Week 23 (February 18, 2013)

This week the entire class and instructors attended the 2013 MOSES Organic Farming Conference.  MOSES stands for "Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service".  In addition to the M-State Fergus Falls Sustainable Food Production Program students there where an additional 3,300 + other persons in attendance.

Part of one of the exhibit floors which got crowded during the breaks between workshops

One of the cool pieces of equipment on display were these walk behind tractors.

This one had a mower attachment that could be used for cutting hay.

After cutting the hay they had attachments for raking hay and bailing it
into these small round bales.  There is even an attachment for wrapping
the bales to make baleage.

Another cool piece of equipment was this weed flamer.
Used for getting rid of weeds without spraying chemicals.

In addition to the exhibits there were social events in the evenings and an impressive number of workshops one could attend to learn about various aspects of organic and sustainable farming.  Below is a list of all the workshops.  Additional information about the conference and MOSES can be found at their website.
http://www.mosesorganic.org/

2013 MOSES Organic Farming Conference

Keynote Presentations
2013-01 What We Learned Making GMO OMG
2013-03 Why an Organic Food Production System?
Soils & Systems
F1C Expand Your Cover Crop Options
F1M Bringing Biodiversity Back to the Farm
F1S Steiner, Albrecht: Conflict and Commonality
F2P The Basics of Soil Testing
F2T Fallow to Fertile: Converting CRP to Organic
F2A Organic Treatments in Cropping Systems
F2N Introduction to Farm-Scale Permaculture
F3C Biodynamic Agriculture
F3N Composting
S1D Providing Habitat for Predators of Crop Pests
S1T Rolling Rye for Organic No-Till Crops
S2N Farming’s New Future: Climate Change
S2M Unraveling the Mystery of Compost Teas
Field Crops & Small Grains
F1B High Quality Pastures and Forages
F3T Precision Organics: Improved Field Operations
S1C Organic Small Grains—Too Important to Overlook
S2P Weed Control in Organic Field Crops
S3P Flame Weeding Research
S3N Transitioning to Organic Crop Production
Market Farming
F1D Certifying the Organic Orchard
F1T Vegetable Crop Rotations
F1P Weed-Control Equipment for Vegetable Farms
F2Y Alternative Small Fruits
F2B Growing Great Potatoes
F2M Scaling Up: Wholesale Markets
F2Z Innovative Irrigation Ideas
F3R Cash Grain Crops at the Farmers' Market
F3D Identification & Control of Insects
S1N Managing Water & Fertility--Hoophouse
S1P Time & Labor Saving Equipment
S2T Capitalizing the Market Farm: First 5 Yrs
S2S Profitable Diversification for Market Gardeners
S2R Local Foods on the Menu: Chef Panel
S2D Organic Hops Production
S2C Transplant Production Systems
S3S Draft Animal & Human Powered Vegetable Prod.
S3M Growing Seed Crops
S3A Vegetable Crops-Nutrient Density
S3C Organic Sweet Potato Production
Livestock
F1N How to Select & Develop Bovine Genetics
F1R Pastured Meat Chickens
F1A Organic Grain Supplementation for Dairy Cows
F2D Expand with Meat Processing
F2C Maintaining Low Herd Somatic Cell Counts
F3M Making Friends with Honeybee Swarms
F3P Moving Towards a No-Grain Organic Dairy
F3S Nurturing the Next Generation panel
S1Y Integrating Livestock into Veggie Operation
S1M Real Life Experiences: Organic Hog Production
S1R Transitioning to Organic Dairy
S2A Keys to Finishing Beef Cattle on Grass
S3D Living with Parasites
Business
F3Y Local Food Processing & Distribution Hubs
S1A Credit for Start-up or Expanding Farms
S1B Power of Social
S2Y Building Your Team—Building Your Business
S3R Managing Farm Finances
Miscellaneous Workshops
F1Z Messages Matter: How to Talk Organic
F1Z Encore Farming for Women F2S Machinery for Beginning Farmer F2R Organic Research and Promotion Program
F3A Organizing Data for Organic Certification, GAPs
F3B Changing Farm Policy from the Ground Up
S1S ABCs of Organic Certification
S1Z Marketing Contracts & Long-Term Leases
S2Z Funds for Farmers
S2B Tools for Transition panel
S3Y Dialogues with FFA S3Z Beginning Farmer Resources & Coalition Building
S3B The Power of Storytelling S3T Understanding GMO Testing

Week 22 (February 11, 2013)

These are some no-till drills (on display at Pheasant Fest) that work well for planting native grasses when restoring
conservation lands as well as conservation tillage for planting ag. crops and cover crops.
I am trying to find one to rent, that I can pull behind a 4-wheeler.

This week started with a midterm exam in the Grass Based Livestock Class on Thursday.  The test included everything up through last weeks ruminant anatomy lecture.  The week actually started with a study session on Wednesday night at one of our classmates apartment.

After the midterm and our usual potluck lunch the topic was "Grazing Warm Season Natives".  The advantage to having some pasture with warm season natives is that they thrive in the warm hot, dog days of summer.  This gives you an option to deal with the summer slump.  During the summer slump cool season grasses stop growing because of the heat.  One way of encouraging warm season grasses in a pasture is to manage your grazing to suppress cool season grasses and promote warm season grasses.  This is done by grazing the pasture in the spring when the cool season grasses are getting started.  Then pulling stock from the pasture when the warm season grasses begin to emerge.  Then once the warm season grasses reach about 12 to 14 inches tall (for big bluesteam, indian grass and switch grass) you can graze them to a residual height of 6 to 8 inches.  Terminate warm season grass grazing by about August 4 (in the Fergus Falls area) to allow root reserves for replenish.  This time period coincides with summer slump.  Warm season grass grazing can start again after the first killing frost.

We also discussed the concept of using a "Sacrificial Paddock".  This is a designated paddock to have high animal impact for a specific period in order to protect the remaining pasture acreage.  One might use a sacrificial paddock when it is very wet on most other pastures, or during a drought when nothing is growing.  you need the ability to feed stored forages on the sacrificial pasture.  A good area to select is one that needs improvement anyways, and would benefit from increased fertilizer (manure).

The next item covered was a comparison of MIG (Management Intensive Grazing) to High Density (HD) or MOB Grazing.  Although these methods appear similar they have different desired outcomes.  In MIG grazing the goal is to keep forage int he vegetative growth state.  Providing high quality high protein forage for high performance stock like young stock.  The focus of HD grazing is building soil health and thereby improving sward health and diversity.  In general with HD grazing you end up trampling more forage than is eaten.  This trampled forage then adds organic matter to the soil, feeding soil microbes, increasing organics, tilth and moisture holding capacity of the soil which ultimately results in better forage.

The final portion of class was spent watching a video about a guys failed organic dairy farm and the lessons he learned from the experienced.  Those lessons are summarized below.
Lesson #1:  Match business goals to available resources.  (His goal of an organic dairy farm was not really supported by the resources available).
Lesson #2:  Match enterprises to who you are.  (In the end he found out he really was not a cow guy).
Lesson #3:  Do not under estimate workload nor over estimate income (production).
Lesson #4:  Farming is a business.  You need to make a profit most of the time.  (stress that you need to make a profit first then move toward your goals, say of having an organic dairy).

In Sociology of Food and Agriculture Class we started with a quiz on seed identification, as we do every week.  With a new seed added each week. These are the seeds on this weeks list along with my tells that helped me keep them straight.

1. Corn (No. 2 Dent).
2. Wheat (no husk)
3. Rye (no husk)
4. Oats (has husk, bigger, longer and thinner than barley)
5. Barley (smaller, plumper than oats)
6. Wild Rice (you should know this if you are from Minnesota)
7. Alfalfa (small roundish seed, colorful)
8. Flax (flat, small seed, slippery, gold or brown color).

Once the seed quiz was completed the lecture/discussion was on this weeks reading assignment "Chapter 4 - Malnutrition; from Carolan "The Sociology of Food and Agriculture".  The key topics identified for the chapter are:

• Famines are really a reflection of a distribution problem, rather than the result of there being insufficient food int he world.
• Global food insecurity cannot be eradicated simply with more technology, higher yielding varieties and greater use of inputs.  Food insecurity and malnutrition is fundamentally a product of bad policy.  (Here is something to think about, sort of a law of unintended consequences.  When the US and other developed nations send actual food as aid, the sudden flood of cheap / free food can have the result of depressing the price that local farmers can get for their products.  (In developing nations 80% of the population makes their living from agriculture related enterprises)  This ends up putting them out of business.  They then cannot pay taxes, which in-turn pays for government services, and transportation infrastructure for food and business.  This lack of infrastructure reduces the attractiveness of the country for foreign investment, which results in fewer jobs etc...).
• The final key topic talked about the so-called global obesity epidemic being the product of an array of social, environmental and political variables.  (This was also very eye-opening, but you will need to read the book to find out more).

Finally in Farm Marketing and Management Class we got into whole farm planning: "Enterprise Budgets, identifying Industry Trends and Changing Marketing Conditions.  An enterprise budget is an estimate of the costs and returns to produce a product and only those costs and returns specific to that product.  You use the enterprise budget to help evaluate if the enterprise (new business product) makes sense to pursue.  You can also use the budget to track the success of that enterprise, seeing if it is as profitable as estimated, to help you determine if you should continue producing and selling it.  We also covered Image Promotion (branding) and product promotion, how to tailor your message to your customer.  We finished up with work on "Marketing Materials" and what makes for good marketing materials:

• The marketing materials should match your image and customer expectations;
• Marketing materials need to have your contact information on them.  (You need to make sure you respond promptly to any and all inquiries);
• Marketing materials should have a call to action.  (i.e. buy this product now by calling....);
• Marketing materials should be more visual than wordy;
• Marketing materials should be consistent from one promotion to the next.

Finally I finished the week out on Saturday by going to the Pheasants Forever "Pheasant Fest" at the Minneapolis Convention Center with my Son.  There we attended seminars on planting food plots (which cover crops work really well for) and also had an opportunity to look at a lot of different dog breeds.  We are currently in the market for a good hunting dog since our dog Roxy passed away last spring.  Feel free to send me your recommendations.  We like to pheasant hunt, grouse hunt and duck hunt.

Week 21 (February 4, 2013)

I started Week 21 on Tuesday by heading to Paradox Farm by Battle Lake Minnesota.  I know I have a lot of friends from Wisconsin who think they live in God's Country but I tell you what, the area around Battle Lake also has a claim to that title.  The first thing I did when I got to the farm was to head down to the Winter Greenhouse to see how things looked.  Which I would have to say looked pretty good.  There was an abundant supply of salad greens growing which we later enjoyed for lunch.  There were also trays of fodder to be enjoyed by the cows, goats and chickens.

Winter Green House trays of salad greens

New trays of salad greens being started

 Next task was to sample some of the various bales of hay for nutritional content.  The process is a lot like taking soil borings when sampling soils in engineering.

Taking a core sample from a bale of hay to test nutritional content

You mix three representative cores in bag

Then randomly grab a sample to send to the lab. 

After the sampling the hay we cleaned seed for sprouting for fodder and then I had an opportunity to show off my highly overrated barn cleaning skills.  Here I am cleaning out the used bedding from the chicken coop.

Even more fun than shoveling the bedding out of the coop was
driving the skidsteer to spread the bedding out in the pasture.

 Then it was back to the greenhouse to start sprouting some new trays of fodder.

Trays of fodder at various stages of maturity.

The dairy goats really like the fodder as did the cows and chickens

On Wednesday morning I was fortunate enough to be invited to return to the Back 9 Ranch.  There the owner Steve let me tag along while they completed morning chores feeding the 800 plus head of cattle they were raising on the ranch.  The Back 9 Ranch was mentioned in my Week 10 post, when we were doing pregnancy checks with Dr. Prieve.  Wednesday's visit allowed me to observe how their operation works in the winter.  Steve the owner was a wealth of information.  Everything he was doing had a purpose.  The mistake I made with this visit was that I did not bring my notebook with to record the knowledge Steve was imparting on me.  When Dr. Wika reads this post and finds that out it will probably result in a grad deduction.  Observation of your surroundings is a common theme in all of the SFP program classes.  I did however take some photos and video of the morning.  Also, even though my memory is fading in my old age I do remember much of the visit as it was very interesting.

Feeding TMR to feed bunk

Close-up

These cattle are being fattened up in the feedlot for market.  The process is also called finishing.  They are being fed a TMR which stands for Total Mixed Ration.  The truck has a built in scale and mixer, so they can get each component of the feed ration to the exact proportion needed to provide the nutrition needed to finish the cattle for market.  The feed ration consists primarily of beet pulp (which is a byproduct of the sugar beet industry) and distillers grain (which is what is left from corn after making ethanol).

Our next stop was at one of the fields where they were out wintering cattle.  Last year this field was a corn field, that Steve used for crop residue grazing on the corn stocks to extend his grazing season.  Now he has the field divided into two paddocks on which he alternates feeding the feed ration consisting of chopped hay (see video) and a separate area of sugar beet pulp.  They vary the location where the the feed is placed each day in each paddock to better distribute the manure on the field.  Then they also rotate paddocks every other day.  The system is similar to rolling out bales of hay in the winter or bale grazing (although it probably has better manure distribution than bale grazing).  When the truck came to lay out the beet pulp, he drove to the far end of the field and it was hilarious watching the cattle gallop at top speed after the truck.  They really like the sweet taste of the sugar beets.

Feeding ground hay

Feeding sugar beet  pulp

As exciting as the visit to Back 9 was Thursday got even better with yet another bonus free lecture from Dr. Prieve.  This one was on ruminant anatomy, specifically the cows reproductive system.  For this lecture we dissected a cow uterus and also got to learn about and practice artificial insemination referred to as AI).

working on a cow uterus

discovered a calf embryo

AI proved to not be an easy task

We finished up the week with Sociology of Ag., Grass Based Livestock Systems and Farm Marketing and Business.  All of which will have to wait for a future post.

Week 20 (January 28, 2013)

This week started on Wednesday with attending the Study Group Session for our Sociology of Agriculture class.  In the study group we typically discuss the previous weeks assignments and go over the reading questions associated with each reading assignment.  This gives a person an opportunity to compare and discuss answers with other classmates as well as to get/understand answers to questions that a person doesn't understand.

 After the study group we had the opportunity for a bonus lecture by Dr. Prieve on animal reproduction (primarily horses), as we were allowed to sit in on his Equine Class lecture on horse reproduction.  The lecture covered the reproductive anatomy of the brood mare (which was review for the Equine students), reproductive seasonality (various phases of equine reproductive cycle, the physiology behind seasonality) and the main emphasis of the lecture, the Estrous Cycle of the brood mare.  A good understanding of the "estrous cycle" of an animal is very important when breeding animals and especially important if you are using "artificial insemination" (AI) to breed your animals.  You need to know when an animal is in heat and the timing for getting them bred.  In case you're interested M-State Fergus Falls has a first class Equine Science Program in which you can receive a 1-yr diploma or a 2-yr associates degree.  The college partners with the nearby Red Horse Ranch which provides students access to their arena, stables and 225 acres of riding trails and facilities.  www.redhorserancharena.com

On Thursday in our "Grass Based Livestock Class" we continued learning about pasture and forage management, including a discussion on why a rancher might want to use Rotational Grazing (i.e. sward health - improved soil health, animal health - reduced parasite exposure, nutrient cycling, reduced inputs, better forage utilization, lower start-up costs, higher net return, reduced feed costs, lower manure handling costs, aesthetics (people like seeing animals grazing in nice pasture).   Then we discussed some techniques for dealing with the summer slump (think dog days of summer) and season extension to minimize costs associated with and need to feed storage crops.

Source: http://www.ncsu.edu/project/ansci_feeds/gi_tract/images/cow2.gif

The "Grass Based Livestock Class" is every Thursday from 11:00 am until 4:30 or 5:00 pm, so a lot is covered each class period.  Today we also had a lecture on ruminant anatomy,digestion, nutrition and health from Dr. Prieve. This lecture built on our free bonus lecture from Wednesday afternoon.  Yes, all of this is on our February 14, 2013 Midterm Exam.  Everybody always says a cow (or ruminant) has 4-stomachs.  What they actually have are 4-compartments to their stomach.  The reticulum, the rumen, tha omasum and the abomasum, which are laid out as shown in the previous figure.  If you are wondering what those organs actually look like here are some photos from class last fall when we butchered some sheep.

Esophagus

Rumen

Riticulum

Omasum

Abomasum

     

Small intestine

Cecum

Spiral Colon or Large intestine 

 And that was it for Thursday.  On Friday in our Sociology of Agriculture class we started with a quiz on the weeks reading assignment from our textbook "The Sociology of Food and Agriculture" by Michael Carolan. This is an upper division college level book, well written, very well documented and organized.  The class and the book are all about how food and agriculture interrelates with community, individuals, industrial agriculture, big business, small business, politics, the environment, poverty, money and power at the local, regional, state, national and international levels.  We delve into what motivates individuals and corporations to pursue various agriculture related activities and what have been the impacts of those activities (i.e GMO plants, control of the seed market, restrictions on saving seed).  I do not recall ever having one sociology class while going to engineering school.  Needless to say comprehending everything covered in this class has been a stretch and not always a comfortable one.  I do believe in the end that the effort will be worth it as I expect I will have a better understanding of how our whole food system works and what motivates people, corporations and governments to make the decisions they do.  As well as an understanding of the consequences of those decisions, which should help in making better policy decisions.

Fridays finish up with our Farm Marketing and Business Planning Class in which we are currently working on  developing a business and marketing plan for our chosen business enterprise.  However, this post is getting long so the more on this class will have to wait until a future date.

One more item I just remembered that we did this week and that was attending the annual meeting of the Sustainable Farming Association's Central Chapter.  The following is an excerpt from the paper I wrote on my attendance of this conference:

            On Saturday, February 2, 2013, I (along with an estimated 70 other people) attended the 2013 Annual Meeting & Workshops of the Central Chapter of the Sustainable Farming Association (SFA).  The event was hosted by the Sustainable Food Production Program at M-State Fergus Falls and held in the colleges Legacy Hall.  The primary purpose of the event was for the chapter to hold its annual meeting and nominate new board members to replace those whose terms were expiring.  Secondary purposes of the meeting were to provide educational opportunities, networking and opportunities to socialize with other like-minded people.  A third priority was to share a very tasty lunch catered by Pat Crepps of Boyum Farms while being serenaded by music of a new up-and coming group the One Note Revolution.  The caterer and all band members are current students or graduates of the Sustainable Food Production Program.

            The published mission statement of the Sustainable Farming Association is this “The Sustainable Farming Association supports the development and enhancement of sustainable farming systems through farmer-to-farmer networking, innovation, demonstration, and education”.  This event accomplished the SFA mission for those in attendance.  The approximately 70 attendees consisted of a wide range of ages from less than a year old to some well into their 70’s.  There was also a wide range of farming experience and enterprises.  Those enterprises varied from authors, to berry growers, to dairy and beef farmers to honey producers.

            The first educational seminar I attended was the panel discussion on “Farm to Restaurant”.  The panel members included; Mike Stine from Stonebridge Beef; Chef Matt Jensen with Knute-Nelson (a retirement home in Alexandria); Arlene Jones from the Farm on St. Mathias and Sprout Minnesota; and Beth Dooley a noted food author with several published books.  All of the panel members told of their experiences in either purchasing or providing food for restaurants, schools, and retirement homes.  Of these, the one I found most interesting and surprising was that told by Chef Matt.  He first told about purposely purchasing local food for the restaurants he had worked and why?  then he told about his current job with the Knute-Nelson Retirement Home in Alexandria Minnesota.  He talked about how the Home sought him out to implement their idea of creating a menu for residents based almost entirely on locally grown foods for promoting their idea of “Fresh is Best” for foods and their residents.  He also explained how much the residents enjoyed the local foods as it reminded them of how they ate growing up.  Chef Matt finished up with some of their future plans for opening a restaurant on the campus and expanding into delivery of local foods to those receiving in home care.

Week 19 (January 21, 2013)

Week 17 or the second week of the Spring Semester was a very full week.  It started on Monday with my driving to Grand Forks North Dakota for the Red River Basin Commission (RRBC) Annual Meeting and Conference, for work for three days.  Then Thursday morning it was back to Fergus Falls for our class on grass based livestock systems.  This week the lecture was on considerations for a sword , which is a stand of grass forbes, legumes and everything in it (the pasture).  How it grows, what is in it nutritionally, how grazing can be used to either hurt sword health or improve sword health.

Have you ever wondered about how much pasture you need to feed a certain number of cattle (or other ruminant animals) or for that matter how much feed is available in a pasture.  To answer these questions first you have to figure out how much to feed say 10 head of cattle that weigh 1000 lbs each.  The feed requirement or feed ration is determined in lbs of DMI (Dry Matter Intake).  This is the weight of the feed if all the moisture was removed.  For a starting point you can assume the animals need about 3 to 3.5% of their body weight in feed then allow about another 1% for waste.  So a good starting point is to assume 4%.  So if  you have 100 head of cattle at 1000 lbs each your herd weight would be 100,000 lbs.  Herd weight times 4% equals 4,000 lbs of DMI is required a day for the herd (at least as a starting point).  So the typical pasture has about 150 to 300 lbs of dry matter forage per inch of grass eaten per acre of pasture.  To be conservative for this example we will assume 200 lbs-DM/ac-in. If you had an average of 9-inches of grass in your pasture you could allow the cattle to graze it to 4-inches without overgrazing the pasture, meaning you could graze 5-inches.  5-inches * 200 lbs-DM/ac-in equals 1,000 lbs-DM/acre of pasture.  Therefore you would need 4,000 lbs DM/1,000 lbs DM/ac = 4 acres of pasture per day for your herd of 100 cattle weighing 1,000 lbs each.

Friday morning we were on the road at 5:00 am heading to Aberdeen South Dakota for the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Annual Conference.  http://npsas.org/ At the conference the SFP Program was responsible for two children's sessions.  One involved song and dance and the other included planting seeds, seed saving and farm bingo.  I don't know if the kids had fun, but we all head a blast.

In addition to the kids program we had the opportunity to attend several workshops.  One of the ones that I attended and found very informative was "Developing a Vision for Herd Improvement" by Gearld Fry.  Mr. Fry, now in his 80's, has spent his life learning about, researching and developing cattle genetics for beef and dairy cattle that thrive on grass.  It was amazing what he could tell about what a bovine would produce for off-spring and product by simply observing the animal and conducting a few simple measurements (one of which was bull testicle circumference).  Mr. Fry has written a couple books on the subject as well as a website called http://www.bovineengineering.com/ which is very informative.

Another workshop that I went to was "Regenerating our Resources" by Gabe Brown.  Mr. Brown and his son Paul run a 5,000 ac farm/ranch by Bismark, North Dakota where they raise primarily corn, beans and cattle.  Mr Browns talk(per the program) explained the foundation of soil health and its importance in all facets of production agriculture.  It covered growing and finishing cattle on tame, native and cover crop pastures, calving on pasture and winter grazing.  High stock density/mob grazing and rotational grazing were also discussed.  Mr. Brown also went over some of the financial numbers they are obtaining building soil health through cover cropping, which in turn has allowed them to significantly reduce or eliminate most outside inputs like commercial fertilizer and herbicides.  Gabe Brown's son Paul will be speaking in Perham, Minnesota on March 15, 2013 at a workshop on "Cover Crops for Soil Health and Farm Profitability" which is sponsored by the Minnesota Dairy Initiative, NRCS, Sustainable Farming Association and the Sustainable Food Production Program at M-State Fergus Falls.  The program is geared towards producers and seating is limited to 60.  The North Dakota Burleigh County Soil Conservation District website has more information  on building soil health with cover crops and grazing  http://www.bcscd.com/?id=23

Week 18 (January 14, 2013)

Some of the class with Farm Management and Marketing Instructor
Ryan Pesch  at Lida Farms, which Ryan  owns.

We are finally back in school after the long winter break.  My classes consist of the following:

• Grassed Based Livestock Systems - To provide student comprehensive and practical information on designing and implementing grass-based livestock programs.  The following are the desired outcomes of this class:

     1.    Compare and contrast high density grazing with managed intensive grazing systems.

     2.   Outline rotational grazing system components.

     3.   Knowledge of fence systems used in rotational grazing systems.

     4.   Describe pasture management and improvement techniques.

     5.   Knowledge of basic agroforestry applications.

     6.   Knowledge of grazing season extension techniques.

     7.   Describe basic grass-based dairy systems management.

     8.   Describe basic grass-based beef production systems.

     9.   Describe grass-based poultry production.

   10.  Describe grass-based hog production.

   11. Describe basic lamb and goat production.

   12.  Describe a multispecies approach to pasture utilization.

   13.  Describe pasture utilization in a cropping rotation.

   14.  Analyze the affects of continuous grazing.

          15. Explain the ecological implications of a rotational grazing system.

• Farm Marketing and Management - This course is a general introduction to concepts, strategies and technology for farm planning, economic accounting systems, and marketing techniques.  This course focuses on the managerial methods for researching, planning, and launchiing a farm enterprise.  Students will apply these methods to their own farm enterprise or prospects in order to complete a farm business plan.

• Sociology of Agriculture - The central theme of this course is to understand the institutions and processes critical to farm success.  Students will utilize sociological perspectives to study the many aspects of a local food system.  This class also has the added dynamic of combining our somewhat non-traditional SFP students with a group of traditional first and second year students from the Equine Program.  These students are all between 18 and 20 (which is the age of my own children).  From what  I know so far the Equine Program sounds like another very interesting unique program that they have up here in Fergus Falls.  I will try to provide some additional information on it in future blog posts.

• Internship - The central theme or purpose of this course is to plan an agriculture related internship consistent with our future goals in agriculture and then complete the internship.  The internship is required for graduation.

For the second semester blog posts I think I will just give an update of anything out of the ordinary and then pick one of the classes to report on more in depth.  This weeks main post will be on the Grass Based Livestock Systems class.  The following table identifies various classes of livestock and what percent of their diet can be grass/pasture, which is how they were originally designed to function.

         Livestock Class        % Grass

         Cattle *   .....................100%                         * In conventional confinement feeding

         Sheep  .........................100%                            operations these animals are fed a diet 

         Horses ..........................95%                             of almost 100% grain.

         Rabbits ..........................65%

         Turkeys *  ...................  30 - 50%

         Chickens * ....................20 -30%

         Geese ...........................100%

         Goats  ...........................100%

         Hogs *  .........................30 - 50%

Isn't that interesting that we could be feeding these animals grass, which you can grow on marginal lands with minimal adverse impact to the environment, yet we feed them grain (primarily corn) which is harder on the environment. Eventually as the population continues to expand this grain is going to be needed to feed people.

Jersey Calves

Here is some vocabulary building in Dairy Cattle Terminology that might be useful:

Bovine - basically refers to cattle.

Calf - Juvenile bovine up to 1-year old.

Heifer - Juvenile female bovine (until she has her first calf).

Cow - Adult female bovine that has had at least one calf.

Bull - Male bovine, intact (not a steer) (12 to 24 months old before used for breeding).

Steer - Castrated male bovine.

Oxen - Bovines trained to pull.  Typically a steer that is 2 to 3 years old.

Springer - A female dairy bovine that is within 3-months of freshening.  Freshening is when 

                a dairy cow has a calf.

Freshening - Is also the beginning of lactation in a female dairy bovine after having a calf.

Springing - Giving birth to a calf (dairy term).

Calving - Giving birth to a calf (beef term).

Bag - Slang for utter.

Bagging up - Swelling of udder just prior to calving/freshening.

Pastured Pork

As long as we're on a roll we will do a little more vocabulary building by finishing up with some Swine Terminology that you might find useful.

Sow - Adult female swine that has had at least on litter of pigs.

Pigs - Juvenile swine that weighs less than 100-lbs.

Short - Juvenile feeder swine that weighs 100 to 225 lbs.

Feeder Pigs - Typically 25 - 60 lb juvenile swine.

Hogs - Swine over 100-lbs.  (Also any being raised for breeding).

Guilt - Female juvenile swine that hasn't had a litter.

Barrow - Castrated male swine.

Boar - Intact male swine (not a barrow).

Farrowing - When an adult female swine has a litter of pigs.

Finished weight - Is the weight when the hog is ready to go to market (butcher).  Typically 225 - 260 lbs sometimes higher).

Christmas Break (12/18/2012 to 01/16/2013)

Christmas break included time with family, a quick trip to Darlington WI Christmas eve returning Christmas Day to celebrate Christmas with family.  Back to Stillwater for another family Christmas and then one kid was off too Mexico and the other to Colorado.  We were home alone.  School break also meant back into work into the office for work.

My big present was an All-American 921 - 21 Qt. pressure canner.  This bad boy is made with the engineer in mind. As you can see in the picture it is structurally over designed, is able to can 19-pints at one time and even has redundant pressure measurement.  Best of all it is made in the USA in Manitowoc, WI at the Wisconsin Aluminum Foundary.

The All-American in use.  I used the camper stove since it was gas.

13 pints of freshly canned beef and venison.

I did also manage to work in a few sustainable agriculture related items:

On January 7, I went to the North Dakota Grazing Coalitions Winter Grazing Workshop in Bismarck  and the next day attended the Burleigh  Co. Soil Health Workshop also in Bismarck.  Put on by the Burleigh County Soil Conservation District.  This group is on the cutting edge of innovation in building soil health and they are in demand all over the country and world to speak on the subject.  Their website contains a wealth of information, and case studies on how farmers and ranchers are building soil health.  And the farmers are very profitable as they do it.  Several of them have reduced their comercial fertilizer and herbacide applications to practically zero while increasing their yields by over 40%.  This really helps the bottom line.  Paul Brown son of Gabe Brown was one of the speakers.
http://www.bcscd.com

On the way back home I stopped in at Paradox Farms, checked out the winter greenhouse and tried my hand at grinding feed and straw.

The big trays are trays of fodder being sprouted and the narrow
trays are various winter salad greens that have recently been planted

Here is the set-up in the "Reality Greenhouse".  We feasted on the salad
greens for lunch, they were very good.  The greenhouse gets into the 80's
and then a fan turns on to vent some of the heat outside so it doesn't get too hot.

I believe the trays of fodder where wheat and/or rye and field peas.
We fed some to the cows, goats and chickens and they gobbled it up.
The milk from the cows was back to summer quality and I am told
the eggs where also back to summer orange yolks. 

Chopping straw for bedding.  This makes the straw more absorbent.
It also gives you a greater volume of bedding material so a bale goes further. 

Here I am grinding shelled corn with a roller mill.  The mill was
re-purposed from a silo unloader set-up.

Goat Boys checking out the action

This is a Hero seed cleaner.  The video below shows it in action
The cleaned seed comes out on the right..

Thursday and Friday I took in the Minnesota Organics Conference in St. Cloud.  This event is organized by the Minnesota Department of Ag.  There where a lot of very informative workshops from chicken processing rules livestock genetics and field crop weed control, and a great tradeshow floor.  The food and snacks were all organic and very tasty.

On Saturday one of our instructors, myself and another classmate were interviewed on AM950 Food Freedom Radio, regarding the Colleges Plans to mothball the Sustainable Food Production Program at M-State Fergus Falls.  If you are interested in listening to the interview go to the AM950 website and search for the Saturday January 12, Freedom Radio Program podcast.  It takes a little bit of effort to find it.
http://www.am950radio.com