Whitesville, NY—For centuries farmers around the world have been sprouting grains and feeding the green material to their stock, usually with spotty success. The 1959 edition of Frank B. Morrison’s venerable publication Feeds and Feeding referred to “clever promoters” making “extravagant claims” about the benefits of various hydroponic systems for growing green fodder from seeds. U.S. livestock nutrition experts are generally skeptical about the potential benefits of sprouted fodder, although most withhold official judgment because almost no studies have been done here due to its rarity.

Photos: A. Fay Benson. A mat of sprouted barley, ready to be tossed in a mixer or torn up for feeding.

Or at least until now it was rare. The onset of high grain and forage prices and growing interest in no-grain feeding programs has produced at least a mini-boom of interest in producing green fodder from the seeds of small grains. Articles about farmers employing fodder systems to produce greenery for everything from chickens and geese to beef steers and dairy cows are showing up in alternative agricultural outlets — often with accompanying advertising from companies selling such systems. Some farmers have reported spending a few hundred bucks to provide greens to their poultry, while others have paid six figures for commercial fodder production systems capable of producing much bigger volumes for larger dairy herds.

John Stoltzfus says he spent $5,000 on the materials to construct a sprouting room in his barn mow. Stoltzfus, who has an 80-cow, organic-certified dairy herd near Whitesville in western New York, says that daily feeding of the equivalent of 1-2 lbs. dry matter per cow of sprouted barley produced noticeable improvements in herd health and butterfat tests on both winter rations and summer pasture while leading to reduced hay consumption. He no longer feeds grain: Stoltzfus thinks the barley sprouts can help him achieve more than 40 lbs. of milk/day from his primarily Holstein herd from forages alone.

“We’re very excited about everything,” Stoltzfus told an online audience during a recent “webinar” sponsored by Cooperative Extension’s eOrganic program. “I think it’s here to stay.”

Report: costs two to five times higher

Others beg to disagree. For instance, here’s the opening line of the executive summary from “Review of Hydroponic Fodder Production for Beef Cattle,” a 2003 publication from Meat & Livestock Australia: “Profitable use of sprouting grain as a feed source for commercial cattle production appears unlikely.”

This report, which was the most comprehensive Graze looked at in researching the subject, stated that decades of research and farmer experience indicate that the costs associated with fodder production are two to five times those of the original grain, and that any potential benefits provided by the green feed are not likely to overcome those costs.

Australia is the epicenter of modern sprouted fodder production. Grain prices have traditionally been higher than in the U.S., and farmer interest in artificially producing green feed has periodically waxed and waned, with sprouting tending to be more popular during the severe, multi-year droughts common to Australia. Several Australian companies sell everything from individual pieces of equipment to complete fodder production systems.

Fodder production involves soaking grain until it is fully saturated, and then placing the seeds in trays or troughs for the sprouting and a few days of growth. Any seed can be sprouted, although small grains are by far the most popular, and barley is viewed as the very best of the small grains in terms of yield. Stoltzfus said he has also realized high yields from sprouted triticale.

The seeds are kept moist — by flooding the trays or spraying the sprouts — for a growing period that commonly lasts six or seven days. The end result is a mat of greenery that can go into a feed mixer or be torn up and hand-fed.

Feed quality, health benefits cited

Proponents say that such fodder carries nutritional benefits not available in unsprouted grains, harvested hay and even, in some cases, fresh pasture. Jerry Brunetti of Agri-Dynamics has been one of those proponents, noting that sprouting removes much of the grain starch that can lead to overly acidic conditions in the rumen. Brunetti also points to research indicating that sprouted barley has higher levels of many vitamins, minerals and sugars, and that these are in highly digestible forms within the sprouted feed.

Stoltzfus said that he’s seen the benefits, as “foot problems went away” and cell counts declined in his herd after he started feeding the sprouted barley fodder. He said butterfat tests have risen with the sprouts and declined when he stopped feeding them for a while. The benefits are noticeable both in winter and summer. He said milk urea nitrogen (MUN) levels often averaged 18-20 on pasture, but never got above 15 last summer with the fodder supplement. Stoltzfus thinks he can keep MUN at about 12 if he feeds more fodder, which he intends to do with a planned expansion of his sprouting room.

“Even though the grass is digestible, they’re utilizing it better” with the addition of a pound or two of barley fodder dry matter, Stoltzfus added. “They get more energy from fodder than from pasture.” Stoltzfus said he also sees positive health results from feeding the fodder to his calves.

Stoltzfus provided feed tests of his fodder and the barley that produced it, and fodder indeed showed reduced starch levels and increases in protein percentage and a variety of minerals compared to the grain. However, energy levels did not increase to any real degree, with NEL of the sprouted fodder shown at 0.88 and the grain at 0.87.

The Meat & Livestock Australia report noted that while sprouting has been shown to change the nutritional profile of grain, it is difficult to make a statement that the changes produce better livestock performance. For instance, “There is conflicting evidence that sprouting improves or reduces DM digestibility,” the report notes. The Australian paper reported that while some research has indicated improvement in livestock performance with the feeding of sprouted fodder, “The majority of … trials have found no advantage to feeding sprouts compared to other conventional livestock feeds.”

The Australian summary pointed to a study of sprouted oats in the 1960s, which said that while sprouting “will not increase milk production in cows that are already receiving sufficient energy … it may increase milk production in cows that are not receiving a high level of nutrients. This could explain some of the (positive) results observed on farms.” Perhaps this, too, is why some no- and low-grain livestock producers in the U.S. are reporting good results.

Sprouting reduces total dry matter

But any improvements in nutritional quality come at a price: virtually all studies of sprouting indicate a loss of dry matter compared to the original grain, the result of the respiration that takes place in the sprouting process. Morrison’s Feeds and Feeding pegged the decline at 25%. The Meat & Livestock Australia survey of the literature said the losses varied from 7% to 47%, and that the very few reports of dry matter gains could not be substantiated.

While the sprouting literature indicates a wide variety of production performance based on the efficiency of the systems studied, Stoltzfus’s 6-7 lbs. of sprouts produced per pound of barley seed appears to fall within the rough average of the research cited in the Australian report. His feed test showed the sprouts at 12.1% dry matter, compared to 87.6% DM for his barley grain. Thus, the dry matter loss in his situation may be near 10%. At the $550/ton Stoltzfus says he’s spending for organic barley these days, the losses are not minor.

Mold the biggest production issue

Meanwhile, even its advocates acknowledge that the sprouting process itself is not foolproof. “We had a lot of failures,” Stoltzfus noted. “Mold seems to be our biggest issue.”

The sprouting literature agrees that mold is a major potential problem, as it commonly reduces yields and occasionally sickens stock. Mold spores are common in most seed, and the damp environments of sprouting rooms are certainly capable of promoting their growth. Sprouting requires very clean seed that is virtually free of chaff and weed seeds. Sprouting rooms must be kept at nearly constant temperatures (around 70 degrees F.), and humidity must be kept constant, but not too high. Stoltzfus said he’s found that a small amount of air movement helps the situation.

Research has indicated that washing seeds in a chlorine solution reduces mold growth, and Stoltzfus said his problems have greatly diminished since he started employing water that is chlorinated at levels similar to those found in city water supplies.

Sprouting also requires constant labor for soaking, handling, cleaning and feeding. The Australian report stated that daily labor requirements range from two to four hours, while Stoltzfus said his system requires closer to an hour-and-a-half of daily attention. He said he uses 300 gallons of water a day, with all of it diverted to his calves.

The reported costs of sprouting vary tremendously based on the source doing the reporting and the system being employed. Stoltzfus said he has fed as much as 14 lbs. of fodder/cow a day to his milking herd, or 2 lbs. of barley at the 7 lbs. of fodder yield he cited. At $550/ton, that comes to 55 cents/cow in daily costs for the seed alone. The New York dairyman said his additional utility costs are minimal, and that he has the available labor for running the system.

Costs for setting up a system range from very little to very large. Australian companies offer packages that cost tens of thousands of dollars, and the need to build or renovate facilities to accommodate sprouting adds to the overall expense. Stoltzfus chose the do-it-yourself route, with homemade irrigation trays made from aluminum gutter material housed on painted wooden racks. Seeds are soaked in five-gallon pails. He acknowledged needing to make a lot of adjustments along the way to create a satisfactory system capable of providing a 95% germination rate.

And he isn’t done yet. Stoltzfus says he will expand the sprouting room, raise the ceilings and perhaps add a commercial dehumidifier in an effort to increase production and minimize the environmental problems that can hamper that production. He figures that one pound of dry barley seed requires one square foot of production space. Stoltzfus also intends to buy a TMR mixer, as tearing up and feeding the mats by hand once a day is not very efficient.

“It’s a lot of hand labor,” he said, adding that the cows will “sling it everywhere if you leave it in big chunks.” Stoltzfus said he’s down to feeding just 5 lbs. of fodder/cow per day because he’s added cows and started feeding some to the calves. While his stated goal is to feed 10-15 lbs. and have the herd milk at 45-50 lbs./day with a 4.2% butterfat test without feeding grain, Stoltzfus added that “we’re still trying to figure the optimum level” for fodder feeding.

What’s the bottom line?

The bottom line appears to be that the bottom line on fodder sprouts has yet to be determined. “I am skeptical of the value of sprouting for most producers because of the labor, although there may be a place for it if there is a grass-fed milk market,” offered A. Fay Benson, a Cornell University Small Dairy Support specialist who has closely followed the Stoltzfus project. Others feel that sprouting may be best suited to those in drier climates facing chronic problems with pasture production and finding reasonably priced hay. Producer testimony indicates that the humidity control problems suffered by sprouting operators in the East are far less of a problem in places with less moisture.

Kathy Soder, a pasture specialist with USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in Pennsylvania, will be working with Roman Stoltzfoos in the coming months to study the production capabilities, feed quality and economics of the system Stoltzfoos recently installed on his Lancaster County, PA, dairy. (See Organic forum, October 2012.) “We should have something by mid-year,” Soder said.

Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin — Jim Langmeier and his sons — Joe, Mike and Keith — are humble people who don’t pretend to be doing everything right. Spend some time visiting with these guys, and talk turns to concerns about disappointing milk solids tests, mistakes made with hay crops, and yearling heifers that aren’t up to par. The Langmeiers acknowledge they have a lot to learn about grazing and overall management of permanent pastures.

Says Jim, “We aren’t doing anything special.”

That could be argued. Over the past few years, the Langmeiers’ Holstein herd has consistently produced roughly15,000 lbs. of milk per cow during 300-day lactations without the aid of a single kernel of grain. Last November this seasonally calved, organic-certified herd peaked at 55 pounds of milk/day on baleage and the final days of fall pasture. If the past is repeated, at dry-off (mainly around June 1) the herd will be at 45-48 lbs./day on pasture and a bit of baleage.

What’s more, these Holsteins first freshened at around 24 months having never tasted grain. All heifers and cows are bred AI, and last year close to 70% of the herd calved within a 21-day window starting August 1. A walk among the grazing cows as they neared peak milk last fall showed nearly uniform good to very good body condition. The Langmeiers regularly have surplus animals to sell for dairy purposes, even though Jim says they’ve only recently returned to the quality of cows he wants after selling his best animals in the mid-1990s to take some time off from milking.

With about 400 acres of very good soils, plus a hundred acres or so of permanent pasture and some rougher ground, Jim and his wife, Sabrina, and their sons have the land base to grow a lot of forage. They also have the available labor to do an excellent job of handling the details of raising calves without grain, artificially breeding all cows and heifers, and consistently putting up many tons of milking-quality baleage.

But it’s not like the Langmeiers have lots of fancy buildings to help cows produce milk through the winter: While the three-sided calf barn is new and first-rate, the free-stall barn dates to the 1970s. And all of the advantages in the world don’t necessarily guarantee that a 120-cow herd (150 calved) on a no-grain ration will support five families, even with the organic milk check.

Says Jim, “this is the most profitable way I’ve ever farmed. I’ve always believed in hay. It’s gotten us through a lot of tough years.”

The Langmeier farm spills down the north side of a broad, fertile ridge that runs across southwestern Wisconsin. This is corn country, with 200-bushel/acre crops quite common. Most of the dairy cows have gravitated to large freestall buildings and corn silage rations.

Meanwhile, Jim Langmeier has been moving in the opposite direction over the past quarter-century. His path began in 1988 in the midst of that year’s historic drought. Jim had never really liked growing corn, and in 1988 the sprays simply didn’t work. “Alfalfa saved us that year,” Jim says.

He started doing some experimenting and found that for his cows, forages were making far more milk than grain. At the same time, Sabrina was strongly encouraging him to stop using crop chemicals. Jim listened and, though he didn’t realize it at the time, he was on the path toward becoming an organic producer.

He tried a lot of things, and made a lot of mistakes. Jim stopped filling the blue silos, switched to silage pits, and by 2001 had sold the chopping equipment and gone entirely to baleage and pasture. Upon returning to milking in the late ‘90s, all calving was shifted to the fall. The last corn was grown in 1999. The herd and land were certified in 2002, and the Langmeiers started shipping to CROPP/Organic Valley the next year.

By 2004 they were down to feeding four pounds of daily grain/cow. Later that year they reduced it to two pounds. The milking herd went entirely without grain the next year, and the family has never looked back.

Calves need a good start if no-grain dairy is to have a chance of working. The Langmeiers, who haven’t fed any grain to their replacements since 2003, started raising calves in the new shed four years ago. Mike is in charge of the calf program.

He used to house calves individually for the first two weeks of life. Now, calves are started in individual pens for five days. They get a gallon of colostrum in each of their first two feedings, and learn to suck milk from a single-nipple bucket. At five days they’re grouped — initially with about nine other calves, and ultimately in groups of eight.

The Langmeiers are big believers in keeping their calves hydrated. Each day through three months they’re offered two gallons of milk/day per calf in two equal feedings, sucking from 10 Braden nipples inserted to 15-gallon pipeline acid barrels attached to plastic tubes. Jim and Joe note that while training takes longer compared to using gravity-flow nipples, problems with coughing and calves sucking each other have been eliminated since moving to the nipples/tube combination from the previous practice of dumping milk in group tubs.

But milk is just part of the picture. As soon as the calves are done consuming milk, a five-gallon pail of warm water is added to the barrel. Sometimes the calves will finish that off right away, so more water is added. The pens housing all but the youngest calves have access to water fountains, but Mike still comes back at mid-day to dump even more water into the nipple barrels in a successful effort to promote consumption. Even the younger calves drink a gallon of water a day, Joe figures.

The view here is that keeping the calves well hydrated is very important in building gut capacity, reducing stress and preventing scours, with the only real downside being the need for extra bedding.

“I think providing adequate fluids is key, I really do,” Jim emphasizes. Water is mixed with the milk starting at three months, and then gradually increased until weaning at five months.

Dry hay is important, too: calves have free-choice access to it starting by day two. Soft grass is extremely important here, with the most tender forage with the least legume content going to the youngest calves. Indeed, the Langmeiers try to avoid feeding legumes to any of their calves during the first winter. They target specific fields for calf hay: in 2011 some grassy fourth crop was just the ticket; in other years they’ll cut and bale grazing refusal that has yet to head out.

Joe says the key is to expand calves’ rib cages as they grow toward their careers making milk from bulky forage rations. He explains, “We don’t push calves to milk. We grow them to milk.”

Calves also have free-choice access to salt, kelp, humates and a milk-cow mineral. Some calves slow down at a week or 10 days and require a boost with a scoop of electrolytes added to a half-and-half mix of water and milk.

They’ve also had a few calves come down with pneumonia the past couple of years. The building has curtains on the north wall that the Langmeiers would close on cold nights. But they think this caused problems with temperature variations and moisture build-up. So late last fall, they rolled up the curtains on the north wall and installed shade cloth that allows better air movement and a more consistent climate, while also being a lot cheaper than curtains. Joe says he’s pretty confident that the change is doing the trick. Come spring, calves are usually the first animals on pasture.

The Langmeiers do so well at raising calves, and have such a low involuntary culling rate (about 10%), that they almost always have cattle to sell for dairy purposes, which is one reason why they’ve stayed almost entirely with Holstein genetics. Another reason: “We know Holsteins,” Joe explains. “With all the other changes we’ve made, we felt we needed to stay with what we knew.”

In selecting bulls, number one on Joe’s list of traits is calving ease, with feet and legs, body depth and openness also important. “I don’t even look at milk — I just skip right through,” he explains. He says that while calving ease and feet and legs offer plenty of choices within the breed, the rest of his preferred traits aren’t so easy to find, and tend to accumulate in a handful of families.

Joe says that after more than a decade of working on this, he’s starting to see a few cow families in the herd that do particularly well. Jim says his average cow has definitely gotten wider, as there has been a noticeable increase in the amount of squeezing taking place in the double-eight milking parlor, which dates to the 1950s.

While most everything is still black and white, the sons are thinking of doing some crossbreeding in an attempt to tighten the calving window: while the bulk of the herd freshens in three weeks, the season drags out through November. Already they breed smaller heifers to Jersey, and are doing some experimenting with Norwegian Red, Ayrshire and Flekvieh.

Perhaps more important than breed to a system that relies on late-summer/fall calving is the ability to harvest quality forages. “We want them to be eating the same quality forage at the bunk as they’re grazing in the field,” Joe explains.

First-crop is typically harvested starting May 20, and sometimes earlier if orchardgrass is starting to shoot seedheads. They aim to cut second and third crops at 28- to 30-day intervals when clover starts to bloom and alfalfa is at bud stage, while fourth crop is stretched out to 60 days. “If you want to get milk out of grass, you can’t have many seedheads,” Joe asserts.

The Langmeiers study weather forecasts out to two weeks in search of harvest windows. With a pair of 13-foot discbines, two balers and four people to do the job, they cut an average of a hundred acres and as many as 150 in a single day, baling most everything the next day, and in-line wrapping within a couple hours of baling.

Baleage at 50-55% moisture seems to be the sweet spot. “As soon as the feed gets drier, they start heading down on milk,” Joe says. Most years some bales will be a little too dry, so the Langmeiers mix and match as best they can in an attempt to keep the sub-par forage from hurting milk production too much. All baleage is unrolled in bunks at the freestall barn — these guys aren’t big fans of tub grinders.

As the years pass, the Langmeiers are becoming less and less excited about two things related to their forage program. One is alfalfa: Their cows just don’t milk as well on it compared to red and white clovers. The Langmeiers avoid pure legume stands, so grass is always a major component of the forage ration here. However, in calculating their hay inventory after last year’s serious summer drought, they were surprised to find that red clover fields produced just as much feed as alfalfa stands. And they say that whether hayed or grazed, stands with at least 40% red clover make far more milk than those with similar percentages of alfalfa. Indeed, they say their cows will lose weight if forced to eat too many bales with high percentages of alfalfa.

Until very recently, Joe thought he had to have alfalfa as drought protection. But starting this year and until something indicates otherwise, clover will be the main legume seeded. Joe figures he can always put some alfalfa back in the mix when the stands thin out down the line.

Also, these no-grain guys are coming to dislike tillage. While they experimented a lot, for years their basic rotation was four years of alfalfa, clover seeded with a cover crop (usually with oats), and then back to alfalfa, also with a cover. But too often it’s been too wet to cut the oats within the small window available before it throws heads. Too often they’ve either torn up the seeding or had it shaded out, while harvesting subpar feed that cost too much milk.

“Cover-cropping seems to be hurting us the most,” Jim asserts. So they’ve purchased an Aitchison drill, with a goal of interseeding both legumes and grasses as needed in permanent stands, and tilling up only the 10 acres needed to make bedding.

While mechanical harvest gets a lot of the attention around here, the Langmeiers take grazing seriously — perhaps more seriously than the great majority of fall-calvers. They offer 12-hour grazing breaks to the milking herd, have water on paddock, and rely heavily on temporary fencing in managing the grazing. The cows usually gain a couple of pounds of milk when turned out to pasture in late lactation, and by sometime in May the bunk ration has been cut back to almost nothing. Fresh cows peak in late fall while pasture is still a major part of the ration. Joe estimates that 85% of the cows’ total dry matter intake is coming from pasture for half the year.

Most of the herd is dried off by early June on Kentucky-31 tall fescue in a grove of trees. The Langmeiers like what pasture does for the dry cows, saying that they freshen in good condition — but not too fat — with shiny coats. Milk fever isn’t a concern, and just four of the first 135 cows calving last year failed to clean.

For fields that see the most grazing, the Langmeiers like perennial ryegrass, meadow fescue, white clover and some chicory. Those that see more mechanical harvest tend to be heavier in soft-leaf tall fescue and red clover. They really like perennial ryegrass, as it produced well even through last year’s drought, and Joe says ryegrass will be prominent in the seeding mix across the entire farm.

Jim and Joe say they still have a lot to learn about grazing. This year they’ll put in more permanent fence as part of an effort to intensify their management. Joe says the dairy pastures haven’t been stocked heavily enough at midsummer after the bulk of the herd was dried off and sent to rougher pasture, thus leading to uneven grazing and reduced yields. This year, they’ll use polywire to do a better job of controlling things within established paddock boundaries.

Joe also intends to lengthen the grazing rotation from the previous 15- to 20-day rounds out to at least 20-25 days, and probably even further. Compaction has become a problem in some places, so they’ll likely try some subsoiling this year. The only fertilizers they’ve applied in recent years are dairy manure and 500 lbs./acre of gypsum annually.

Young stock definitely need some additional grazing attention, Joe says. For years their system of moving the young stock every two to four days and allowing some back-grazing produced excellent results. But this didn’t work as well in last year’s drought, and Joe says they shorted the heifers in trying to stretch the feed supply out too far. Last year’s calf crop was not as big and shiny as the Langmeiers like to see, some of them had ringworm, and breeding performance has been subpar.

Says Jim, “We need to start managing them like the milk cows.” This year they intend to put dry cows and bred heifers together in one group, add the young calves after they’ve become comfortable with grazing, and move the combined herd every 12 hours.

There are other concerns. Milk urea nitrogen (MUN) levels were in the 19-22 range last year. Milk solids declined from the typical average of 3.9% milkfat and 3.1% protein to 3.5% and 2.6%, although they came back closer to normal over the winter.

And milk production this lactation has been a bit of a disappointment. Joe says the daily milk peak had been increasing by about a pound per cow for several years, reaching 59 pounds in 2010. But this winter the herd never topped 55 pounds despite the Langmeiers’ view that they had done their best job ever of managing the hay crop for top quality. Jim speculates that the cold, cloudy spring combined with a period of extreme heat and humidity robbed the forages of some of their milk-making ability, and the milking herd may also have been shortchanged on quality feed during the height of last summer’s drought. In hindsight, Joe says they probably should have opened up their good baleage sooner to get some extra energy into the cows.

“I don’t view this as a failure of the no-grain system — it was more a failure of management,” Joe explains.

So by no means are these guys considering going back to grain. The sons say they’re committed to following the current path for the foreseeable future.

“If we do things right, we see no reason why we can’t (peak at) 60 to 65 pounds,” Joe says.

Jim says he doesn’t like getting hung up on such numbers. Indeed, production per cow might go even lower down the road. This winter the Langmeiers have been running an experiment with once-a-day milking. Twelve late-calving cows — split fairly equally between high, moderate and low producers — were milking around 45 lbs./cow six weeks into the OAD trial. Joe and Jim say it’s possible that they’ll expand OAD milking and add cows with a goal of improving forage production, forage utilization and total milk produced from the farm, while also cutting down on labor.

One way or another, Jim is certain of at least one thing: “Cows weren’t meant for grain.”

By Janet McNally It has always been my contention that sheep in the Grain Belt should be a part of a mixed crop and livestock farm. In most parts of the world, sheep are not the only enterprise on tillable cropland. They are employed as integral components of cropping programs by assisting with weed control and soil fertility, and in marketing crop residues.

Photo: Janet McNally. To smooth the weaning process, the Boettchers set up a temporary pen and chute, and allow lambs to play there for a few days before they’re sorted. Son Martin is in foreground.

With the right approach, sheep are a very profitable addition to such farms. Modern agriculture has encouraged mono-cropping, with fertilizers and farm chemicals replacing livestock as crop management tools. Mono-cropping livestock has been a growing trend as well.

With this approach comes problems such as sheep pests (parasites) that require higher input costs and reduced returns. Indeed, midwestern sheep producers have struggled with how to make the farm flock a profitable business, especially on higher-priced land or when sheep are the only enterprise on the farm.

While the highest lamb prices in history are providing profit for most people, the long haul is uncertain, as those prices are being partly fueled by the U.S. decision to devalue the dollar as a strategy to manage our economic woes. So there is great potential for a roller coaster ride in the lamb market. The high prices will also encourage inefficiency, which will lead to unprofitable sheep operations when costs catch up to prices.

So I was delighted to visit the Chris and Gabriele Boettcher family in Ontario, Canada. I think the Boettchers have put the pieces of the puzzle together for a profitable sheep enterprise on tillable land.

For Chris, being organic means applying livestock manure and plowing down green manures to fertilize crops rather than purchasing commercial fertilizers. Their main cash crops are organic spelt and soybeans, but they also raise organic oats and rye — and sheep. The rotation of seed crops, green manure crops and sheep grazing feeds the soil and the flock while producing high-value, marketable grain crops, along with lamb and wool.Green manure crops are legumes that fix nitrogen in the soil. They also make superb sheep feed.

When planting spelt, Chris underseeds 5 lbs.of red clover/acre, harrows it in with a rotary harrow in the spring, and has the sheep graze this green manure following the fall spelt harvest.

For his hay/green manure mix, Chris uses a wider variety of legumes and grasses that are also broadcast into rye or winter spelt in the spring. The mix includes: Leo birdsfoot trefoil (5 lbs./acre), alfalfa (0.5 lb.), ladino clover (0.5 lb.), sweet clover (0.5 lb.), timothy (1 lb.), Kora tall fescue (1.5 lb.; being evaluated), Carleton brome (4 lbs.) and Fleet meadow brome (4 lbs.). The last two are applied separately because of their large seeds.

Sweet clover puts down a very deep tap root, bringing minerals to the surface. Birdsfoot trefoil is preferred to alfalfa, as it is easier to manage, and offers less bloat risk and a higher mineral content. Chris prefers low-alkaloid reed canarygrass or brome in the mix because they are softer and sweeter. This mix will remain for two years, and then be plowed under. While it is standing, it is hayed and grazed.

In oat fields, he disks in the oat residue after broadcasting a blend of legumes and bin-run oats, and later turns the ewe flock in on 18 inches of green feed for flushing. Chris figures the sheep leave behind two tons of manure and urine per acre. In addition, five tons per acre of composted manure from the lambing barn is applied when the forage land is broken up after two years. If Chris did not have sheep, he figures he would be exporting minerals and nutrients off his farm in the hay made from the green manure forage. By grazing the flock on that crop, 80% of the nutrients are cycled back to the land.

He strives for a rotation where an acre spends four years as tillable land producing grain (plus late-season green oats or red clover crops for grazing), and two years as a forage crop that is hayed and grazed by the sheep. The sheep have a long-term rotation of their own. With such a diverse cropping program, they are continually moving on to the next grazing area, allowing Chris to keep them off any given piece of ground for up to 12 months, thus eliminating the need to drench for parasites.

He employs high stocking densities, and sheep are moving to fresh pasture daily. After weaning, Chris will graze 510 lambs on one acre per day, or the equivalent of 80,000 to 100,000 lbs. of animal per acre.

With such high-quality grazing and the Boettchers’ commitment to organic farming — hence no vaccinations — they used to lose some lambs to enterotoxemia type D, known as “overeating disease.” By leaving a strip of forage unmowed and including a piece of this strip in each paddock to provide some mature fiber, Chris has been able to stop the losses during the transition period from first-cut forage to lush, second-cut growth.

The Boettcher flock consists of 360 Canadian Arcott ewes on about the same number of acres. They are lambed indoors at the end of March, and the adult ewes drop an impressive 2.12 lambs per ewe, with lamb mortality under 9%.

Chris figures the sheep return back to the cropping enterprise approximately $50 (Canadian) per ewe annually in increased yields, plus the value of fertilizer. Annual sales of lambs, culls, and wool total $230 per ewe. Chris charges his ewes 40 cents per day for grazing, and $60 per year for homegrown harvested feeds. The only purchased feed is trace minerals and flax meal. He figures his return to labor, risk and management to be $88.65 per ewe. These figures were for 2008 — before the historic rise in lamb prices!

The Boettcher farm exemplifies how a mixed crop and livestock farm enhances the profitability of both crops and livestock by sharing costs such as land, and through the synergy of complementary enterprises. Equally impressive is that children Erik, Martin, Olaf, Peter and Ingrid are all involved in the farm business. They plan to study agriculture and work on farms abroad.

What if everyone in my home county farmed like the Boettchers? Pine County, Minnesota, has 103,000 acres of tillable land that could support 103,000 ewes happily munching away on weeds and crop residue as an added farm profit center. Instead, Pine County is home to a mere 1,000 ewes, half of which reside on just two farms. Cash crops have always been a rather marginal business here due to poorer soils and a short growing season. A simple change in mindset just might be the ticket to improving farm profitability.

Janet McNally grazes sheep near Hinckley, Minnesota.

Shiloh, Ohio — Try, if you will, to poke holes in this formula for an organic, grazing-based dairy in the eastern Corn Belt:

1. Feed the dairy herd pasture, dry hay and (in a dry year) baleage for five to six months per year. Calves are the only animals getting grain during this time.

2. Grow no corn, buy no corn, feed no corn to milking animals. Invest nothing in corn-specific equipment or infrastructure.

3. Employ a few daily pounds of barley baleage, harvested at dough stage, to balance energy and protein needs for six to seven months of total and partial confinement feeding. Harvest and store the barley with your hay making equipment, and employ a vertical mixer in feeding it.

4. Put most of your crop management effort into producing as much high-quality pasture and hay/baleage as possible. Purchase no protein supplement.

5. Ship more than 14,000 pounds of milk per cow from a Holstein/Ayrshire/Swedish Red-cross herd, with butterfat at 4.0%, protein near 3.1%, and a somatic cell count a bit above 100,000.

6. Calve 90% of the herd from late winter through late spring.

7. Feed a 40-cow milking herd and replacements from 137 acres, and have some hay to sell most years.

8. Spend about $85 per cow on purchased feed, including salt, minerals and kelp, plus the calf starter.

9. Smile when the numbers on the organic milk check dwarf those printed on your bills.

This is Amos Nolt’s formula, and he plans on sticking with it for a while. Never a heavy feeder of supplements, Amos is in his third year of going without grain during the pasture season, and without corn year-round.

Theoretically, a pound of corn fed at such low levels should yield at least two pounds of milk. But Amos says he wasn’t seeing such results. Back when his herd was primarily Holsteins consuming a lactation average of 10 lbs. of corn per day, the herd peaked at about 16,000 lbs. of milk.

The CROPP/Organic Valley member noticed one Holstein with a 365-day DHIA record above 30,000 pounds had not eaten any grain during the grazing season. Says Amos, “I thought that if she could do it, then why couldn’t the others do it at half the milk?”

As organic corn prices increased, Amos cut the ration back to six pounds. “I told my supplier that if corn goes to six dollars, then the corn can go to pigs and chickens, because I wasn’t going to feed it,” he relates. Organic corn did reach that mark, and for the first 10 months of 2005, Amos says the herd “got along just fine” without any grain at all.

Feeling that some additional energy was needed, Amos started feeding barley baleage in the winter of 2005-2006. Under the new feeding regime last year the herd, now with a large proportion of Ayrshire blood, averaged 14,200 lbs. of milk shipped, with 570 lbs. of butterfat and 438 lbs. of protein. Compare that to the Nolt herd in 2001, which had far more Holstein genetics and was being fed a lactation average of 10 lbs. of organic corn/head/day along with some protein offered in winter. Those cows averaged 15,048 lbs. of milk sold, 588 lbs. of fat (3.9%), and 440 lbs. of protein (2.9%). (In both years, the herd was milked three times a day for about three weeks in early lactation.) The 2001 production record came with a purchased feed cost near $500 per cow, or more than five times the 2006 feed bill.

While this year’s dry weather and a failed experiment with growing spelts has hurt production a bit, Amos is confident that a 14,000-pound herd average from cattle with about the current genetic profile is easily attainable over the long term. With Swedish Red-cross heifers doing well this year, “I am very confident that I can achieve 15,000 pounds again,” Amos says. While not spectacular, this production level is probably close to the norm for organic dairies, most of which are spending a lot more money to feed their cows.

“I am 100% sure I am not losing one single pound of milk by not feeding corn,” he asserts. The herd average is helped a bit by the fact that Amos culls an average of 25-30% of his herd each year, almost all them sold as dairy animals. Most of these cows are lower producers in his system.

Such a strategy demands topnotch forage management. Milking on this farm since 1996, early on Amos relied heavily upon perennial ryegrass/white clover swards. The 40-cow herd grazed three-acre paddocks on 24-hour intervals in a 14-day rotation. Primarily in grass before the Nolts arrived, this is a well-developed grazing farm with high organic matter soils. Still, summer ryegrass performance was poor, so Amos lately has been tilling and replanting equal amounts of ryegrass, orchardgrass, timothy and reed canarygrass in a 20-pound mix, along with six pounds of white clover. Amos likes to see a 40% clover population in the stand, and tries to lime every four years no matter what the soil test says to promote clover and no-grain milk production. About 80 acres are in pasture.

Instead of giving the cows the entire three acres right away, he now splits the paddocks with temporary wire to offer two acres during the daylight hours, and removes the wire to provide the remaining area at night. Amos says this has promoted more even grazing and reduced his clipping requirements. Clover stands have improved since he went to a 28-day rotation, Amos says.

Harvested forage also gets plenty of attention here, with dry hay balancing pasture, and baleage wrapped in in-line tubes fed largely in winter, late fall and early spring. Amos doesn’t test his forages, instead relying on his experience for estimating protein content.

He has been making a greater effort to cut hay earlier. “I definitely make better hay now,” Amos says. The 50 acres devoted to hay production are dominated by red clover. Amos says he saw improved cattle performance when he switched over from alfalfa years ago.

Most years through the grazing season, cows are eating about 10 dry matter pounds of dry hay to supplement an estimated 30 pounds of pasture dry matter intake. With a moderate drought in effect this July, 20 pounds of third-cutting baleage from last year was being substituted for the pasture. During the pasture season the milking herd has been offered salt, kelp, sodium bicarbonate, and a mineral/di-cal mix, although Amos says only the salt mix gets eaten in any quantity (he stopped feeding the mineral/di-cal mix late this summer, and was questioning his $10/cow annual kelp expenditure).

Chicken manure is another key to making this organic system work. Amos invested in a contract broiler barn on the farm that annually finishes six batches, each with 25,000 birds. He says the barn provides a decent return on the investment while requiring about an hour of daily labor. With area poultry producers hiking prices for their litter, Amos can also count some fertilizer savings as a benefit.

He applies two tons per acre to his fields, normally about half from piles and half raw. Pastures usually get two applications timed to stimulate grass growth, one in mid-summer and the other in early fall. Amos tries to apply the litter shortly after the cows have grazed the paddock and hopefully just before a rain. He hasn’t seen any rejection when cows return to these paddocks four weeks later.

The chicken litter also provides a boost to his hayfields and annual cropping ground. For instance, Amos says he can harvest 18 bales of 45% moisture barley baleage per acre with the manure, and probably just 10 without it. Six acres of barley is enough to feed the dairy herd for up to seven months.

The barley comes off in early June at dough stage testing at 8.5-9% protein, and he has planted sorghum-sudangrass for a late-season baleage crop, although he’s looking at trying something of higher quality next year. Since wet barley attracts flies, Amos aims to open a tube no earlier than October. This also serves to dilute the excess protein while making up for energy shortfalls in fall pasture: Amos said his 2006 barley crop had a Brix reading of 20 at harvest. Indeed, what sold Amos on barley was seeing an unprecedented spike in milk solids when he started feeding it in the fall of 2005.

During the feeding season, the amount of barley in the mixer will vary from three to 12 pounds (as-fed basis), with the ration fed on a covered, drive-by apron in front of headlocks along one side of the bedding pack barn. Barley amounts generally increase proportionally with baleage quality. While the technical rationale is to balance the milk cow ration at around 16-17% protein, the practical matter on this farm is that it’s all about the cow pies.

“I just watch the cows’ manure,” Amos explains. “If it doesn’t have a ‘dish’ center, if it’s too loose, I add barley to the ration. I shoot for the perfect patty.”

He believes that too many dairy farmers are afraid to manage their cows by such visual observations. “Farmers are taught that feeding cows is computer science that requires the help of dairy nutritionists. There’s a lot more money that could be made on the farm if the farmers weren’t so afraid to feed their own cows,” Amos asserts.

Barley is taken away from the cows at dry-off, and is returned to the ration about a week before calving. Amos aims to feed his best baleage in early spring to encourage as high a milk production peak as possible.

Last spring he learned a lesson about the importance of good early lactation forage when baleage supplies ran short because Amos had grown some spelts on what otherwise would have been hay ground. He didn’t get the spelts off at the right time for forage purposes, so it wasn’t dairy quality feed. He opted not to spring for expensive organic soymeal, so milk production suffered. The herd peaked at just 60 pounds, or at least 10 pounds below what Amos thinks he should attain from good forage balanced with barley.

Amos closes the barley tube in early May when warm weather returns. Ideally he would continue feeding some grain through the spring flush to balance the high-protein grass, but he feels that would require going to individual bale wrapping to retain quality in warm weather. Amos owns one-fifth of the in-line wrapper, he isn’t willing to invest in another wrapping system, and he doesn’t know of anyone in the area who will wrap individually on a custom basis. For now, at least, dry grassy hay fills the pasture-balancing bill.

He likes the high-moisture barley for a couple of reasons. “It’s more digestible,” Amos asserts. “You won’t see any barley in the manure like you do corn. I think that’s why I’m getting enough energy into the cows while feeding at fairly low levels.”

The other major benefit to barley is that Amos did not need to buy any equipment to grow it, harvest it or handle it. His haying equipment does the job and, while the investment in his vertical mixer and bale unroller added up to about $25,000, such equipment would be required for many feed mixing programs.

“I don’t think I’ll ever feed corn again, because this is just too easy,” Amos explains. “I didn’t think I could raise my own grain without buying extra equipment, but here I am.”

The result is an annual purchased grain and salt/mineral/additive bill around $85 per cow, with more than half of that cost attributed to the $1,800 of starter feed for about a dozen calves each year. Compare those purchased feed costs to revenues of more than $3,000 per cow, and you can understand why Amos Nolt’s formula might look attractive to an organic grazier who is disappointed with the percentage of the milk check that is disappearing off the farm.

Grazing is central to the struggle. All advertising, packaging and commentary from organic milk marketers show cows contentedly munching grass on pasture, even though not all organic milk comes from farms where grazing is important to the production system.

This is interesting to me as an organic beef grazier and beef seller, because the organic milk industry is the leader in organic animal agriculture. It is the largest segment, has saved the most small farms, made the biggest impact at the retail level, gets huge press space and, outside of fruits and vegetables, is the product foremost in the minds of most organic food eaters.

Is it really necessary that organic cows graze? Do the people buying organic dairy products really want to know, and will this knowledge influence their purchases? This is the core of the debate. Two articles that came to our mailbox in the last couple of weeks illustrate this struggle.

The first was in a conventional agriculture journal here in Wisconsin, which detailed a talk to the Wisconsin Cheese Industry Conference by Rusty Bishop, director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research. Bishop challenged six major claims he believes are made for organic milk.

He cited research concluding that organic milk is equal to conventional around five claims (nutrient level, pesticide residue, levels of antioxidants, antimicrobial resistance and safety), and slightly inferior to conventional around one (levels of mycotoxins due lack of pesticide treatment of organic grain). Bishop’s bottom line was that organic milk and conventional milk are virtually the same. He did point to the science that milk from grazed animals is healthier (higher levels of omega-3, CLA and antioxidants), but does not draw a connection from that to organic producers using more grazing than conventional farmers.

This is not surprising, because the organic rules are weak in requiring meaningful grazing, with phrases such as “access to pasture for ruminants” and “…ration composed of agricultural products including pasture and forage.” The majority of the pioneering organic milk producers understand what has to be done, and embrace grazing. But with strong demand and enticing prices, a clever confinement dairy can work around those rules in the blink of an eye and with a straight face, as long as that farm has the right USDA-approved certifying group. It is obvious to anyone reading the agricultural press and the related blogs that a lot of the new organic milk comes from such operations.

Contrast Bishop’s talk to an article the same week in Newsweek magazine by Wolfgang Puck, the celebrity chef, in which Puck makes the case for his commitment and recommendation to use only organic ingredients in preparing meals. His rationale is that organic animals are more humanely raised with “…sunshine on their backs and grass under their feet.” He said these animals are raised by farmers who allow them to eat grass.

Puck’s comments focus on how the food product is produced, as well as the product itself. They are an affirmation for people who have chosen organic food. These consumers look at both the product and the production system in making choices.

The two articles offer a great comparison of the two sides of the debate in the organic world. In pronouncing food “good” or “bad,” the mainstream food industry employs equations that center on safety and “wholesomeness” produced from science dispensed by universities, commercial food or agricultural enterprises, and three government agencies. In other words, it focuses on the end product. The consumer is expected to believe all of this, and be comfortable. Most are. It is this angle that Bishop is addressing.

Puck is looking at something more than the end result, as the production system also matters to him, and many other organic consumers.

It is interesting that Bishop’s talk was given to conventional dairy producers and processors, while Puck’s comments were aimed at eaters. Was Bishop’s presentation more scientific than Puck’s? Of course. Was Puck’s more persuasive to some eaters? By a long shot.

While the organic food industry has end-product verification to a certain degree with the USDA organic rules, it seems obvious that organic producers and marketers must stay very tuned to the desires of organic consumers who want to know how their food was produced.

If organic dairy producers are not doing what Puck says they are doing, then there is definitely trouble ahead. In my opinion, there are some issues organic producers need to address in both product quality and providing a “sellable” production system:

1. There are scientifically proven benefits to milk products and meat from grazed animals. This can become a proven means of exceeding the quality of conventional products. Organic should mean that ruminants are grazed -truly and meaningfully grazed. Also, grazing can lower production costs in geographic areas where grass grows well.

2. The humane treatment story is one that is waiting to be strengthened and then told to eaters. Its time has come, and the story will be a lot easier to tell in a grazing-based system. Also, organic ruminant animal health is more easily sustained in a properly managed grazing system.

3. Where food comes from will gain in importance. Organic labeling is important, and so is immediate implementation of country of origin labeling (COOL), because someplace along the line eaters are going to put the dog food/wheat germ/melamine/China story together, and reject even organic food if it is from a suspicious country of origin.

The supply chain of producers, processors, and retailers that put all that together will maintain the faith and loyalty of their consumer/eaters. They will be rewarded with increased market share and premium prices. Those who do not will ultimately sell “commodity” organic with prices close to those of conventional product.

Do organic dairy’s customers want to know if their milk is being produced by grazing cows? No doubt the answer is yes.

Jim Munsch grazes organic-certified beef cattle near Coon Valley, Wisconsin.

With all of the recent research showing increased energy levels due to the reduced time baleage and haylage sits in a windrow respiring, we are trying to do “hay in a day” whenever possible. Other than pasture, haylage is the main forage for our milking herd. We mow in wide swaths with crushing rolls backed off as far as possible, as research has shown that leaving the stems whole facilitates quicker drying for baleage and haylage by allowing more moisture to flow up the stem and out the leaves. Crushing only seems important when we want to dry the crop all the way down for dry hay. Just prior to chopping, the cut hay is merged after having had the benefit of more sun and air exposure given the greater surface area in the wide swaths.

This year the weather didn’t always cooperate for us to do all the haylage in a day, but we did pull it off for much of third and all of fourth cutting haylage, along with much of our baleage. Since we have yet to open those bunks, we don’t know whether this year’s crop will be noticeably better.

This year I also focused on earlier harvest with less time between cuttings. Thanks to the early start (May 23) and the plentiful (sometimes more than plentiful) rain we’ve had, we’ve been able to get four cuttings on our best land where we normally would have taken only three. We’ve just started feeding first-cutting haylage with 20% crude protein and .70 NEL – if only all our haylage could be this good!

As we look to renovate some pastures for better yield, intake, and quality, I am selecting seed that will give us pasture and hay crop plants that are both highly palatable and higher in energy to enhance both total intake and energy intake from pasture.

We have been pleased with the seed offered by King’s Agriseeds of Ronks, PA. We are very impressed with a mix (“Dairy Green Organic Forage Mixture”) that we seeded some pasture down to last year. It’s a mix of meadow fescue, ryegrass, timothy, red clover, and white clover. Its re-growth this year (with plenty of rain) has far exceeded any other pasture on our farm.

I seeded one river-flat hayfield down to “Tivoli” ryegrass and white clover to see how it will do in providing a high-energy haylage crop. It doesn’t have the height of adjacent alfalfa/grass fields, but is thicker than the hair on a dog.

In another new seeding on ground with more gravel, I tried “Barolex” tall fescue with alfalfa. Testing shows Barolex to be very high yielding, able to take abuse from traffic, and good on the energy side. I have had an aversion to trying more tall fescue after planting “Barcel” several years ago in some pastures, and being very displeased with the amount of grazing rejection by our cows. But this field will never be grazed, the Barolex should fill in over time as the alfalfa dies out in the more poorly drained areas of the field, and we should get better yields throughout the year compared to my usual choice of alfalfa/timothy.

On the fertility side, for the first time we had a number of our pastures and a few hayfields sprayed last spring with “MPM,” a product from Lancaster Ag Products, Bird-in-Hand, PA. This is a blend of fish solubles (yes, it did have quite an odor), compost tea, seaweed extract, trace minerals, etc. Our milking herd pasture intake this year is as high or higher than it has ever been, even though we have more cows on the pasture system. It’s hard to tell whether this is partly due to the MPM, or just the never-ending rain.

If the fields are dry enough, I also intend to do some dry blend fertilization this fall to address boron, sulfur and other trace mineral needs – something we haven’t done since being organic – as well as addressing calcium needs. These efforts are all to the end of producing more nutrient dense pasture and hay to reduce the need for supplementation.

Kathie Arnold milks cows near Truxton, New York.

Forrest Stricker- Feed costs are our biggest expense. Due to dry weather last year, our purchased feed bill was $140,000 on 115 lactating cows plus 80 heifers. We are doing all we can to reduce that cost!

To increase our forage quantity and protein content, we seeded more clover to both hay fields and pastures. This year we used three seeding methods. We frost-seeded some pastures, and we no-till drilled some pastures and hay fields. Third, we used a “Gen-till” to open and aerate the ground, and then broadcast clover seed. With each method we seeded a mixture of 2 lbs. of white clover and 5 lbs. of red clover per acre. Every method turned out very well, with negligible differences in the health of the stands. After establishment, the clover comprised 30-40% of the stands.

In pastures that needed to be renovated, we planted 3 bushels/acre of oats and 3 lbs./acre of turnips in March. This was grazed twice, then planted to BMR sorghum-sudangrass on June 1. This was grazed or baled three times, and by mid-September we planted an alfalfa/orchardgrass/fescue mix to these fields.

Our overall plan is to increase yields and add nitrogen to our ground, which are two essential things for an organic farm. Last year, we knew the fertility was dropping where we removed hay, so after studying the soil tests we applied 5 tons of dry layer manure per acre in those fields. The manure not only added nitrogen, but many other minerals as well.

Last year we made 300 (4-by-4 foot) bales of baleage; so far this year we’ve made 930 bales and counting. That’s a savings of $60,000 worth of purchased hay, assuming last year’s transportation prices from the Midwest. I estimate that half the increased yield was from the clover and increased fertility, and the other half from plenty of mid-summer rain.

To increase the digestibility of our baleage, we tried to harvest the hay as close to the time of cutting as possible, as recent studies indicate that you save feed value by doing this. In the past we mowed the crop into a narrow swath one day and baled it the next day if it was fit. This year, we disc-mowed our fields and left the forage in wide swathes for four to eight hours to allow maximum surface area for drying to a moisture content between 50-65%. Then we raked, baled and wrapped – all in the same day. This should increase our milk production and cut our grain feeding. We’ll find out this winter if the extra raking and hustle was worth the improvement in quality.

We started feeding 2 lbs./cow/day of molasses to increase the energy content of the ration. One pound of molasses will replace 3-4 lbs. of corn. Organic corn is $0.13/lb., and molasses is $0.09/lb., so there is almost a five-fold savings by using a small amount of molasses. And compared to corn, molasses is better for the cow’s rumen. In addition, we always had minerals and corn “fines” left over in the trough when the cows were done eating, but now the trough is licked clean. Sorting is no longer an issue, and the calculated ration is being ingested. The benefits of molasses keep mounting.

To save on grain feeding to six-month and older calves, we are now feeding them high-quality baleage – not haylage. Nutritionists say that haylage heats up too much during fermentation, resulting in larger nutritional losses during storage. The calf ration is free-choice minerals and baleage testing 18% crude protein, with no supplemental grain. Since implementing it last winter, we are very pleased with the results of this ration. Going onto pasture this spring, they were the largest and healthiest heifers we ever raised.

Our philosophy to reduce supplementation costs is to have high quality pastures along with balanced soils producing high quality, high quantity and highly digestible forages. This will reduce purchased hay and grain costs, while increasing milk production from healthier cows.

Forrest Stricker milks cows near Wernersville, Pennsylvania.

Rick Adamski- Growing corn silage this year is a radical departure from past practice, as we had not grown any corn for about 10 years.

The decision was made after a financial analysis of the impact of what amounted to a “perfect storm” in 2005. The two “fronts” of this storm were the tremendous spring 2005 winterkill in our pastures, and the high organic corn prices. We had not planned for either, and our poor response to these problems resulted in it costing us more to operate the farm in 2005 than what we received from all farm income.

Even though we had not grown corn for more than 10 years, we had purchased corn silage in almost all of those years. We were not organic for the first six of those years, so we were able to buy the silage from a grower within a half-mile of our farm. When we started the organic conversion we had to travel up to eight miles, and those fields had poor yields. We custom-hired the harvesting, so the hauling was very costly.

For the two years prior to 2006 we tried feeding just baleage and dry corn. When the price of corn hit $7/bushel we tried to feed as little as possible. This hurt overall milk production. We tried feeding other grains, but did not see adequate production.

Winter kill hit many perennial forages throughout eastern Wisconsin in spring 2005. While not killed, our fields were hurt enough to seriously slow early growth. The first crop hay harvest was just over half of what we expect in a “normal” year. The rains came late in summer and continued throughout the fall to produce some great fall forages for grazing, but our spring-seasonal calving herd had already peaked in milk, and we were just trying to level off production in the latter part of our lactation curve.

These difficulties led us to evaluate our situation. We became aware of the Dairy TRANS financial analysis program last winter, and decided to use this tool. The analysis we completed for 2005 showed a strong need to improve our farm’s financial performance. It appeared to us that the productivity of our assets was inadequate. We wanted to improve on the amounts we produced from these resources. One problem: our pastures were under-productive. This, along with the concern about high organic grain prices, led us to begin evaluating the possibility of growing corn silage.

Our past experience with feeding silage showed that we could reach a per-cow daily peak of about 70 lbs. of milk instead of the 60 lbs. per day that we saw without corn silage.

As of today (Sept. 7) the corn is not harvested, but it looks very good. I am projecting around 15 tons per acre, or about 5 tons of dry matter per acre. I also estimate the corn will yield at least 100 bushels/acre, so there should be about 5,500 pounds of grain and 4,500 pounds of forage. I purchased some organic corn for $6 per bushel, and I estimate the forage in the silage to be worth $125/ton. The grain value of the silage is thus about $600/acre and the forage value is about $280/acre, for a total feed value of $880/acre. As a comparison, our pastures yield about 4 tons of dry matter per acre, which I figure is worth about $150/acre. Total pasture feed value is thus $600/acre.

I believe the input costs for everything related to growing and harvesting this corn are much less than the $280/acre difference in value between the corn and the pasture. I also believe that corn silage and pasture will complement each other better and result in better production than if I was to feed only one of them. The greater feed value of corn silage gives it an advantage over another option, sorghum-sudangrass, especially if we can control the weeds as well as we did this year.

I’m still focusing on grazing. Of our 220 acres, 26 are in corn silage. That seems to be a good amount for our herd of 65 cows and their replacements. I see that we will have a long-term rotation in which every part of the farm will grow corn once every seven to eight years. This will help us in re-establishing legumes in our pastures.

Rick Adamski milks cows near Seymour, Wisconsin.

Ernest Martin- Long ago and before we were organic, we decided that if we wanted to be profitable and compete with the huge dairies, we would have to run a low-input operation. We have found that there is more room for error if we don’t have a couple of thousand dollars going out in feed costs every month.

We could probably push production quite a bit, but would that improve the bottom line? In addition to the higher feed costs, there are hidden costs such as shorter cow life, higher veterinary bills and lost income through not having as many heifers and breeding stock to sell. Now, to the question that’s been asked.

For the past 10 years we have been trying to breed a cow that will work in a low-input operation. This has led to cows that will produce a fair amount of milk with good components on a mostly forage diet. We feed 10 lbs. of ground ear corn year-round, with less than a pound of beans or field peas added in the winter for energy.

At $5.00-$5.50 per 72-lb. bushel for ear corn, our purchased feed cost is less than a dollar a day. While there are those who say that buying corn at that price is too expensive, I still believe I can make more money growing forages instead of corn.

If I grow 125 bushels/acre corn that is worth $5.60/bushel, that comes to a $700 gross per acre. Compare this to an easily attainable five tons of good quality organic hay at a conservative price of $150 per ton, which grosses $750 per acre. This forage is grown with a lot less in terms of input costs compared to corn. Also, growing a legume-grass mix builds soil by improving organic matter and overall fertility.

This is mostly related to winter feed. Where we can cut costs even more is by grazing as many days of the year as possible. With the exception of grain, we try to not feed any stored feed during the summer months if at all possible. While some people say that you can improve production and cow body condition by feeding corn silage, I would rather do this by breeding a more efficient animal.

Also, we have been improving our soil with grazing. We have been able to increase the number of animals we keep on our farm while still growing all the forage we need, with some left over to sell. This has produced more manure to recycle on the farm, which in turn leads to more forage grown. While this will reach a maximum point someday, we have not yet reached that point.

While higher energy costs are playing havoc with corn, soybeans and alfalfa costs for many dairy farmers, I do not see this as being a problem for our farm any time soon. In fact, I believe there are still some great opportunities to reduce fossil energy dependence. I’m also excited about the possibilities in organic grazing dairies that have not yet been explored.

Ernest Martin milks cows near Shiloh, Ohio.

Don’t feed any.

While he doesn’t recommend that everyone follow his route, Cheyenne hasn’t fed a kernel of grain for nearly six years. And he is making no-grain work under what would seem to be less than ideal circumstances.

For one thing, the northwestern Wisconsin combination of brutally cold winters and late, chilly springs boosts energy requirements in the 55-cow dairy herd well beyond those for cattle in friendlier climes.

The milking cows are overwintered on covered and uncovered bedding packs, while dry cows and heifers are outwintered on pasture with natural shelter. The other thing that would seem to make no-grain tougher here is that Cheyenne is working almost entirely with Holstein genetics. They aren’t the sort of Hol-steins that win shows, and they don’t have the latest hot milking genetics. But mature weights average close to 1,500 lbs.

Seeing is believing: In October the Christianson Holsteins were in very fine flesh. Granted, they were milking 40/lbs./day en route to shipping 11,000 lbs./cow for the year (not counting at least 1,000 lbs. fed to calves).

On the flip side, these Holsteins produced a 4.1% average fat test in 2005, never dropping under 3.91%, and hitting a high of 4.34% on winter rations (calving is April through November). Cell counts usually run at 200,000-300,000. Over the past three years, Cheyenne culled 26 cows, for a 15-20% annual culling rate. And with a $21.76/cwt. milk price (simple monthly average) for 2005, he is making money at this.

By later this year Cheyenne, 34, and his wife, Katy, intend to be debt free – 12 years after purchasing a worn-out, 280-acre farm (250 tillable/grazeable) from the Farm Credit System. Though Cheyenne had grown up on a 25-cow dairy farm, his lack of assets caused some trouble in finding a lender. His father co-signed the initial cattle loan and shared some machinery during the early going.

Since then, the Christiansons’ net worth has grown from $17,000 to more than $1,000,000 with appreciation, or $600,000 without it. After starting with nearly $200,000 in debt – most of it at 10% interest – Cheyenne says the family has paid at least $1,000 per cow in loan principal each year. All debt would be gone by now if the Christiansons had not purchased $230,000 in new equipment over the past three years. And the farm has paid for every dollar of family living for seven children from a gross income that averaged $120,000 in recent years. “But we do live modestly,” Cheyenne notes.

Scoff if you like. Cheyenne and Katy paid only $500/acre for their farm. In hindsight, Cheyenne says that perhaps they could have spent more money on improving the fertility of a farm where some fields had phosphorus readings below 7 ppm, and less on rapid debt reduction.

While Cheyenne thinks that no-grain can work for others, he doesn’t guarantee success for someone with a greater debt load, a non-organic milk market, or management problems that might prevent satisfactory performance. And living this cheaply “does require some sacrifice,” Cheyenne notes.

But the fact of this matter is that no-grain can work with well-managed pastures and organic milk prices.

Like most farmers in their 20s, Cheyenne worked hard during the early years here. But he suffers from narcolepsy, and soon burned out. “For a couple of years, all I wanted to do was sleep,” he relates. “I had to simplify things. I had to learn to pace myself.” In his case, this meant eliminating many tasks that dairy farmers and dairy consultants hold near and dear.

Cheyenne’s great streamlining effort coincided with his transition to organic certification in the late 1990s. (He got on the CROPP/Organic Valley truck in December 1999.) He stopped filling silos, and eventually went to both dry and high-moisture round bales. 1998 was the last year for growing corn, and the cattle ate their last grain (oats) in 2000.

Milk testing went out the door. So did artificial breeding: For the past six years he has been selecting bulls from his own herd.0net income held steady through most of the past six years, and increased sharply last year despite the lower herd average. “And it’s so much simpler not to feed grain,” Cheyenne says.

There are other reasons for this choice. One is Cheyenne’s view that the Bible tells us not to do too much tinkering with natural systems. He is also convinced that someday markets for “grass-fed” milk will be more lucrative than conventional organic. Cheyenne would like CROPP to get more serious about marketing grass-fed products. “Our operation is gearing up for pasture-fed milk, either through CROPP, or by ourselves,” he explains.

Without the grain crutch, Cheyenne has had to focus greater effort on grass management. He has tightened his paddock subdivisions, and now prefers to turn milking cows in on 12- to 15-inch forage. “In the early years I had them grazing short pastures without enough feed, and ended up with acidosis problems,” Cheyenne explains. He feels the taller stands offer more dry matter, energy and fiber. Cow body condition has improved since the shift.

The grazing herd is not required to graze down to proper re-growth levels – Cheyenne is willing to clip where required. He’ll also allow occasional grazing of shorter stands, and judge the quality of the ration more by body condition and manure consistency, and less by the bulk tank stick.

Annual grazing crops such as oats and turnips play the quadruple roles of boosting forage quality, extending grazing seasons, renovating substandard paddocks, and aiding fertility by providing ground on which to apply bedding pack material.

Many of his older stands are dominated by an early maturing orchardgrass variety that the cows don’t like. Cheyenne is in the process of renovating about 15 acres each year to timothy, bromegrass and red clover, along with some alfalfa and perennial ryegrass.

His only tillage tool is a Howard Rotavator. In spring, Cheyenne will tear up sod to plant oats for mid-summer grazing. Cows get 12-hour breaks, and the oats amount to half of their ration over a two- to three-week summer period, with permanent pasture and just a little dry hay making up the rest.

In mid-summer Cheyenne plants other acres to oats and oats/turnips for fall grazing. Oats is grazed in October, providing up to 50% of the total ration through strip grazing. The oats/turnips mix is targeted to November. Usually he’ll plant about 1 to 1.5 bushels of oats and close to 2 lbs. of turnip seed per acre. Turnips survive late into fall, while providing additional protein to complement late-season forages.

Cheyenne has also improved his winter forage program, with much of that improvement tied to the recent major investment in haymaking equipment. “In the end, we make more money by making our own feed with our own machinery, rather than buying,” he asserts.

Lately, Cheyenne has shifted more emphasis to dry bales. “The cows like the baleage, but I like the dry hay because there’s less risk. I noticed some cows limping when I was feeding more baleage, and I was worried about acidosis,” he explains.

Compared to five years ago, Cheyenne feels he now much closer to having the no-grain system figured out. “Forage quality is more even. Milk production doesn’t bounce around as much as it used to, and the cows are in good flesh,” he explains. “We’re not too worried about milk production, because we’re profitable.”

After several years, he feels the herd is largely acclimated to going without grain. Culling is now mainly a product of cell counts, breeding performance and attitude, as even 11,000-lb. producers are profitable in this system.

With the debt gone this year, and with an eye toward getting his children into the business, Cheyenne wants to improve and enlarge on what he has developed. The Christiansons are saving all their heifers. This year, they have tentative plans for installing a New Zealand-style swing parlor in the tie-stall barn. Cheyenne wouldn’t be surprised if he is milking more than 70 cows in the fairly near future.

“We used to think 30 to 40 cows was as big as we wanted to be,” Cheyenne notes. But with an easy system in place, and his children getting older, he says it seems like the time to head into a moderate expansion.

Cheyenne says he may go back to doing some artificial breeding, probably with New Zealand genetics. Another goal is to tighten the calving window to avoid having to harvest as much dairy quality hay. He also wants to concentrate more on soil fertility, perhaps through buying more bedding straw for compost, tilling down crops, or buying additional lime and/or rock phosphate.

“I think we can double our (crop) production,” Cheyenne asserts.

And he thinks he can continue to be profitable while not feeding any grain. Could he make more money if he fed some? “Probably a little, if I grew my own,” Cheyenne responds. If he maintained the 15,000-lb. average he had when feeding cob corn, the organic milk check would likely produce more income. He has the land base to make this work.

“I never tell people to quit feeding grain,” Cheyenne emphasizes. “That has to be an individual decision.”

But growing grain requires labor that Cheyenne doesn’t want to provide. He certainly doesn’t see any profit in buying expensive, organic-certified grain. With their debt gone, and their Holsteins acclimated to the system, the Christiansons feel they are in position to take advantage of future markets for milk made without grain. Says Cheyenne, “I see the future in grass-fed, and I feel I have to move that way.”