From The Ground Up
From The Ground Up
Volume 1 | Issue 4 December 2013
TomBeth Farms: a Winner with BioAg By Mary Pohlman, Communications Specialist
Quality matters to the Tom and Beth Kearns family of TomBeth Farms of Seneca, WI. Their homegrown feeds support a herd of 125-head of high quality cattle (seven newly scored Excellents among their registered Holstein cows raised the herd total to over twenty; onethird of their cattle are descended from Tom-Beth Jolt Erin, a 14 year old cow scored EX-94 with a 95-scored udder and over 300,000 lbs of lifetime production). And the quality of their crops was recently recognized when the TomBeth Farms entry was named winner of the World Dairy Expo 2013 Quality Counts Award* for corn silage. “High in sugar, high in starch, high in digestibility,” is Tom’s definition of a quality corn silage, with soil fertility and hybrid selection key factors. He had submitted entries to the Dairy Expo contest in previous years and was delighted when he learned the farm’s entry was named a finalist this year. The family was “very surprised” to be chosen the winner from among the entries from all around the country. (Incidentally, the winning entry was grown in
the drought season of 2012, as entries have to be submitted for testing by Aug. 15.) The sample, a Master’s Choice 515 white cob, soft kernel corn with milk production genetics, was grown with MBA’s 10-910 starter on fields that have been biologically farmed for 16 years. Long before the farm magazines’ recent ‘discovery’ of biological farming concepts like cover crops, nutrients beyond NPK, and soil health, TomBeth Farms was using them to produce quality feeds. They started with Midwestern BioAg back in 1997, shortly after moving from Pennsylvania to the rugged Driftless Area of southwest Wisconsin’s Crawford County. A neighbor told them about MBA and invited Tom to attend a meeting with him, to hear speaker Gary Zimmer. What he heard that day held immediate appeal— Tom got his soil tested and began using MBA products, corn starter first, then Bio-Cal®. The fertility program at TomBeth Farms emphasizes healthy soils, and starts with calcium, “one of the backbones of the fertility program,” notes Tom. Bio-Cal®, gypsum and/or high calcium lime are applied, along with addressing sulfur and boron. Crop production keys are balanced fertility, a short rotation, good organic matter levels, manure applications, and a starter fertilizer. They use urea and ammonium sulfate, and no anhydrous on the farms’ clay-based soils which have good CECs and a pH around neutral.
(winner cont.) Rotations are basic and kept short: two years corn followed by three years in hay which is a grass/alfalfa mix-- “We’ve always had a little grass with alfalfa,” notes Tom. Sometimes they’ll insert a year of soybeans or an alternative crop such as forage oats or sudan grass. Cover crops are added into the rotation following silage corn and soybeans—triticale or rye after chopping silage, with harvest in the spring or plowdown as a green manure crop. Bean ground gets rye or triticale. Tom sees a number of benefits from cover crops: building soil fertility and organic matter, increasing biological activity, and preventing erosion on the Kearns’ hilly ground. Tom’s goal is “to get all the feeds to that same quality point, get everything lined up together.” And what does Midwestern BioAg bring to TomBeth Farms? “Education, a different way of looking at things, and new ideas to try,” says Tom. *Dairy Expo corn silage samples are judged on lab analysis (60%), visual judging (30%), and calculated milk per ton (10%). The finalists for the Quality Counts Corn Silage award were then further tested using total tract digestibility, a type of in vitro testing.
Liquid Carbon-Based Fertilizer: A Spring Soil Starter
By Jeff Gunderson, Staff Agronomist As we all know, spring weather in the Midwest can expected with seed-placed fertilizer every year, the be really variable. Rain, snow, cold soils, these are all benefit comes when conditions are less than ideal. things we deal with during planting season. Getting the Applying fertilizer with the seed every year hedges seed in the ground under the right conditions is the first risks because conditions are unpredictable, and the step in fulfilling yield potential, but unfortunately there crop will utilize the nutrients either way. This practice isn’t always time to wait until those conditions occur. will not necessarily add costs either, because the There’s not a grower out there who hasn’t had to plant amount of nutrients placed with the seed can simply under less than ideal circumstances; it’s just a call that be subtracted from the overall fertilizer budget for the has to be made sometimes. However, there are things crop. Splitting the fertilizer application can help you can do to give your crops a head start, improve improve nutrient use efficiency as well, by better early season vigor and increase yields. One of the most syncing fertilizer application with crop need. important is to ensure that adequate fertility is available for the germinating seed to cope with adverse The most important thing to consider when choosing conditions. a fertilizer to be placed in furrow is the quality of the product. Many fertilizers can cause injury to the seed While you can’t control the weather, you do have some resulting from two factors: the salt index and the procontrol over early season fertility. Placing fertilizer near duction of free ammonia. As the salt index of a fertilizer the seed as a pop-up (in furrow) or a starter (2x2, 2x0, increases the potential for seed injury increases as etc.) reduces the risk of planting in less than ideal well, because a high salt concentration can dehydrate conditions by providing readily available nutrients for the germinating seed. The production of free ammonia early growth. Although a yield boost cannot be as a fertilizer breaks down can also be toxic to the
are able to efficiently utilize the nitrogen, taking it up and then releasing it as they die. This turnover of the microbial biomass happens quickly and helps to keep the nitrogen not used by the plant directly from being lost as a result of ammonia volatilization or leaching. Additionally, mixing L-CBF 10-14-1, or TerraFed, with UAN 28% is an excellent way to stabilize and slow down the loss of nitrogen from that product. In addition to nitrogen stabilization, the molasses in the L-CBF products stimulates soil biological activity. The seed. A good way to reduce the risks associated with in volume of soil contacted by newly emerged roots is furrow placement is to use carbon-based fertilizer such very small, and therefore it is critical that adequate nutrition is available in close proximity. Stimulation as Midwestern BioAg’s L-CBF 10-14-1 or TerraFed. of the soil biology around the roots with an in-furrow L-CBF application helps to unlock and cycle nutrients L-CBF 10-14-1 provides readily available nitrogen, more rapidly. Phosphorus availability is often limited in phosphorus and a small amount of potassium in a cool soils due to its low mobility and low overall molasses base, which works to stimulate biological activity in the root zone. Terrafed, with a 1-0-4 analysis, biological activity. Research has shown that the simple sugars in molasses provide an energy source for soil is a molasses product that provides the biological benefits of a simple carbon source for use on microbes, stimulating their activity and releasing phosphorus in the process. organic farms or mixed with other liquid fertilizers. Molasses, which is a liquid form of carbon, helps to stabilize the soluble nitrogen provided in 10-14-1, therefore reducing the risk of negative impacts on the seed. The way this stabilization works is related to the fact that microbes require a certain amount of carbon in order to utilize nitrogen in the soil. By providing this carbon source in conjunction with nitrogen, microbes
For these reasons, utilizing L-CBF as a seed-placed fertilizer can have many benefits. It is important to remember that starter or pop-up fertilizer is only a component of an overall biological fertility program, but giving the crop what it needs to cope with early season stress can make a big difference at the end of the year.
Optimizing Forage Production in 2014 By Dave Meidl, Director of Nutrition
Now that harvest is over and your animals are getting a consistent feed supply for their winter ration, it is a good time to review and evaluate your 2013 forage production with your consultant. Your forage sample test results are your report card along with your yield data. Did you get the yield and quality needed to provide enough consistent high quality forage to optimize production and profitability? If you did, Great! Good Job! You probably have a pretty good idea of what you need to do in 2014.
“What’s the benefit of improving RFV?”
(Forage cont.) If the forage is not the quality needed, what will you need to do in 2014 to improve upon it? Has the hay stand outlived its productive life? Yield will usually start to diminish after the third year. If this is the case, it would be wise to rotate this field to corn and establish a new hay field. Was first crop cut on time? For lactating dairy cows you want to feed a hay crop that is greater than 150 RFV. A pure stand of alfalfa that is 24” tall at bud stage (1 or more nodes with visible buds, no flowers visible) will have a RFV of approximately 180. In the harvesting process you will lose about 15 points on haylage and up to 30 points on dry hay (losses will be greater if rained on). Standing first crop hay will lose 3-5 RFV points per day. Then follow up with a tight cutting interval based on maturity, which will probably be 28 days or less in some situations and plan on taking at least 4 cuttings. What’s the benefit of improving RFV? Hay with a 125 RFV will yield approximately 1,960 lbs of milk per ton of dry matter (DM) hay, and hay at a 150 RFV will yield approximately 2,135 lbs of milk per ton of DM hay. Improving the quality to test out at a RFV of 180 will yield approximately 2,400 lbs of milk per ton of DM hay. The difference in milk production between 125 and 180 RFV is 440 lbs per ton of DM hay. If you have a yield of 5.5 ton DM x 440 = 2,420 lbs more milk per acre. Or 2,420 lbs milk x $19.00/cwt milk = $459.80 additional milk income/ acre; or ($726 if organic). These are realistic numbers and should be an incentive for dairy farmers to strive for the goal of putting up higher quality hay forage. Even the difference between 150 and 180 RFV is $277/acre.
From the Desk of Gary Zimmer
Dear farmer agribusiness person,
It seems like a long time has passed since I last sat down to write for the newsletter. Change is the only for certain thing that happens in life. Somehow we always seem to get a crop—this year was certainly better than last. Sure, it didn’t look that way in the beginning of June. It was raining every day (or so it seemed): the corn was not planted, the hay was getting more mature. Our alfalfa forage crops were not ideal—we ended up turning a lot of it into green manure crops for our corn. With all the delays, planting under ideal conditions was no longer going to happen. But at the end of the day, we did okay. We have plenty of feed, an outstanding corn crop, especially on those fields following the thinned out forage crops. We had lots of corn yielding at 200+ bushel/acre, though it was slow to dry down. We, as all farmers do, notice that everything we do costs more; it seems like we are forced to search for more options. What to do? One method would be to cut costs by cutting corners: skimp on plant genetics, cut back on applying soil nutrients, skip the cover crops or rotations. Another option, the one we and many other farmers choose to follow, is to do more of the things that take our crops and soils to a new level. We know there is more potential out there, so the question is, how do we make changes to reach those yields? How can we be more consistent under poor conditions (to weather the storm, so to speak)?
You can’t pick up a farm magazine without finding at least one article on soil health and cover crops. I keep saying that to get the crops we have been getting doesn’t require spending all that money on insecticides, fungicides, biotechnology, multiple doses of herbicides and a heap of nitrogen. There is another sustainable method-- Rodale has been testing it for years. It’s not complex—soil health is feeding and taking care of the soil life (biological farming!) It’s living roots, good soil water and air management, a diversity of plants, and no crust on the soil. In other words, it’s loose, crumbly soil that looks and smells alive. The mineral part of soil health is the least talked about. In fact, it’s almost ignored, except for the NPK, even though we know it takes 20 plus minerals to grow a crop. Some of them, like nitrogen can be home grown but others like sulfur and boron leach and therefore need to be added every year. The soil has a certain ability to dish out/exchange the minerals plants need, so supplementing a balanced diet in a plant/root friendly blend should be common sense. Minerals are essential not only for yield but for plant health, too. Looking at the no till magazines, farmers, researchers, and agribusiness people are starting to take notice of the many benefits from cover crops and minimal disturbance of the soil. Vertical tillage is needed in many cases, so is ripping, building a zone can also be beneficial, but it is tillage. Why not promote tillage with a purpose, and for soil health. Soils and farmers are different all over the world, but all can improve soil mineral exchange, soil health and production. If you think about mineral exchange and the need for the balanced diet and how the minerals are delivered, hooking them to carbon makes sense! In the manure, the compost, humates added, molasses added are not only food for the soil life but can help hold the minerals for more timely, efficient use. We want our minerals in the carbon biological cycle. That’s what green manure crops do, pull minerals from the soil and hook them in the plant. As that plant eventually breaks down through the work of biology, the minerals and the soil life’s dead bodies (they’re tiny but there are billions of them!), feed the next crops. That’s the cycle—that’s how nature works. How do we farmers expand this cycle and work to improve it? What is achievable? I believe we have the knowledge to do it, and there are already successful farms doing it, with the potential not yet reached. The technology that’s coming today to monitor and precisely deliver nutrients and our zone equipment, planting equipment, tillage equipment—all that is here to do the job. Having healthy mineral rich fertile soils is possible but remember, soil fertility is the exchange of minerals, not just having a pretty soil test. This is a system. Midwestern BioAg has certainly been a leader in this movement. We spent the last 25+ years developing, teaching and perfecting mineral balance and delivery systems. Farmers are going to buy dry and liquid fertilizers with additives if they want high yielding crops-- our job is to guide them on their choices. This brings me to my winter meetings and this year’s theme, “40 Chances,” which is the title of Howard Buffett’s new book I’ve been reading. As farmers, we have about 40 years, or 40 chances, to accomplish our goals (and many of us have already used up a whole bunch of those 40 years!) On our farm we have a plan; we know there are more yield opportunities out there. More nutrients, more cover crops (both green and brown), deep tillage— we have seen the benefits of those practices after a few instances of wet, less than ideal conditions. Row support fertilizers, biological stimulants are among other things looked at. We have also added Ag Leader equipment and will do more detailed site specific sampling and nutrient applications. All this takes time and investment, but I have seen payoffs on farms all over this world. My winter meeting will be presenting these examples and opportunities. While I will be speaking at fewer meetings myself this year, Bob Yanda and Duane Siegenthaler and some of our staff consultants will also be doing presentations around the country. Additionally, in many areas we will offer small group meetings on specific topics that fit the locality. We will be doing our best to make these events educational, thoughtful and beneficial for you-- we hope you can attend one or more. We are a company based on education, information and ideas for you, our customers. See you this winter.
Date
Schedule
January 6th
Location Meskwaki Casino-Tama, IA
January 7th
KC Hall-Washington, IA
January 8th
Fire Hall-Memphis, MO
January 9th
The Eagle’s Club-Monticello, IA
January 14th
Wood Fire Lodge-Brillion, WI TBD-Fond du Lac, WI Henry’s Double K-Mt. Carroll, IL The Sport’s Page-Belmont, WI Yoder’s Kitchen-Arthur, IL Community Center-Freeport, MN
January 15th January 15th January 16th January 18th January 23rd January 28th January 28th January 29th January 30th January 31st February 3rd February 4th TBD February 4th February 4th February 5th February 5th February 6th February 11th February 11th February 12th February 12th February 12th February 13th February 13th February 14th February 18th February 20th February 21st February 27th
Presenter
Bob Yanda & Gary Zimmer Bob Yanda & Gary Zimmer Bob Yanda & Gary Zimmer Bob Yanda & Gary Zimmer
Hosting Consultant Iowa BioAg
10:30am-2:30pm
Firman Hershberger
10:30am-2:30pm
Firman Hershberger
10:30am-2:30pm
Iowa BioAg
10:30am-2:30pm
Gary Zimmer Terry Dvorachek Gary Zimmer Justin Wedig & Roger Drews Duane Siegenthaler Ben Adolph Gary Zimmer Justin Wedig Bob Yanda Andy Miller Tom Vander Heiden, Elmdale Duane Siegenthaler Creamery & Travis Mathison
Community Hall- Cashton, WI Gary Zimmer Travis Klinkner The Upper Crust-Watertown, WI Duane Siegenthaler Dave Stephens Chippewa Falls, WI Gary Zimmer Andy & Bonny Glodowski Country Aire Ballroom-Stratford, WI Gary Zimmer Mark Klish Hillsdale Methodist Church-Hillsdale, IL Bob Yanda Bob DePauw Trevor Pfeffer, Ron Scheele & Paul Mitchell Community CenterBob Yanda Watson Mitchell, ONT Morey’s Steakhouse-Burley, ID Gary Zimmer Wes Lunt & Pat Lozier Bill Trimbell & Clem Griesbach Romy’s-Black Creek, WI Duane Siegenthaler Caledonia Golf Course-Caledonia, MN Round Table Mtg Dee Meiners Pete Creguer, Jonathan Graham, Matt Huron County Expo Center-Bad Axe, MI Bob Yanda Neumayer & Marvin Hill
Time
10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:00am-1:00pm* 10:00am-3:00pm* 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm
Robinson Building, FairgroundsPreston, ID Ramada Inn-Grayling, MI
Gary Zimmer
Wes Lunt & Pat Lozier
10:30am-2:30pm
Bob Yanda
Pete Creguer, Jonathan Graham, Matt Neumayer & Ellsworth Co-op
10:30am-2:30pm
Trestle Stop-Hamilton, MI America’s Best Value Inn-Albert Lea, MN Rex’s InnKeeper-Waunakee, WI VFW-Owatonna, MN
Bob Yanda Gary Zimmer
Allegan Conservation District
9:00am-10:30am*
Ray Yokiel, Joe Mutschler, Dee Meiners & Kendall Valde
10:00am-3:00pm*
Bob Yanda Gary Zimmer
Tim Chitwood
10:30am-2:30pm
Ray Yokiel, Joe Mutschler, Dee Meiners & Kendall Valde
10:30am-2:30pm
Elizabeth Inn-Plover, WI Moose Lodge-Monroe, WI American Legion-Winona, MN
Round Table Mtg Bob Yanda Gary Zimmer
Mark Klish Ron Gifford
10:30am-2:30pm
Old West Steakhouse-Union, IL Lena Community Center-Lena, IL Location TBD-Pennsylvania Pump House Grille-Ashland, OH Location TBD-Piqua,OH St. Mary’s Church-Fennimore, WI
Bob Yanda Bob Yanda Gary Zimmer Gary Zimmer Gary Zimmer Bob Yanda
10:30am-2:30pm
Joe Danzinger, Josh Elsing & Mike 10:00am-2:30pm* Lovlien
Wayne Meissen Mike Dietmeier
10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm
Alan Kauffman Alan Kauffman Scott Wood
10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm
To Register To Attend A Winter Seminar:
Call Midwestern BioAg at 800.327.6012 or visit www.MidwesternBioAg.com/Winter-Seminar-Series/
to RSVP.
Presenters
Gary Zimmer is a farmer, agri-businessman, author and educator. Dedicated to improving farming through restoring and balancing soils, he has spoken to and worked with farmers across the U.S. and around the world. He evaluates farming practices as a consultant, on his family’s 1,000 acre dairy farm and as president of Midwestern BioAg. Bob Yanda is a biological farming consultant & agri-businessman, founder & president of Iowa BioAg. Bob has been consulting on farms for over two decades. He has lectured on plant nutrient efficiency & accelerated soil biological processes throughout the Midwest and Canada. He brings an in-depth knowledge of soils, soil tests, fertilizers & complete farm fertilizer programs. This information helps producers to maximize fertilizer dollars & increase yields. Duane Siegenthaler has been a key person in Midwestern BioAg since 1991. Beginning as an Independent Consultant in southwestern Wisconsin, his understanding of the BioAg program and ability to transfer that knowledge to the farmer allowed his business to grow substantially over the years. He was named Chief Operating Officer in 2012, and is responsible for the daily sales and operations of the company throughout the Upper Midwest.
For Additional Information On Winter Seminars: Visit www.MidwesternBioAg.com/Winter-Seminar-Series/ to see a full schedule and additional details.
Midwestern BioAg, Inc 10955 Blackhawk Drive Blue Mounds, WI 53517
Happy Holidays
Volume 1 | Issue 4 December 2013
TomBeth Farms: a Winner with BioAg By Mary Pohlman, Communications Specialist
Quality matters to the Tom and Beth Kearns family of TomBeth Farms of Seneca, WI. Their homegrown feeds support a herd of 125-head of high quality cattle (seven newly scored Excellents among their registered Holstein cows raised the herd total to over twenty; onethird of their cattle are descended from Tom-Beth Jolt Erin, a 14 year old cow scored EX-94 with a 95-scored udder and over 300,000 lbs of lifetime production). And the quality of their crops was recently recognized when the TomBeth Farms entry was named winner of the World Dairy Expo 2013 Quality Counts Award* for corn silage. “High in sugar, high in starch, high in digestibility,” is Tom’s definition of a quality corn silage, with soil fertility and hybrid selection key factors. He had submitted entries to the Dairy Expo contest in previous years and was delighted when he learned the farm’s entry was named a finalist this year. The family was “very surprised” to be chosen the winner from among the entries from all around the country. (Incidentally, the winning entry was grown in
the drought season of 2012, as entries have to be submitted for testing by Aug. 15.) The sample, a Master’s Choice 515 white cob, soft kernel corn with milk production genetics, was grown with MBA’s 10-910 starter on fields that have been biologically farmed for 16 years. Long before the farm magazines’ recent ‘discovery’ of biological farming concepts like cover crops, nutrients beyond NPK, and soil health, TomBeth Farms was using them to produce quality feeds. They started with Midwestern BioAg back in 1997, shortly after moving from Pennsylvania to the rugged Driftless Area of southwest Wisconsin’s Crawford County. A neighbor told them about MBA and invited Tom to attend a meeting with him, to hear speaker Gary Zimmer. What he heard that day held immediate appeal— Tom got his soil tested and began using MBA products, corn starter first, then Bio-Cal®. The fertility program at TomBeth Farms emphasizes healthy soils, and starts with calcium, “one of the backbones of the fertility program,” notes Tom. Bio-Cal®, gypsum and/or high calcium lime are applied, along with addressing sulfur and boron. Crop production keys are balanced fertility, a short rotation, good organic matter levels, manure applications, and a starter fertilizer. They use urea and ammonium sulfate, and no anhydrous on the farms’ clay-based soils which have good CECs and a pH around neutral.
(winner cont.) Rotations are basic and kept short: two years corn followed by three years in hay which is a grass/alfalfa mix-- “We’ve always had a little grass with alfalfa,” notes Tom. Sometimes they’ll insert a year of soybeans or an alternative crop such as forage oats or sudan grass. Cover crops are added into the rotation following silage corn and soybeans—triticale or rye after chopping silage, with harvest in the spring or plowdown as a green manure crop. Bean ground gets rye or triticale. Tom sees a number of benefits from cover crops: building soil fertility and organic matter, increasing biological activity, and preventing erosion on the Kearns’ hilly ground. Tom’s goal is “to get all the feeds to that same quality point, get everything lined up together.” And what does Midwestern BioAg bring to TomBeth Farms? “Education, a different way of looking at things, and new ideas to try,” says Tom. *Dairy Expo corn silage samples are judged on lab analysis (60%), visual judging (30%), and calculated milk per ton (10%). The finalists for the Quality Counts Corn Silage award were then further tested using total tract digestibility, a type of in vitro testing.
Liquid Carbon-Based Fertilizer: A Spring Soil Starter
By Jeff Gunderson, Staff Agronomist As we all know, spring weather in the Midwest can expected with seed-placed fertilizer every year, the be really variable. Rain, snow, cold soils, these are all benefit comes when conditions are less than ideal. things we deal with during planting season. Getting the Applying fertilizer with the seed every year hedges seed in the ground under the right conditions is the first risks because conditions are unpredictable, and the step in fulfilling yield potential, but unfortunately there crop will utilize the nutrients either way. This practice isn’t always time to wait until those conditions occur. will not necessarily add costs either, because the There’s not a grower out there who hasn’t had to plant amount of nutrients placed with the seed can simply under less than ideal circumstances; it’s just a call that be subtracted from the overall fertilizer budget for the has to be made sometimes. However, there are things crop. Splitting the fertilizer application can help you can do to give your crops a head start, improve improve nutrient use efficiency as well, by better early season vigor and increase yields. One of the most syncing fertilizer application with crop need. important is to ensure that adequate fertility is available for the germinating seed to cope with adverse The most important thing to consider when choosing conditions. a fertilizer to be placed in furrow is the quality of the product. Many fertilizers can cause injury to the seed While you can’t control the weather, you do have some resulting from two factors: the salt index and the procontrol over early season fertility. Placing fertilizer near duction of free ammonia. As the salt index of a fertilizer the seed as a pop-up (in furrow) or a starter (2x2, 2x0, increases the potential for seed injury increases as etc.) reduces the risk of planting in less than ideal well, because a high salt concentration can dehydrate conditions by providing readily available nutrients for the germinating seed. The production of free ammonia early growth. Although a yield boost cannot be as a fertilizer breaks down can also be toxic to the
are able to efficiently utilize the nitrogen, taking it up and then releasing it as they die. This turnover of the microbial biomass happens quickly and helps to keep the nitrogen not used by the plant directly from being lost as a result of ammonia volatilization or leaching. Additionally, mixing L-CBF 10-14-1, or TerraFed, with UAN 28% is an excellent way to stabilize and slow down the loss of nitrogen from that product. In addition to nitrogen stabilization, the molasses in the L-CBF products stimulates soil biological activity. The seed. A good way to reduce the risks associated with in volume of soil contacted by newly emerged roots is furrow placement is to use carbon-based fertilizer such very small, and therefore it is critical that adequate nutrition is available in close proximity. Stimulation as Midwestern BioAg’s L-CBF 10-14-1 or TerraFed. of the soil biology around the roots with an in-furrow L-CBF application helps to unlock and cycle nutrients L-CBF 10-14-1 provides readily available nitrogen, more rapidly. Phosphorus availability is often limited in phosphorus and a small amount of potassium in a cool soils due to its low mobility and low overall molasses base, which works to stimulate biological activity in the root zone. Terrafed, with a 1-0-4 analysis, biological activity. Research has shown that the simple sugars in molasses provide an energy source for soil is a molasses product that provides the biological benefits of a simple carbon source for use on microbes, stimulating their activity and releasing phosphorus in the process. organic farms or mixed with other liquid fertilizers. Molasses, which is a liquid form of carbon, helps to stabilize the soluble nitrogen provided in 10-14-1, therefore reducing the risk of negative impacts on the seed. The way this stabilization works is related to the fact that microbes require a certain amount of carbon in order to utilize nitrogen in the soil. By providing this carbon source in conjunction with nitrogen, microbes
For these reasons, utilizing L-CBF as a seed-placed fertilizer can have many benefits. It is important to remember that starter or pop-up fertilizer is only a component of an overall biological fertility program, but giving the crop what it needs to cope with early season stress can make a big difference at the end of the year.
Optimizing Forage Production in 2014 By Dave Meidl, Director of Nutrition
Now that harvest is over and your animals are getting a consistent feed supply for their winter ration, it is a good time to review and evaluate your 2013 forage production with your consultant. Your forage sample test results are your report card along with your yield data. Did you get the yield and quality needed to provide enough consistent high quality forage to optimize production and profitability? If you did, Great! Good Job! You probably have a pretty good idea of what you need to do in 2014.
“What’s the benefit of improving RFV?”
(Forage cont.) If the forage is not the quality needed, what will you need to do in 2014 to improve upon it? Has the hay stand outlived its productive life? Yield will usually start to diminish after the third year. If this is the case, it would be wise to rotate this field to corn and establish a new hay field. Was first crop cut on time? For lactating dairy cows you want to feed a hay crop that is greater than 150 RFV. A pure stand of alfalfa that is 24” tall at bud stage (1 or more nodes with visible buds, no flowers visible) will have a RFV of approximately 180. In the harvesting process you will lose about 15 points on haylage and up to 30 points on dry hay (losses will be greater if rained on). Standing first crop hay will lose 3-5 RFV points per day. Then follow up with a tight cutting interval based on maturity, which will probably be 28 days or less in some situations and plan on taking at least 4 cuttings. What’s the benefit of improving RFV? Hay with a 125 RFV will yield approximately 1,960 lbs of milk per ton of dry matter (DM) hay, and hay at a 150 RFV will yield approximately 2,135 lbs of milk per ton of DM hay. Improving the quality to test out at a RFV of 180 will yield approximately 2,400 lbs of milk per ton of DM hay. The difference in milk production between 125 and 180 RFV is 440 lbs per ton of DM hay. If you have a yield of 5.5 ton DM x 440 = 2,420 lbs more milk per acre. Or 2,420 lbs milk x $19.00/cwt milk = $459.80 additional milk income/ acre; or ($726 if organic). These are realistic numbers and should be an incentive for dairy farmers to strive for the goal of putting up higher quality hay forage. Even the difference between 150 and 180 RFV is $277/acre.
From the Desk of Gary Zimmer
Dear farmer agribusiness person,
It seems like a long time has passed since I last sat down to write for the newsletter. Change is the only for certain thing that happens in life. Somehow we always seem to get a crop—this year was certainly better than last. Sure, it didn’t look that way in the beginning of June. It was raining every day (or so it seemed): the corn was not planted, the hay was getting more mature. Our alfalfa forage crops were not ideal—we ended up turning a lot of it into green manure crops for our corn. With all the delays, planting under ideal conditions was no longer going to happen. But at the end of the day, we did okay. We have plenty of feed, an outstanding corn crop, especially on those fields following the thinned out forage crops. We had lots of corn yielding at 200+ bushel/acre, though it was slow to dry down. We, as all farmers do, notice that everything we do costs more; it seems like we are forced to search for more options. What to do? One method would be to cut costs by cutting corners: skimp on plant genetics, cut back on applying soil nutrients, skip the cover crops or rotations. Another option, the one we and many other farmers choose to follow, is to do more of the things that take our crops and soils to a new level. We know there is more potential out there, so the question is, how do we make changes to reach those yields? How can we be more consistent under poor conditions (to weather the storm, so to speak)?
You can’t pick up a farm magazine without finding at least one article on soil health and cover crops. I keep saying that to get the crops we have been getting doesn’t require spending all that money on insecticides, fungicides, biotechnology, multiple doses of herbicides and a heap of nitrogen. There is another sustainable method-- Rodale has been testing it for years. It’s not complex—soil health is feeding and taking care of the soil life (biological farming!) It’s living roots, good soil water and air management, a diversity of plants, and no crust on the soil. In other words, it’s loose, crumbly soil that looks and smells alive. The mineral part of soil health is the least talked about. In fact, it’s almost ignored, except for the NPK, even though we know it takes 20 plus minerals to grow a crop. Some of them, like nitrogen can be home grown but others like sulfur and boron leach and therefore need to be added every year. The soil has a certain ability to dish out/exchange the minerals plants need, so supplementing a balanced diet in a plant/root friendly blend should be common sense. Minerals are essential not only for yield but for plant health, too. Looking at the no till magazines, farmers, researchers, and agribusiness people are starting to take notice of the many benefits from cover crops and minimal disturbance of the soil. Vertical tillage is needed in many cases, so is ripping, building a zone can also be beneficial, but it is tillage. Why not promote tillage with a purpose, and for soil health. Soils and farmers are different all over the world, but all can improve soil mineral exchange, soil health and production. If you think about mineral exchange and the need for the balanced diet and how the minerals are delivered, hooking them to carbon makes sense! In the manure, the compost, humates added, molasses added are not only food for the soil life but can help hold the minerals for more timely, efficient use. We want our minerals in the carbon biological cycle. That’s what green manure crops do, pull minerals from the soil and hook them in the plant. As that plant eventually breaks down through the work of biology, the minerals and the soil life’s dead bodies (they’re tiny but there are billions of them!), feed the next crops. That’s the cycle—that’s how nature works. How do we farmers expand this cycle and work to improve it? What is achievable? I believe we have the knowledge to do it, and there are already successful farms doing it, with the potential not yet reached. The technology that’s coming today to monitor and precisely deliver nutrients and our zone equipment, planting equipment, tillage equipment—all that is here to do the job. Having healthy mineral rich fertile soils is possible but remember, soil fertility is the exchange of minerals, not just having a pretty soil test. This is a system. Midwestern BioAg has certainly been a leader in this movement. We spent the last 25+ years developing, teaching and perfecting mineral balance and delivery systems. Farmers are going to buy dry and liquid fertilizers with additives if they want high yielding crops-- our job is to guide them on their choices. This brings me to my winter meetings and this year’s theme, “40 Chances,” which is the title of Howard Buffett’s new book I’ve been reading. As farmers, we have about 40 years, or 40 chances, to accomplish our goals (and many of us have already used up a whole bunch of those 40 years!) On our farm we have a plan; we know there are more yield opportunities out there. More nutrients, more cover crops (both green and brown), deep tillage— we have seen the benefits of those practices after a few instances of wet, less than ideal conditions. Row support fertilizers, biological stimulants are among other things looked at. We have also added Ag Leader equipment and will do more detailed site specific sampling and nutrient applications. All this takes time and investment, but I have seen payoffs on farms all over this world. My winter meeting will be presenting these examples and opportunities. While I will be speaking at fewer meetings myself this year, Bob Yanda and Duane Siegenthaler and some of our staff consultants will also be doing presentations around the country. Additionally, in many areas we will offer small group meetings on specific topics that fit the locality. We will be doing our best to make these events educational, thoughtful and beneficial for you-- we hope you can attend one or more. We are a company based on education, information and ideas for you, our customers. See you this winter.
Date
Schedule
January 6th
Location Meskwaki Casino-Tama, IA
January 7th
KC Hall-Washington, IA
January 8th
Fire Hall-Memphis, MO
January 9th
The Eagle’s Club-Monticello, IA
January 14th
Wood Fire Lodge-Brillion, WI TBD-Fond du Lac, WI Henry’s Double K-Mt. Carroll, IL The Sport’s Page-Belmont, WI Yoder’s Kitchen-Arthur, IL Community Center-Freeport, MN
January 15th January 15th January 16th January 18th January 23rd January 28th January 28th January 29th January 30th January 31st February 3rd February 4th TBD February 4th February 4th February 5th February 5th February 6th February 11th February 11th February 12th February 12th February 12th February 13th February 13th February 14th February 18th February 20th February 21st February 27th
Presenter
Bob Yanda & Gary Zimmer Bob Yanda & Gary Zimmer Bob Yanda & Gary Zimmer Bob Yanda & Gary Zimmer
Hosting Consultant Iowa BioAg
10:30am-2:30pm
Firman Hershberger
10:30am-2:30pm
Firman Hershberger
10:30am-2:30pm
Iowa BioAg
10:30am-2:30pm
Gary Zimmer Terry Dvorachek Gary Zimmer Justin Wedig & Roger Drews Duane Siegenthaler Ben Adolph Gary Zimmer Justin Wedig Bob Yanda Andy Miller Tom Vander Heiden, Elmdale Duane Siegenthaler Creamery & Travis Mathison
Community Hall- Cashton, WI Gary Zimmer Travis Klinkner The Upper Crust-Watertown, WI Duane Siegenthaler Dave Stephens Chippewa Falls, WI Gary Zimmer Andy & Bonny Glodowski Country Aire Ballroom-Stratford, WI Gary Zimmer Mark Klish Hillsdale Methodist Church-Hillsdale, IL Bob Yanda Bob DePauw Trevor Pfeffer, Ron Scheele & Paul Mitchell Community CenterBob Yanda Watson Mitchell, ONT Morey’s Steakhouse-Burley, ID Gary Zimmer Wes Lunt & Pat Lozier Bill Trimbell & Clem Griesbach Romy’s-Black Creek, WI Duane Siegenthaler Caledonia Golf Course-Caledonia, MN Round Table Mtg Dee Meiners Pete Creguer, Jonathan Graham, Matt Huron County Expo Center-Bad Axe, MI Bob Yanda Neumayer & Marvin Hill
Time
10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:00am-1:00pm* 10:00am-3:00pm* 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm
Robinson Building, FairgroundsPreston, ID Ramada Inn-Grayling, MI
Gary Zimmer
Wes Lunt & Pat Lozier
10:30am-2:30pm
Bob Yanda
Pete Creguer, Jonathan Graham, Matt Neumayer & Ellsworth Co-op
10:30am-2:30pm
Trestle Stop-Hamilton, MI America’s Best Value Inn-Albert Lea, MN Rex’s InnKeeper-Waunakee, WI VFW-Owatonna, MN
Bob Yanda Gary Zimmer
Allegan Conservation District
9:00am-10:30am*
Ray Yokiel, Joe Mutschler, Dee Meiners & Kendall Valde
10:00am-3:00pm*
Bob Yanda Gary Zimmer
Tim Chitwood
10:30am-2:30pm
Ray Yokiel, Joe Mutschler, Dee Meiners & Kendall Valde
10:30am-2:30pm
Elizabeth Inn-Plover, WI Moose Lodge-Monroe, WI American Legion-Winona, MN
Round Table Mtg Bob Yanda Gary Zimmer
Mark Klish Ron Gifford
10:30am-2:30pm
Old West Steakhouse-Union, IL Lena Community Center-Lena, IL Location TBD-Pennsylvania Pump House Grille-Ashland, OH Location TBD-Piqua,OH St. Mary’s Church-Fennimore, WI
Bob Yanda Bob Yanda Gary Zimmer Gary Zimmer Gary Zimmer Bob Yanda
10:30am-2:30pm
Joe Danzinger, Josh Elsing & Mike 10:00am-2:30pm* Lovlien
Wayne Meissen Mike Dietmeier
10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm
Alan Kauffman Alan Kauffman Scott Wood
10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm 10:30am-2:30pm
To Register To Attend A Winter Seminar:
Call Midwestern BioAg at 800.327.6012 or visit www.MidwesternBioAg.com/Winter-Seminar-Series/
to RSVP.
Presenters
Gary Zimmer is a farmer, agri-businessman, author and educator. Dedicated to improving farming through restoring and balancing soils, he has spoken to and worked with farmers across the U.S. and around the world. He evaluates farming practices as a consultant, on his family’s 1,000 acre dairy farm and as president of Midwestern BioAg. Bob Yanda is a biological farming consultant & agri-businessman, founder & president of Iowa BioAg. Bob has been consulting on farms for over two decades. He has lectured on plant nutrient efficiency & accelerated soil biological processes throughout the Midwest and Canada. He brings an in-depth knowledge of soils, soil tests, fertilizers & complete farm fertilizer programs. This information helps producers to maximize fertilizer dollars & increase yields. Duane Siegenthaler has been a key person in Midwestern BioAg since 1991. Beginning as an Independent Consultant in southwestern Wisconsin, his understanding of the BioAg program and ability to transfer that knowledge to the farmer allowed his business to grow substantially over the years. He was named Chief Operating Officer in 2012, and is responsible for the daily sales and operations of the company throughout the Upper Midwest.
For Additional Information On Winter Seminars: Visit www.MidwesternBioAg.com/Winter-Seminar-Series/ to see a full schedule and additional details.
Midwestern BioAg, Inc 10955 Blackhawk Drive Blue Mounds, WI 53517
Happy Holidays
