In Minnesota we have been enjoying some AMAZING weather! It's been a record breaking week! We had 90's for 2 days this week, and 80's for 4 days. Last year at this time we had 2 inches of snow on the ground, 20's and most of the crops were in the field. This year most of the crops have been harvested, bedding is being made, and tillage will start in a few days. We have been so blessed this growing season with ample rain and heat. Our soybeans and corn have produced quite the bounty!
We are looking forward to the next few days to make more bedding for our cows, heifers and calves. Dry bedding helps us keep our cows clean and dry, in addition to keeping them healthy. Winter months and wet weather require literally tons of dry bedding to allow us to do a good job caring for our cows. After we wrap up bedding, we will work right into manure hauling. We have a few storage units holding months worth of cow, heifer and calf manure. We can't haul all of our manure in the growing season, so we store it until the fall when we can hit the fields hard. By applying the manure to fields, according to our agronomist's recommendations, we utilize all of our farm nutrients and reduce our need for commercial fertilizer. We also apply manure on some of our neighbors' fields to help make sure that we don't over apply manure on our farm. We use manure as a trading item with our neighbors. In exchange for valuable nutrients and organic matter, we get the opportunity to make bedding from our neighbors' corn and soybean fields. So it's a win/win for everyone. So...hopefully I will get some pictures up soon.
Showing posts with label tillage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tillage. Show all posts
Monday, October 11, 2010
Thursday, November 19, 2009
BUSY, BUSY!
Just thought I would leave and let you know that I have not fallen off the face of the earth but instead found tons of jobs to do instead of posting. Rest assured that once I do return I will have LOTS of videos to share with you.
On Sunday night, at 1am we finished hauling out the cow barn. We hauled about 77 loads of manure on about 50 acres of land. We look forward to the great crop of corn this will hopefully yield for next year. On Tuesday we had Herd Health. Our vet came out and checked all of the cows, as usual. He had good news for us....12 cows pregnant and ready to calve in for June and July of next year! We hoped after that good news and finishing tilling in the manure that would have been able to go home that night early, but we found out a pump in our parlor was out of commission. We called the local serviceman (about 40 minutes away) to come and fix it, and after we got it figured out we finally started milking cows at 9pm (2 hours later than usual). We were so grateful to have a serviceman so close! We often try NOT to take our dairy infrastructure for granted-they do so much to make dairying less stressful for the rest of us. Needless to say, the cows were pretty mad at us, but we got them milked and made it up to them the next day by giving them extra treats in their feed.
Yesterday I was at South Dakota State University to speak to the freshmen class of Dairy Science students. It was a great experience to see another excellent group of students excited about the dairy industry and looking forward to a career in it.
Today we will be working on moving some dirt for a winter project and miscellaneous cleaning around the farm....needless to say there's never a dull day.
On Sunday night, at 1am we finished hauling out the cow barn. We hauled about 77 loads of manure on about 50 acres of land. We look forward to the great crop of corn this will hopefully yield for next year. On Tuesday we had Herd Health. Our vet came out and checked all of the cows, as usual. He had good news for us....12 cows pregnant and ready to calve in for June and July of next year! We hoped after that good news and finishing tilling in the manure that would have been able to go home that night early, but we found out a pump in our parlor was out of commission. We called the local serviceman (about 40 minutes away) to come and fix it, and after we got it figured out we finally started milking cows at 9pm (2 hours later than usual). We were so grateful to have a serviceman so close! We often try NOT to take our dairy infrastructure for granted-they do so much to make dairying less stressful for the rest of us. Needless to say, the cows were pretty mad at us, but we got them milked and made it up to them the next day by giving them extra treats in their feed.
Yesterday I was at South Dakota State University to speak to the freshmen class of Dairy Science students. It was a great experience to see another excellent group of students excited about the dairy industry and looking forward to a career in it.
Today we will be working on moving some dirt for a winter project and miscellaneous cleaning around the farm....needless to say there's never a dull day.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Rain again...
Yep, it's definitely raining again. Looks like we could get over an half an inch. We enjoyed about 3.5 days of almost perfect weather. Local farmers were able to get into the fields and start harvesting their soybeans and corn. Some tillage has also started. We are still unable to harvest our corn, since it is too wet and the cost of drying it is too high. We are waiting for the custom harvester to come and combine our soybeans, so we found other activities to do....MANURE removal.
My father-in-law and brother-in-law worked on moving our manure from the calf/heifer barn this morning. I worked on hauling out liquid manure from the cow barn and Jonathan worked on cleaning up the dry cows and heifer lots. All in all, a LOT of fertilizer was moved to the fields today. We will work this fertilizer into the soils to make an awesome bed for next year's crops. A "Fall Cleaning" of manure. We were very excited about the dry weather, sad about the rain today and tomorrow, but looking forward to the forecast for next week....cool and DRY.
My father-in-law and brother-in-law worked on moving our manure from the calf/heifer barn this morning. I worked on hauling out liquid manure from the cow barn and Jonathan worked on cleaning up the dry cows and heifer lots. All in all, a LOT of fertilizer was moved to the fields today. We will work this fertilizer into the soils to make an awesome bed for next year's crops. A "Fall Cleaning" of manure. We were very excited about the dry weather, sad about the rain today and tomorrow, but looking forward to the forecast for next week....cool and DRY.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
And the rain continues....
God has blessed us with a handful of dry days this past weekend and early week, however the radar is showing a line of rain/thunderstorms looming to the west and closing in. It's be a difficult growing season this year. We started the spring with cool wet conditions. This summer was also cool, but dry and this fall is also cool and WET! We are definitely making up for the dry summer with all of the rain we are receiving right now. This wet weather is preventing us from getting into the field and bringing in the harvest. Our corn and soybeans are all too wet to combine. We would like our corn to be at least below 20% moisture, but right now it is 31-37% moisture. Without sun and warm temperatures, the drying process is becoming more difficult.
In addition to slowing harvest, we are also postponing some critical fall activities. After combining our soybeans and corn, we return to the fields to harvest the foliage from those plants. We bale the dry soybean plants into round bales for bedding for our heifers. We bale the remaining soybean plants in small square bales to be chopped in the calf barn-making for happy, comfy, dry calves =) We chop the dry corn plants and make them into large stacks. We will take scoops of this bedding to bed in our dry cows and feed some of our heifers and dry cows. Cows love to chew on dry corn stalks! Actually cows like to chew on a lot of things.
After we harvest the bedding we spread manure, lots of manure. Manure from cows, dry cows, heifers and calves. We need to make sure we have clean animals for the winter. Also fall is the best time of the year for manure application. We reduce compaction by hauling in the fall compared to the spring. We are also able to incorporate the manure into the soil through fall tillage (plowing, digging) thereby saving the valuable nutrients in the manure to be used by the 2010 crop! Hauling manure is critical to keeping the cows clean and dry but also critical for our crops. Manure saves us money. If we capture all of the nutrients and organic matter available in manure we are able to save the cost of commercial fertilizer that we would have used. Another added benefit is that manure is great for making good soil! Because manure is natural-worms and soil microbes LOVE manure!
When we finish manure hauling...then we have to do fall tillage. Tillage means plowing some fields (using an implement that flips the soil over so the soil surface is underground). We also dig some other fields with an implement called a DMI. The DMI leaves the soil surface on the top, but digs deep into the soil breaking up compaction, making the soil soft for the spring.
So, Dear God...please make the rain stop, at least until the harvest in is, and we have so much to do before snow season!
In addition to slowing harvest, we are also postponing some critical fall activities. After combining our soybeans and corn, we return to the fields to harvest the foliage from those plants. We bale the dry soybean plants into round bales for bedding for our heifers. We bale the remaining soybean plants in small square bales to be chopped in the calf barn-making for happy, comfy, dry calves =) We chop the dry corn plants and make them into large stacks. We will take scoops of this bedding to bed in our dry cows and feed some of our heifers and dry cows. Cows love to chew on dry corn stalks! Actually cows like to chew on a lot of things.
After we harvest the bedding we spread manure, lots of manure. Manure from cows, dry cows, heifers and calves. We need to make sure we have clean animals for the winter. Also fall is the best time of the year for manure application. We reduce compaction by hauling in the fall compared to the spring. We are also able to incorporate the manure into the soil through fall tillage (plowing, digging) thereby saving the valuable nutrients in the manure to be used by the 2010 crop! Hauling manure is critical to keeping the cows clean and dry but also critical for our crops. Manure saves us money. If we capture all of the nutrients and organic matter available in manure we are able to save the cost of commercial fertilizer that we would have used. Another added benefit is that manure is great for making good soil! Because manure is natural-worms and soil microbes LOVE manure!
When we finish manure hauling...then we have to do fall tillage. Tillage means plowing some fields (using an implement that flips the soil over so the soil surface is underground). We also dig some other fields with an implement called a DMI. The DMI leaves the soil surface on the top, but digs deep into the soil breaking up compaction, making the soil soft for the spring.
So, Dear God...please make the rain stop, at least until the harvest in is, and we have so much to do before snow season!
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