Mother Nature is still the boss

Fall is the busiest time of the year for dairy farmers. We have spent our time in the last six months planning, planting, fertilizing, nurturing and preparing for harvest. Yes, we harvest alfalfa in the summer, but when September comes, it’s time to get all the other crops stored before winter weather arrives.

What is first to do? Every farmer has learned what works best for them. We do not cut our alfalfa in September, because a University of Wisconsin researcher once told me that whatever alfalfa I harvested in September, I would lose the next spring. We tried cutting hay in September and October during Indian summer weather, but if we were keeping those fields for another year, we realized he was right. 

Most years, corn silage harvest is on the agenda during early September, but Mother Nature has her way of determining the chopping starting date. If we can get our corn planted before May 10, then silage harvest usually begins around September 10. This year was odd, because the corn plants stayed green, but the ears dried quickly. Our tonnage was higher than normal due to timely summer rains. The dryness contributed to no leachate runoff this year.

Our next job is cover crop planting. We actually plant a day or two behind the chopper. Our goal is to plant rye or winter wheat and then cover it with liquid manure, because the drill creates small furrows on our hillsides and helps prevent any runoff. The cover crops sprout quicker when followed by a manure application. However, this year, we experienced a 3-inch rainfall in the middle of corn silage harvest. That delayed applying manure, and the cover crops sprouted immediately; Mother Nature changed our plans. We don’t like to apply manure to young cover crops, so we quit planting until a couple of days before the custom manure applicators arrived. They use a frac tank and pump to apply manure to our fields — no heavy trucks or tankers driving on the fields, which lessens compaction. They also use a low disturbance tool bar that only goes in the ground about an inch, so it doesn’t disturb the soil or rocks very much. Even with the cover crop planted, it doesn’t reduce germination.

We have been planting cover crops for over 15 years. We started through a Farm Service Agency program that got farmers to try cover crops. We tried planting turnips and radishes, but we didn’t have enough warm weather for them to grow before the first killing frost came. Now, rye is our primary cover crop. Winter wheat is used on fields that will be seeded to alfalfa next year. This lessens the allelopathic effect of the rye, which prevents small seeds, like alfalfa and weeds, from germinating if rye is growing. Both cover crops take up the nitrogen from fall applications, so it doesn’t get wasted by volatilizing into the atmosphere or seeping into the water table. The root mass from rye and wheat provides great erosion control in our hills on the many contour strips we have. This year, most fields we chopped were turning green within 10 days; a little rain and warm temperatures provided instant growth. These green crops also provide wildlife with winter feed that is better than shrubs. Deer will chew rye to the ground, but it keeps growing and rebounds in the spring. The cover crops can be used for feeding heifers and cows in the spring as well.

Our next crop to harvest is high moisture corn. We like to shell our corn at 27-32%moisture, because it grinds nicely and packs well in a bunker. An inoculant is applied to help the fermentation process. HMC saves us from trucking corn to a grain plant to dry along with the storage costs until the corn is needed. Since we prefer to chop the whole plant, we do not raise enough corn for all our needs. However, the HMC removes corn from steeper fields, so we can apply manure on them in the fall.

This year, though, Mother Nature created hot, dry and windy conditions when we started shelling. Our trusty 20-year-old, six-row Gleaner combine could not keep up to the drying conditions of Mother Nature. We had a 12-row combine hired to help, but on the first day, his engine developed injector problems and, as far as we know, is not repaired yet. Our corn dried rapidly to the point where our hammer mill can’t grind the kernels fine enough to make them available to the cows’ rumen bacteria. So now, we wait for the remaining corn to dry to 19%and a trip to the grain plant. It will then be stored,ground to 400 microns and hauled back to the farm when needed — an expense we would rather not have.

With the upcoming killing frost, a last harvest may happen. As the leaves fall off the trees, our hunters will pursue the elusive big buck. I even purchased a new crossbow to challenge the young guys in the woods. Mother Nature will probably determine if that big buck lives another year.