Forage Foundations

The picture of the dairy industry is changing fast with new technology, consolidation and volatile global markets. Gary Sipiorski, Vita Plus dairy development manager, said this will have big impacts for custom harvesters too.

For starters, it means the financial clock is ticking, Sipiorski said during his presentation at the Vita Plus Custom Harvester Meeting. He challenged attendees to develop an action plan to beat the clock.

As rural populations decrease, farms and harvesting crews will have to be competitive to attract new employees to their teams.

Workforce demographics are rapidly changing, explained Peter Coyne, Vita Plus dairy service specialist, during his presentation at the recent Vita Plus Custom Harvester Meeting. He said more “help wanted” signs are posted now than 1980 and the unemployment rate continues to decrease. Every day in the U.S., 10,000 people turn 65 and exit the workforce, but the same number of people turn 21 every day. That means 10,000 jobs are in transition between someone with years of experience and someone who is brand new.

Huffman Farms in McGregor, Texas is a little different from other custom harvester operations. Kevin Huffman, owner, and Johan Brink, forage program manager, said they do a significant amount of custom harvesting in addition to harvesting, storing and delivering more than 50,000 tons of corn silage to dairies around central Texas.

Editor’s note: In addition to multiple customer service responsibilities at Vita Plus Gagetown in Gagetown, Michigan, Dwain Ewald takes the lead on maintenance services for customers’ forage inoculant applicators.

By Dwain Ewald, Vita Plus Gagetown customer service
With cold temperatures and piles of snow on the ground, it’s sometimes hard to think about and prepare for the upcoming forage season. However, doing a little maintenance now can save a lot of time when things get rolling in the spring. In this article, I will focus on the maintenance of the DE-1000 and DE-1008.5 forage inoculant applicator units manufactured by Dohrmann Enterprises, Inc. Maintenance steps are similar for both machines.

By Jon Urness, Vita Plus national forage specialist
An American university once received a $250,000 federal grant to study the characteristics of cow manure. The conclusion of its study: manure is slippery. I think they could have saved the money and just asked a dairy producer. I don’t know the specifics of the study, but we sure don’t need a university study to tell us something we have known for decades: things can get slippery on the farm, especially in the winter.

By Richard Mensendike, Vita Plus dairy specialist
In this fourth video of a five-part series, Richard Mensendike, Vita Plus Lanark livestock specialist, walks through the proper steps of sampling upright silos to help you make management and nutrition decisions. We’ll discuss sampling strategies for other storage structures and feed in upcoming editions of Forage Foundations.

By Jenny Kilpatrick, Premier Insurance Solutions, LLC insurance agent
As a crop insurance agent in Wisconsin, each year I talk with producers about which crops they want to insure. Corn, soybeans, wheat, oats and established hay are most frequently mentioned, but producers often forget about their valuable forage seeding crop.