Hurtgenlea Holsteins Experimental Alfalfa-corn Intercropping System

Welcome everybody to Farming Matters, the storytelling series where you get to hear directly from innovative farmers and ranchers across the North Central region. Each one has had a SARE grant where they've explored some topic on their farm. Today we're going to hear from Cindy Bartel and Adam Herchin and they're going to talk to us about land use efficiencies on dairies. Um in fact, their dairy. >> [music] >> Um I said they had a SARE grant. SARE stands for Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education. Um and the SARE program happens nationally and each region tries to [music] fuel on-farm research that is going to benefit farmers in their area. Our goal is to advance innovations to the whole of American agriculture. >> [music] >> My name is Liz Brownlee. I work for SARE. I'm also a farmer. Um I'm in Indiana on my family's farm here where I raise livestock. Um Marie is our producer. Marie? >> Welcome to Farming Matters, everyone. >> Where's home for you, Marie? >> I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. >> And how about for our guests? Where are you guys coming from today? >> We're coming to you from Elkhorn, Wisconsin in the southeastern part of the state. Um I'm Adam and this is my partner. >> Cindy. Very nice to meet you and thank you for having us on today. >> So right now um it's a second generation dairy farm. Uh I come from a long history, six generations of dairy farming. Um I returned to the home farm with my parents in 2004. Um we had about 85 total head on the farm milking between 35 and 40. Um today those numbers are approaching 300 of registered Holstein dairy cattle and we're milking 130 uh in two DeLaval V300 robotic milking units. Uh we're a big strong supporter and we've been with the Rolling Hills Dairy Cooperative um for about 5 years now and I've been really happy with um how they work and how their outreach works. Um, most of our goals uh at Hurston Lee are going to revolve around creating the quality milk from quality cows and the items that we use to do this is always going to be revolving around um individual cow care and calf care. And with that we're using uh monitoring system, an internal bolus on our breeding age heifers and above. And that's giving us real-time information to catch any sicknesses before they even start. And then we can always optimize their efficiencies and production and and repro. So, uh the most important part that we're going to get to is our farm, unlike many, is land limited. And so, where we came with the our idea with um Sarah was to create more forage on the same amount of land base. And so, this is an innovative forage plan that we put together. And Sarah was a huge part of making that happen. Um, we do monitor and raise all of our calves and heifers on site. And and uh and an exciting note, we were chosen one of four farms uh to present a virtual farm tour um in 2025 at World Dairy Expo. That was really cool. As as I alluded to, um more cows than our land base will support for feed production. Uh with that we are creating more manure than we can actually handle Uh um properly. And because of the slope of our land and the waterways that uh, surround us, um, these are the main challenges that we did set out to solve with this program and the grant that we applied for was to create more feed, limit runoff, and also protect our waterways. >> So, as Adam mentioned, these struggles might not be unique for farms. These are struggles that a lot of farms uh, have to reconcile, but the practices that are implemented to address these issues do need to be need-based and site-specific because every farm is unique. So, as Adam mentioned, there's a nutrient management plan in place, reduction of tillage where possible, and that ranges from continuous living cover or living roots year-round. So, alfalfa on hillsides or on highly erodible land where we don't have tillage to some tillage, say, in a corn system with a winter rye for forage production, which Adam has mentioned or or noted has increased forage production at about 30% on these farms. So, there's a demonstrable return on investment. It's really critical for forage procurement. As Adam also mentioned, we received a SARE grant for silage corn alfalfa trial for a perennial ground cover or as a type of perennial ground cover. It's really about identifying where these systems can increase return on investment. And we were glad also to participate with your farm, your footprint through the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin and sponsored by Nestlé to determine our carbon intensity score, which we also believe a silage corn alfalfa trial would greatly benefit, um, as well. >> And in this uh, the alfalfa corn silage trial, um, farmer-driven, uh, the an idea that just gets um kicked around. Uh it started with my dad mentioning, you know, well, what if and how about this? And it turned into an idea of solving our main challenges. I mean, it's kind of really beautiful when farmers can get together and they might kick a can around and and they find out that, hey, let's give this a try. And to have Sarah be a big part of like making it happen um was really a true blessing for us. >> It really indemnified the crop. In addition to paying for the cost of production on those acres, it really provided a form of indemnification. When farmers try new things, those new things are not considered best management practices with crop insurance. So, those acres are ineligible for crop insurance coverage. The Sarah program really fills that gap in a critical way, so farmers can improve nutrient uh management and natural resource stewardship. So, the goals for the project was to get multiple alfalfa cuts around a corn silage harvest. So, spring alfalfa cut, the corn silage harvest, and then a fall alfalfa cut. The idea was to increase the nitrogen uptake, which we know can happen when you have multiple crops, intercropping, etc. And also limit runoff to be good stewards. Increasing forage production, total forage production, we tested five systems and strips. So, 30-in corn, 60-in corn, 30-in corn and alfalfa, 60-in corn and alfalfa, and then alfalfa alone. So, we had those five different strips. They were about 600 ft long, about 20 ft wide to accommodate eight corn rows, which was our it happened to be our Kemper head chopper. Um so, the equipment really determined the design layout. We're also really looking into costs and prioritizing return on investment. Um that's going to be um this something that we're still analyzing as we're getting our feed samples back. And then we took a lot of crop physiology um data and metrics, and we're working with Iowa State University on a a publication from this to see how the system performed over 2 years. So, the steps in this particular system is that first we seed the alfalfa as close to corn seeding as possible. So, year one one is really about getting the alfalfa in the ground and established. We do take a corn silage harvest in the fall during the first year possibly with a fall alfalfa cut. It really depends on the weather. It was interesting in the first year the alfalfa didn't look super robust at the time that we harvested the corn, but it came back uh really beautifully, and you were unable to visually detect the differences between the alfalfa in the 30-in corn, 60-in corn, and alfalfa only. So, we were really surprised and heartened that it recovered so substantially after corn silage harvest. We did not take a fall cutting in the first year because of what we expect from the system in the second year. In the second year, uh we want to take our spring alfalfa cut, then we apply our manure, we have strip tillage for manure incorporation, and then alfalfa suppression. That's still a area that we're developing. The alfalfa suppression to knock back the alfalfa just a bit so it plays well in the sandbox with the corn is followed by corn planting, corn harvest, and then again possibly the fall alfalfa cut. This is also what the system looked like on July 30th at about the time of corn ear silk, and you can see some of those silks poke through in this photo. We developed early on a list of collaborators because of the system complexity, because you do want two different crops to play well together. Um and so we're really grateful to this list of collaborators who brought their expertise and resources uh as well as the farmers who dedicated their time and their equipment so that we would have things like a strip-till bar or a neighbor who mowed and cut the alfalfa um to make the system work. Also, if farmers are interested this project, this corn silage alfalfa trial, is part of a broader initiative called perennial ground cover or regen PGC through Iowa State University. It's at regenpgc.org. There's over 50 different university, industry, and farmer collaborators trying to make perennial ground covers work um for continuous living cover. And our goal is to merge soil and water conservation with high-yield row crop production under which this SARE project or or or with which this SARE project is related. So what happened after we established the alfalfa in the first year? And this would be 2024. We had a very slight difference in yield corn yield between the corn in the 30-in corn and alfalfa and the corn in the 30-in corn control. And in fact, when we run this through our statistical analysis, it tells us that the differences in yield between these two systems might be just attributed to chance. They're so similar. So it's really encouraging that in that first year you can establish alfalfa after corn planting without a huge knock on corn silage yield. We estab- or planted the alfalfa about 6 days after corn planting. Typically, you might want to go in a little sooner. We had rains, as anybody will remember in 2024, that really made field operations challenging. So, we got in to plant the alfalfa as soon as possible. >> So, what you're saying is um our chopper that is going through four rows, this is 60-in corn. Um so, typically an eight-row uh head chopper, and we have a particular field mark in this field that we're measuring to. And so, that chopper is filling a scale in a TMR wagon that we're then taking another sample from. We're generating the dry matter on a square footage basis to then extrapolate our tons per acre. Um the actual distance is quite significant. It's not a small sample um by any measure. So, we hope to be doing the best uh getting the best data uh to then make our best decisions going forward. Um I guess the quality of your data is always going to generate your quality of the decisions that we can do with it. Um so, here, our neighbors, they're a custom outfit as well for us, um and their equipment is um helping us achieve the final uh part of this trial in uh the field operation. >> So, we're still waiting for or we're still working on uh getting total yield from the second year, from 2025, including the balage that was made or the dry hay that was made during the year, so that we can figure out exactly how much the system yielded. What we do know from back-of-the-envelope calculations is that the corn silage and alfalfa system either yielded similarly or even potentially greater than the corn only system. We did over suppress in the first ex- in the second system year. So, we wanted to um make sure that the alfalfa played well with the corn silage. We may have been You only kill alfalfa when you don't mean to. So, we did set the alfalfa back a bit. So, it's something that we're going to be looking at this year in particular to see what might work. So, what does that mean for next steps for this trial? We know that every single farm one day is going to be land challenged and we're going to be asked to do more with less. That really ties into what Adam brought up at the beginning with land use efficiency. We know that with the system the soil stays in place. That means more nutrients per acre and it also means the application of more nutrients per acre, more retained and more potential application. We're going to be penciling out the return on investment both with the additional forage produced and for nitrogen as well as continuing the most productive treatments into a third year. Because of the SARE grant, we know which treatments we can continue that can economically or financially support themselves. So, SARE really allowed us or functioned as a a springboard for those systems standing on their own and specifically the 30-in corn and alfalfa, which seems to be potentially our most profitable system. So, we'll be testing methods for spring suppression on alfalfa this next year. >> Can I ask a couple of detailed and detailed questions about what you did? But I'm not a dairy farmer. I'm a livestock farmer, but not you know, not dairy. So, forgive the naivete here. >> No. >> You said that you're testing out some different alfalfa suppression ideas. What have you tried so far and and what are you going to try next do you think? >> What we tried this year was a combination of mechanical mowing because taking that spring harvest is a type of mechanical suppression with getting that biomass off the field. Then followed by strip tillage and a neighbor who has a strip till bar and a GPS system was able to dial that in to a fraction of an inch. And so then our planter came through. Um we rigged the planter so that we it it matched those row configurations. And so we did have the alfalfa harvest with with what we would consider mechanical suppression, the strip tillage, and then we did try a form of 2 4-D that is less aggressive than other forms of 2 4-D, but it happened to be a still a bit of a heavy We thought that it was a >> It was lightweight. >> Yes. >> [laughter] >> We were cautious. >> We were very cautious, and it happened that we sprayed on probably one of the most perfect days you could spray suppression, right? You're working with these really uh windy and rainy days, and so you spray when you can spray, and um it was the the perfect day to get the greatest herbicide response. >> Mhm. >> And so it was a really good learning lesson that maybe even we have to dial it back on a day that looks particularly promising for weed control. And so this next year going forward we're going to tinker with suppression rate and see of a 2 4-D, and then also see what else might be available. >> Mhm. Nice. Um let's see. Did you guys have a a hunch about whether the 30-in corn or the 60-in corn would be the better you know, the more productive solution when combined with alfalfa? >> I think I think um I did not have a hunch. Uh my I if I had common sense would have told me 30 30-in corn with and 30-in, you know, corn and alfalfa were going to do well. But I didn't want to have any bias like leak into when you're taking measurements in the field or you're doing stand counts and you're what you're looking at what germination was. So, like there just I turned my brain off and when we were taking the measurements so that it was just pure these are numbers. It's this is how tall it is or this is the number of in the row and then like I think hindsight or just in the back of my brain and I thought you know a 30-in would do well. 60-in has a lot more sunlight availability but those seeds are actually they're packed in there. Like they're just every like 2 and 1/2 in they're so that's a really heavy seeding rate where the competition of the seed itself is is the only thing that slows it down. It turns the stalk into a little more of a um it doesn't have as much thickness as where it grows taller faster um because of the competition of its next door neighbor. Um for those reasons I think 30-in corn was going to end up doing better but you never knew what the sunlight availability on a something like at a 60-in uh you know, maybe a 40-in would be you know, perfect but who's who's building that planter? >> Exactly, right. Yeah. >> [laughter] >> And to your point with the 60 and the 30-in rows, the 30-in corn you might think would yield better with the corn because we know what happens with 60-in corn but the thing that was really surprising this past spring with the alfalfa is that the 30-in corn stalks which by then were uh eroded enough that they were easily maneuvered with the with the mower >> Mhm. >> actually supported the alfalfa in standing vertically straight when we had bad winds that swept through both alfalfa only in the 60-in corn and alfalfa strips. That was very surprising because our back of the envelope calculations show that for the spring cut in a 30-in corn and alfalfa that alfalfa is at least competitive if not greater than the alfalfa in the 60-in corn and alfalfa. That was very surprising. >> Uh you all live in Southeast Wisconsin, you know, America's dairy land. Um I'm wondering what kind of um feedback or questions you've been getting from other dairy farmers where you live? >> They are interested. They are very interested. >> There is a There is quite a bit of interest on a field day. I mean, people that These are like legitimate like, "Hey, how did it work? We might want to do something similar." You know, they they want to stay um clued in on what the future of the system might hold and then how might they want to adapt it differently on their farm. Um it's interesting like it also inspired a neighbor of ours to do his own and it was just a corn trial. It was a like conventional corn with and he fertilized it with, you know, maybe just some cow manure and then he had his own little trial of like a different hybrid of corn and that was like more conventional fertilizer. So, I think we may have inspired other ingenuity and and trials within the area just because and we he was a collaborator with us as well. And so, he ended up doing a 2-acre trial of it on his own and he did his numbers and you know, I'm waiting to hear back from him, too. So, um I think it's always um farmers supporting farmers and then also trying to find uh, something new and be innovative if you can. >> One of the reasons why we decided to investigate this and Adam was very enthusiastic about applying for the grant is that you do have dairy farms with limited land base with, um, a herd size minimum herd size to be profitable for their family. So, having a system that will allow for more nutrient uptake which means more application closer to the farm. We know that manure is really expensive. It's too much of a good thing. It's really expensive to transport. There's a lot of, um, you know, liquid, uh, to nutrient, uh, ratio. It's a it's that that ratio makes it very difficult and costly to transport off farm. So, being able to apply more nutrients closer to the farm would be a huge benefit and cost savings for farmers in addition to the forage production. So, I see that affecting the landscape of Wisconsin. We also this is a system that might work really well on maybe potentially larger acres, but also if for that land base around the farm that producers are manage or applying nutrients. So, it can be a targeted implementation with this system depending again on each each farm's specific needs. >> Mhm. >> If if this trial, um, and this forage program finds success or what what what somebody wants to deem success where you're getting then the extra cuttings of alfalfa with the corn silage um, most dairy farmers are heavily reliant on corn silage in their diets for milking cows, um, you know, finding heifer forages. So, even if the alfalfa isn't, let's say, premium, it might be fewer tons needed um, purchased for for other diets on the dairy. Um and no matter the size, if it's, you know, 1,000 cows, 5,000, 10,000, I think it's scalable to the point where um every farm can be that much more efficient with those acres. So, acres that you might normally have chopped for either your heifer forage diet or for your milk cows might turn into grain that you can send to the elevator and actually cash in and and take so you can sell some of those acres because you're raising forage, you know, more feed and more forage on less. And I think that's where the beauty can be for small farms and it could be very very eligible to larger dairies to implement that as well if it fits their forage needs or their feed program. >> What a great partnership that you guys brought. Have you guys worked together on projects in the past? >> It's an interesting question cuz there have been different pieces and we do discuss a lot of our research, my research or your management. Those are daily conversations. So, this just sort of organically came up. >> Yeah, natural naturally um and then it's the troubleshooting of how or what if I those are the best questions is um always asking, you know, I had enough other farms that like it raised eyebrows, heads turned when they drive by. What are you doing? You know, why can't you just do, you know, standard alfalfa or standard silage corn. And I'm like, but we need to try something. And I think that's the beauty of most most dairy farmers that are like they're always tinkering with an application of something or a timing of something. And this is just tinkering with the possibility. And if it really does work and what we've seen, we figure out this last piece, small farm like ours, we're looking at saving, you know, 20, 30 thousand dollars in purchased feed cost. So like it's not um insignificant if we can actually generate that forage from the acres that we have. So um seeing that optimal return for a a process that turns heads and raises eyebrows, like I'm not going to care that that's what they they can do they do. I I just found an and I think we have a passion and a growth mindset for trying something new. And you're all we should always aspire to to learning more. And I think that's all it came down to was a natural feeling of trying to learn something and we had five and a half acres willing to see what if and you know, what might happen. >> That's beautifully said. Um it's so easy, at least on my farm, it's so easy to just put my head down and just you know, get through today, get through the chores list or the to-do list and forget to look up and put my head on a swivel and and think, you know, could this be better? Could this be stronger? Could this be easier? Um or cheaper, right? Um [clears throat] >> You raise You raise a critical question, especially right now with commodity prices. It is very challenging and a lot of farmers are looking to make it through. >> Mhm. >> And so the SARE grant really allowed us to evaluate and to continue to evaluate a system that actually that might pose return investment through farmer driven research. So, I think exactly what you just depicted and very well said is what this system is trying to address. [music]