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Milk flashes into the claws, crashing against the plastic windows in steady pulses. The inflations squeeze each teat that they hold, gently, and then release them in perfect unison. Yellow hoses shake along the pit. The vacuum is the unseen force that drives it all in a deafening throbbing sound that you, if you didn’t know any better, would assume was your own heartbeat.
I have been thinking about carbon. This particular atom is profoundly important for organic life and the sustainability of life. In plants, carbon is about half of the total dry weight. Carbon dioxide is the precursor to organic carbon assimilation in plants; we know this as photosynthesis. This reaction, driven by solar radiation and the change in energy of electrons, is easily the most important chemical reaction on the planet’s surface. We call this the biosphere.
In a panel discussion, moderated by Attorney David Crass of Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, four dairy producers shared their unique situations with regulatory agencies that have taken an interest in the dairy industry. Read on to see what they learned and gather the advice they have for fellow producers.
OSHA
Brody and Jeremy Mahr
Mahr City View Dairy
Stanley, Wisconsin
Commodity market graphs of recent years are commonly compared to roller coasters with all of their ups and downs. Much like the feeling of climbing the first big drop of a roller coaster, anyone in agriculture today can be a bit anxious of what will happen next.
At the Vita Plus Dairy Summit, Dec. 6 in Merrillville, Indiana, Joe Kerns of Kerns & Associates of Ames, Iowa, tried to calm everyone’s fear of the unknown by explaining what is taking shape in the marketplace.
Dairy producers have been experimenting with harvesting corn as shredlage and snaplage. At the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Randy Shaver has been conducting feeding trials of these feedstuffs to see how they perform in the cow. He shared his results at the Vita Plus Dairy Summit, Dec. 5 in Merrillville, Indiana.
Shredlage Currently shredlage processing rolls are only available on Claas choppers. These provide a longer theoretical length of cut of 1-¼ inches versus an average ¾-inch length of cut with a kernel processor.
Reproduction is economically important to a dairy herd. If cows don’t reproduce, they won’t become milk producers. Dr. José Santos, a professor at the University of Florida, delved into this vital factor as he reported on research that identified biological impediments to reproductive efficiency and strategies to improve reproduction during a workshop at the Vita Plus Dairy Summit Dec. 5 in Merrillville, Indiana.
Will Gilmer is a dairy farmer in Alabama. He blogs at http://gilmerdairy.blogspot.com.
My family gathered together at my parents' home for our traditional Thanksgiving meal on Friday evening. Mom had cooked just about everything one could hope for: turkey, ham, dressing, gravy, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green beans, rolls, and deviled eggs (I ate eight).
I love the Christmas season and being reminded of the greatest of all gifts to mankind, the birth of the Babe of Bethlehem, even the Christ child. Many sights, sounds, smells and events bring back a flood of good memories of Christmases past.
I’ll never forget one Christmas as a young boy, when I was out of touch with the concept of time. I confused the 23rd of December to be Christmas Eve day, waking on the 24th to find out that Christmas was actually the next day. Now that was a long 24 hours, let me tell you.
Drought devastates U.S. Corn Belt
Extreme to severe drought conditions blanket much of the country by the end of June, with more than 50 percent of the corn crop in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee rated as “poor” to “very poor.”
By August, the USDA stepped in to offer assistance to 1,628 unduplicated counties across 33 states designated as disaster areas – 1,496 due to drought.
The worst U.S. drought in the last 50 years left a profound impact on American agriculture. With skyrocketing costs for livestock feed and other inputs, dairy producers are losing about 32 cents on every gallon of milk, according to the USDA.
“Come, thou Holy Spirit, come;
And from Thy celestial home
Shed a ray of light divine.”
—Reverend Edward Caswall
Back in ’71, there were three major pop talents in my mind and culture: Donny Osmond, Michael Jackson and me, Jeff Churchwell. With much less fanfare than the other two, after supper night after night I would take Ma’s biggest hairbrush and sing to a coliseum full of adoring fans – and everyone within earshot up and down Cardinal Street.
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