelph and Canada Rese-arch Chair in Dairy Cattle Behavior and Welfare.

“We’d like that to happen on a regular interval,” said DeVries during a

webinar hosted by Hoard’s Dairyman.

“We want that to match other aspects of her time budget, as well, so the cow can eat, drink and lie down when she wants to.”

However, the professor said, the benefits may not always be realized.

DeVries recently completed a large study in Canada where 200 farms were surveyed and the researchers benchmarked all the production and health data for one and a half years.

“Cows may not milk when they want to because they can’t get to the robot,” he said. “A lot of things influence that and the biggest thing is the design and

management of the facilities.”

There are many ways to design robotic milking facilities — retrofit existing facilities, build new facilities or set up robots in pens in different configurations.

“From my perspective, the cow traffic has the biggest effect on voluntary milking,” DeVries said. “We see a difference in cow behavior between free and guided traffic systems.”

In a study of 75 farms, the majority had free traffic with less than 15% using a guided traffic system.

“There was a higher milking frequency on farms with free traffic cou-

pled with more feed bunk visits, as well,” DeVries said.

“We saw an improvement in milk yield with greater frequency of milking visits per day, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get good milk visits from guided system barns, but it probably takes a higher level of management to achieve a similar level of production as free traffic,” he said.

For stocking density, a lot of dairymen are in the 50- to 55-cow range per robot.

“Above that it becomes more challenging to manage the cows well,” DeVries said. “If we’re going to push a

higher number of cows per robot unit, we need to make sure everything else is managed very well so we don’t lose milking frequency and milk yield.”

The amount of bunk space is still important in robotic systems.

“Cows spend from four to five hours a day eating and 11 to 12 hours per day lying down,” DeVries said. “When we change their eating or lying behavior, we see production effects.”

In the Canadian study, there was 25 inches per cow for feed bunk space.

“We saw 2.5 pounds difference in milk yield based on the amount of bunk space available,” the professor said. “We need to make sure environments are comfortable and cows can get to the resources they want to in order to optimize their behavior and maximize their production.”

Mobility is the biggest contributor for cows that don’t want to go to the robot, DeVries said.

“A lame cow has pain often in her hoof or somewhere in her leg which restricts her desire to milk voluntarily,” DeVries said.

“When a cow is lame, she has pain that will restrict her movement and is less willing to get up and go to the robot so we see lame cows are 2.2 times more likely to be fetched for milking,” he said. “Lame cows had 0.3 less milkings per day and as a result they produced less milk.”

Management that dairymen know with conventional systems translates to robot barns for foot health and mo-

bility, DeVries said.

“There is less lameness for farms that had wider stalls, stalls with more lunge space, deep sand bedding and lesser stocking density,” he said, “as well as the amount of bunk space so the cows were able to eat when they want which limits the time they are standing around waiting for access to feed.”

For udder health and management, DeVries said, the milking procedure with a robotic system can be a lot better from a consistency standpoint.

“We don’t see prolonged negative effects with robots,” DeVries said.

“From an environmental standpoint, we need to make sure we keep these cows as clean as possible,” he said. “When a cow goes into a robot with a dirty udder, that robot isn’t going to differentiate that dirty udder from a cleaner one.”

Bedding management is very important for udder health.

“Sand is king not only from a comfort perspective, but also in terms of maintaining good udder health as long as the sand is kept well maintained,” DeVries said.

“One of opportunities for udder health management in robotic milking is the risk of over milking individual quarters is potentially decreased,” the professor said.

“We can probably do a better job of drying off cows with robots,” he said. “Getting cows’ milk production down prior to dryoff is important to minimize the risk of udder engorgement in

those early days post dryoff and it also reduces the risk of early dry period udder infection events.”

Nutrition plays a critical role for stimulating voluntary milking for cows in robotic systems, DeVries said.

“It’s not just the feed we provide in the robot, we also know the eating behavior of cows at the feed bunk plays a big role in voluntary milking of cows,” the professor said.

“This study shows a feeding response in cows when we deliver fresh feed and we also see a milking response,” he said. “When there’s a peak in eating activity, we also see a peak in milking activity and we see some smaller peaks with feed push-up, as well.”

To maximize the efficiency of the milking unit and optimize the behav-

ior of cows, DeVries said, the goal is to get cows to spread out their milking evenly across the 24-hour period.

“Then there will be less periods of time when the cows are standing and waiting for access to the robot,” DeVries said.

“We have an opportunity with robots to do a better job of meeting individual cow production needs and to push production on the highest production cows with supplementation of concentrate to cows in the robot,” he said. “There are challenges with this so there is more research to do there.”

Martha Blum can be reached at 815410-2254, or mblum@shawmedia. com. Follow her on Twitter at: @AgNews_Blum.