Last summer, the milking herd at MSU’s Kellogg Biological Station Pasture Dairy Research and Education Center (PDREC) moved into a new freestall barn, equipped with two robotic milkers. We collected data on the cows’ responses to being milked by the new system. The information allowed us to evaluate how well cows adjusted to being milked by robots.

ASABE, the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers recently announced that GEA Houle has won two AE50 awards. GEA Houle developed the XPress, Cascading Roller Press and the XPulse, Twin Piston Pump, deemed two of the year’s most innovative designs in engineering products or systems for the food and agriculture industries.

The following producers were chosen by a committeee of industry professionals and dairymen as the newest, most innovative dairy products and will be showcased during World Ag Expo Feb. 8-10 in Tulare, California. Progressive Dairyman asked each of the product inventors or sponsoring companies to discuss how their products fill an industry need. (Click on the title of the product to download a pdf.)

The Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) has approved Alltech’s application for Sel-Plex 1000. This approval makes Sel-Plex 1000 the third product Alltech has listed with OMRI.

In the last column, I discussed batteries because they are the source of the electrical system. In this article we will continue our discussion on electrical systems, shifting focus from the battery to the starter. The battery cables are directly connected to the starter and the ground. Then you have neutral safety switches and some kind of starter switch, which could either be a key switch or a relay (mag) switch leading into the solenoid starter. These neutral switches prevent you from starting the engine while it is in gear, making it more of a safety switch.

In December 2009, Progressive Dairyman featured the Reed family in Jasper, Minnesota. The Reeds were forced out of dairying because they weren't able to overcome problems with stray voltage, despite their efforts to solve these issues with the help of Chuck Untiedt. Out of the more than 1,500 articles we published since then, the article, "The boogey man in the milking parlor" ranked as the third most read. As part of our year-end recap, we followed up with Untiedt to find out what he's learned since then about detecting stray voltage.

This article was #3 in PDmag's Top 5 most-well read New Technology articles in 2011. Summary: Cows at Grand View Dairy and D. Kulper Dairy in Arizona were some of the first to experience the FlipFan Dairy Cooling System. The design of the system allows the 36-inch fans to rotate 180 degrees to point outside of a shade structure. It also features control options that allow producers to adjust for time, temperature, humidity, milking and feeding times and, new to the industry, wind speed and direction. Because this article was so popular, we asked Schaefer Ventilation Equipment President and CEO Neil Crocker some follow-up questions: Q: What type of interest have you received? How do you quantify that interest? A: We have seen significant interest from dairymen and academics. In 2011, we installed a total of eight FlipFan dairy cooling systems in Texas, Arizona, California and Mexico.