Bad Axe Watershed Stewards host pasture walk

GENOA, Wis. — For Travis Klinkner and the Bad Axe Watershed Stewards, the element of community is exactly what they wanted to capitalize on June 30 at the Klinkner Farm.

Klinkner, who has worked with the organization since its inception four years ago, hosted a pasture walk at his farm near Genoa, sponsored by Valley Stewardship Network. As part of the Pasture with a Purpose farmer panel, Klinkner and fellow dairy farmer, Al Seelow, and beef farmer, Kent McClurg, provided insight into their operations.

“We wanted … to show different strategies of getting their herds out on pasture,” Klinkner said. “What works for some people doesn’t work for everyone, so it’s important to get different opinions and voices from all over. Our panel is from this area, but our ideas can vary. It’s important to have that available so other people can learn more and be better prepared.”

After working off the farm for a few years, Klinkner knew he wanted to get back in the barn. He purchased his father-in-law’s farm in 2015 and used what he learned from his off-farm job to make changes to his new herd.

He uses 65 acres of what was some of the top cropland at the farm as pasture for his herd of 60 Holstein cows. Klinkner milks in a tiestall barn.

“When working with BioAg, I went on pasture walks,” Klinkner said. “I knew when I got back on the farm how I wanted to run my own pastures.”

As soon as the sale went through, Klinkner started to put his own spin on his father-in-law’s certified organic dairy farm.

“We wanted to stay organic, and I had a plan,” Klinkner said. “The first thing I did was change the pastures. I wanted to move to more rotational grazing. … As a grazer, I want to treat pasture as a crop.”

Klinkner shifted the fields closest to the barns into pastureland.

“If I want my cows to perform better, I need to make that as easy as possible,” Klinkner said. “If I want the cow to give more milk, but I want her to put on an extra three miles a day to do it, she’s not going to produce.”

Klinkner said bringing the pastures in closer is about cow comfort and ease for the herd. Adding water to the pastures was another reason to keep the pastures close to the barn.

“Every pasture has two water sites,” Klinkner said. “We used to have no sites, and when one cow would come home to drink, all the cows would come thinking it was time to come home.”

To keep the herd in the pasture longer, Klinkner engineered a portable water rig he could transport to each paddock to have water readily available.

For his milking herd, Klinkner has four paddocks he rotates on a 28- to 34-day cycle. He gives his cows between a quarter acre and a half acre of fresh pasture each night. He uses a similar plan with his heifers, while supplementing them with a total mixed ration.

In the barn, he also has TMR in addition to salt and mineral blocks for complete nutrition.

“We saw a big change just that first year,” Klinkner said. “With intense rotational grazing, we helped the cows gain 100 tons of dry matter in just one summer.”

To make this possible, Klinkner prepared paddocks with multiple grasses and legumes.

“The more diversity, the better,” Klinkner said. “Different grasses perform better during different times of the year. The more diversity you have, you’re ensuring that you’re going to have a grass more sporadically doing well throughout the year.”

Another change he implemented on his farm was working with the Vernon County Natural Resources Conservation Service office and the Savannah Institute to create a silvopasture. For his heifers, he planted 500 trees on Earth Day two years ago.

“At first I didn’t want any trees in our pasture, but that changed when I noticed heat becoming an issue during the summer,” Klinkner said. “I wanted to make sure that our cattle would have more shade in the upcoming years. They’re more likely to stay out in the pasture if they are comfortable.”

The trees were planted across several acres. Working with the Vernon County NRCS office, Klinkner and a team of volunteers planted honey locusts, hybrid poplars and some black walnut trees in the heifer pasture. Honey locust and hybrid poplars handle the nitrogen of a pasture, and black walnut adds additional value if the pasture were to be used for timber production.

Part of what drives Klinkner to continue to share ideas and collaborate with his neighbors is his passion for conservation. Alongside Kevin Parr, the two established the Bad Axe Watershed Stewards and immediately saw interest in their community.

“Kevin held an event at his place to see who might be interested in a group like this,” Klinkner said. “We had 15 people show up to that first meeting, and those 15 have continued to come back. We’re all way more passionate now than we were even then. It wasn’t so much about sharing what we know as much as it is learning what we can do better.”

The attitude of learning from each other to help improve their community and their own practices has helped drive Bad Axe Watershed Stewards to continue its work, while also inviting others to hear ideas.

“We’re inviting anyone else who wants to learn and be a resource to them,” Klinkner said.

They are hoping to help others avoid shortcomings, he said.

The growth mindset exemplified by Bad Axe Watershed Stewards was displayed during the farmer panel.

“I learned today there was a better way I could have put in my waterlines,” Klinkner said. “There are little things like that that we continue to learn from each other by just collaborating and talking through different ideas.”