El Reno

On Wednesday I headed to the ARS at El Reno to have a look at some of the research they are doing on integrated farming systems. So far out of all the places I have visited, this climate in Texas/Oklahoma is as close to home as I have come.

Oklahoma grazes a lot of their wheat to background cattle before going into the feedlot. They still have gaps in their feed production and are looking for alternative forages to fill the holes. Currently they are doing some work with forage sorghum, showing some good potential. One thing I could not get my head around though was they claim to be limited for moisture on a 30-40 inch rainfall?

Noble Foundation

I spent Monday and Tuesday at the Noble Foundation in Ardmore, Oklahoma. As far as research goes I have never seen anything like this in the world. Basically they service farmers in a 100 mile radius, supporting them in everything from production to economics, all for free. A wealthy oil baron, Mr Noble could notice the land degrading over time as he flew to his various oil fields in Oklahoma. so he started a trust, that virtually started out as soil testing. They now consult on most aspects of agriculture, are plant breeders and are at the cutting edge of research and extension. Most of this is backed by a share fund worth over $1 billion, depending on the day of the week. Their hospitality was amazing. I recommend a visit if you get the chance.

They have a large forage program at Noble. This is some forage soya beans, something that I will be looking further into.

Minnesota State Fair

On Saturday I had the privlidge of attending the Minnesota State Fair. The State Fair is the equivalent to our Melbourne Show or Royal Sydney Easter Show. Not a lot of agriculture there but I was encouraged to see how many people were in jammed into the various animal pavilions. They had pigs, sheep, cattle, horses and chickens. Live births of lambs and piglets were extremely popular amongst the crowds.

Not sure how they calculate these sort of numbers but it is probably somewhere in the ballpark. At least they are creating some sort of awareness to the general public. Throughout my travels all over the world I have seen the need to bridge the gap from people in the city to us farmers the worlds population food and beverage providers.

This one I am not so sure about? The beef figure I think could be higher. Might as well take lamb off the list, it is just not part of the diet here. Poultry and Pork -probably ok. Same with fish. The fruit and vegetables not so sure. Of the veges, if you could further break this down - spuds, corn

and beans would be a huge %. Lettuce would also be a huge amount. Salad over here consists primarily of lettuce with a small cherry tomato if you are lucky and cabbage - nice.

It was worth going just for the food. If you can deep fry it, cover it with cheese or put it on a stick then you will find it here. People LINING UP at the beer tent at 9am also made me chuckle.

Funnily this stand was pretty popular amongst the various food samplers. Some of them looked like they had a fair amount of food sampling experience too. I gave it a wide berth though.

This dude must share my thoughts on the whole thing.

I did try one of these though - not bad either!

Back to Iowa

I dropped Alastair off in Omaha on Thursday and headed back to Iowa. I went to Iowa State University to catch up on some of the research they are doing there on integrated farming systems. 25 000 students had justed started back after the summer break. The place was buzzing. A little bit different to my uni days at Dookie Ag College.

I was also lucky enough to get a personal tour of an ethanol plant. After looking at corn for the last week I thought that I had better go see what it is all used for. I just drove in and asked if

someone could show me around. Thinking I already knew the answer, surprisingly they said yes. So I spent the next hour on my own guided tour through the plant. This was a plant a group of farmers built as a co-operative. The furtherest supplier is only 30 miles away. Some of the farmers also buy back the by-products such as DDGs - dried distillers grain and corn syrup for their feedlot rations. One thing to remember - 1t of corn produces 33% ethanol, 33% DDGs and 33% carbon dioxide. The CO2 can also be sold to companies like Coke-a Cola for use in the food chain

As I drove back towards Minnesota I spotted this machine. 'Curiosity killed the cat' they say so I went and had a chat to them. Turns out this was a proto-type attachment to collect corn stovers after harvesting for energy production or whatever else you want to use them for. Good idea I reckon. I got to see it working (@40% moisture) and it did a good job.

The farmer was one of the most interesting blokes I have met on my travels. Turns out he was also part of the brains that started the enthanol plant I had justed visited. Bill Couser, Couser Cattle Company have a 4000 head feedlot, grow seed corn and soya beans as well as commercial crops. They also have the contract to harvest all the seed crops for either Pioneer or Monsanto (I can't remember I was that overwhelmed). And they obviously do some testing for John Deere as well. A very impressive business that I would love to one day go back and spend some more time with.

Rising City

We visited Bart Ruth on Wednesday afternoon to look at farming in his local area. We had met Bart earlier in the year in Washington at the Contemporary Scholars Conference. Bart grows corn and soya beans, a lot which is irrigated with effluent from a local dairy.

The dairy is about 5000 cows in two locations, all barn style, milked 3 times a day, 24 hours a day job. A few people, especially some of the locals, are skeptical of these types of systems however they do have their benefits. They create employment and wealth in local communities. It provides opportunities for local farmers to diversify into growing feed and fodder - lots of mouths to feed remember. Opportunities for relationships such as the deal Bart has with regard to effluent management also exist. Part of me does feel cows should be outdoors, however this is a controlled environment and I can see some benefits to it.

They had just started chopping maize silage for the dairy. The dairy employees 6 different teams of contractors from as far away as Montana and Kansas and some local crews as well. Once again, job creation.

CNH

On Wednesday morning we visited the Case/New Holland header manufacturing plant in Grand Island. They make 23 headers a day or about 5000 a year. 85% of which are Case, as NH has other factories in Belgium and Poland.

They also make 400 bale wagons a year - amazing I didn't think they still made these things. Who buys them and how the hell do they afford them? I don't think they have changed the cabs on them since the 70s either.

Windrowers and sickle bar fronts are also produced here. They were great hosts, giving the two of us a personal tour. We were encouraged to talk to the employees and got to do the final

test on one of the machines. Not many of these joints let you take photos either.

We drove around the yard to see the finished product. I reckon that there would have been over 200 red ones and 6 New Hollands (I think that they had sold them all!). Do you think they would notice if one went missing? Lets call it product testing maybe?

Nebraska

On our way back down to Nebraska we visited another farm that was into growing cover crops using no-till systems. Brothers Marlyn and Patrick Richter run a very diverse business of dairy, feedlot, cows and calves, agistment, some pigs, cropping and contracting. Now they grow cover crops whenever they can with up to 11 species in a mix. They are measuring production, soil health, moisture use and overall economic benefit of the system, which answered a lot of questions for me. Lots of people are advocating it be these guys were the first to put some numbers to it.

See the compaction layer in the soil and that is still after 8 years of no-till.

On our way we spotted this lonely bloke on the side of the road, so we picked him up. Turns out he was an organic farmer from Germany that milked 80 cows and grew organic crops. He was also able to give us a run down on using cover crops in their system. What are the chances? You spend 3 days talking about cover crops, pick up a bloke off the side of the road and

1. He is a farmer.
2. He grows cover crops.

Dont know what else he was into but when he threw his bag in the back I thought the tyres were going to pop. Talk about heavy.

We also saw some different crops apart from corn and soya beans. Sunflowers were sighted occasionally along with the odd crop of wheat.