State College, Pennsylvania, will host the annual Pennsylvania Dairy Summit Feb. 12-13 at the Penn Stater. The event has been held in the Lancaster area for several years. Progressive Dairyman caught up with several presenters of the 2014 event and asked them to share sneak peeks of their talks.
Mary Kay Williams
MindShift Consulting
Topic: Negotiating On the Farm and with Suppliers
Why is this topic important?
As business owners, competition seems to grow each and every year. This topic will help dairy producers to reflect upon their dairy business and consider how they can save money through some negotiation strategies.
What do you hope attendees will take away from the presentation?
Some “can do” actions that they can take back and apply to their dairy operations. Not lots of research and talk but some quick tips and techniques that can help them be more assertive in their negotiations to be more profitable.
Rick Herring
Giant Food Stores, LLC
Topic: A Showcase of the Giant Foods Retail Business
Why is this topic important?
We hope the producers and growers gain a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities of the retail sector, just as our people need to understand the challenges that impact the Pennsylvania farming community. We are constantly reinforcing our core values, and being a better neighbor is one of them.
Giant Foods Stores LLC is committed to strengthening the relationships that we and our customers have with the people who sacrifice every day to put food on our tables. We are committed to the PA Preferred program, assuring our customers that they can get the fresh, local products that they are looking for while bolstering the economy of rural communities. Here is an opportunity to come together and better understand how we can help each other.
What do you hope attendees will take away from the presentation?
My hope is that people attending the Pennsylvania Dairy Summit will take away a better understanding of Giant and our store operations in the state, how our core values align with a healthy and prosperous Pennsylvania farm community, and that Giant Foods understands the importance of the dairy industry to the Pennsylvania economy and the Commonwealth’s rural communities.
General sessions will also include presentations from former Penn State Nittany Lion football player Adam Taliaferro and showcases of Star Rock Farms and Scipio Springs Dairy.
BREAKOUT SESSIONS
Randy Shaver
Dairy Science Professor
University of Wisconsin – Madison
Topic: Shredlage and How to Incorporate It Into Your Ration
Why is this topic important?
The proportion of corn silage included in the forage mixture of lactating dairy cow rations continues to increase. Thus, corn silage is a highly important source of energy primarily through digestible starch, digestible fiber and physically effective fiber. Corn shredlage is a relatively new method of harvesting corn that involves new crop processing rolls designed to improve kernel processing while chopping at longer than typical theoretical length of cut.
Research with corn shredlage has shown improved starch digestibility and milk production by dairy cows. Adoption of corn shredlage has progressed rapidly around the country.
What do you hope attendees will take away from the presentation?
A better understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with corn silage kernel processing, the potential for corn shredlage as a forage in dairy cattle diets and tips on how to utilize it in feeding programs.
Mike Van Amburgh
Animal Science Professor
Cornell University
Topic: Nutrition Model Changing: High Forage Diets
Why is this topic important?
With increasing feed costs, we need to make best use of forages and optimize the use of purchased feeds to improve income over purchased feed costs. Further, we need to improve the overall efficiency of the cow through supplying nutrients as effectively as possible to enhance milk and component yield while reducing the environmental impact of milk production.
The best strategy for that is to increase the use of highly digestible forages to allow higher-forage diets to be utilized, which reduces the need for purchased feed, and then provide formulation tools that help the nutritionist make the best decision.
We have been working to improve the accuracy and precision of a nutrition model to provide improved predictions for forage and feed utilization, nitrogen efficiency and amino acid requirements while providing predictions of the environmental impact of the diet for nitrogen, phosphorous, methane and carbon dioxide excretion and production per day and per unit of milk yield.
What do you hope attendees will take away from the presentation?
I hope attendees gain an appreciation for the work being done to help the industry improve nutrient utilization on dairies and how some of these tools can be used to improve both income over feed costs and the environmental impact of the dairy.
Ron Hoover
On-Farm Research Coordinator,
Penn State University
Eric Risser
Dairy Producer
Meadow Vista Farms
Topic: Double & Triple Cropping, Making it Work in Your Region
Why is this topic important?
Discussion of this topic should generate producer interest to think outside the box when planning the dairy farm’s cropping program. By including more crops in the rotation than corn for silage, corn for grain and perennial forage (alfalfa and mixes), farms can:
- Better match several crops to soils that simply aren’t high yielders of corn, or during years of summer drought, making better use of more dependable fall, winter and spring precipitation
- Make use of sunshine to grow a crop in the fall after corn silage harvest or in the spring before the next crop of corn is planted, regardless of soil types
- Both of the above enable farmers to produce more crop from an acre. This can reduce the land cost (owned or rented land) on a per-ton-of-feed-produced basis. With land prices and rental costs rising, reducing the “land costs” for producing feed further improves one’s bottom line.
- It provides a great opportunity to spread manure, freeing winter manure storage space. This can be spread ahead of another growing crop, thereby cycling fertility nutrients (especially nitrogen and phosphorus), keeping them on the farm and out of groundwater supplies, all the while producing additional modest-to-high-quality forages for the herd.
- Farmers can improve their soils by having living crops during more months, reducing erosion potential, adding organic matter and building soil structure that improves no-till success. Improved soil quality results in production benefits for all future crops.
What do you hope attendees will take away from the
presentation?
They should leave with an increased knowledge of cropping options available to them to increase their production of forage, which often can reduce feeding costs, increase the utility of their manure, improve their soil quality and increase the overall environmental and economic sustainability of their dairy operations.
Katy Proudfoot
Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine
Topic: Transition Cow Management Strategies
Why is this topic important?
Everybody is doing something a little bit differently with their transition cows – and some are more successful than others. When transition goes wrong, cows get ill and are unable to fully recover, sometimes affecting their whole lactation. Good transition cow management is essential for overall herd health, productivity and welfare.
What do you hope attendees will take away from the presentation?
I hope that attendees will get some ideas about different management strategies they can use on their farm during transition. There is not a one-size-fits-all solution to transition, so I will be providing some examples of how different strategies might help solve specific problems. I also want attendees to start thinking more about their transition pens from the cow’s perspective – for example, does their maternity pen meet the cows’ needs during calving?
Ray Prock
Dairy Producer
California
Topic: Using Apps & Technology
Why is this topic important?
The use of apps and technology is important because it can add efficiency to a dairy and also eliminate some written and timely paper record-keeping.
What do you hope attendees will take away from the
presentation?
I hope attendees will walk away with an understanding of how to start implementing a change to adding apps and technology to their farm management.
Other breakout sessions planned include University of Wisconsin – Madison’s Dr. David Kammel discussing modernizing dairy facilities and Penn State University’s Dr. Jud Heinrichs discussing heifer management strategies.
EARLY BIRD CASE STUDIES
Heather Weeks
Extension Educator
Penn State University
Virginia Ishler
Nutrition Management Specialist and Dairy Complex Manager
Penn State University
Topic: Cropping Enterprise Cash Flow Planning
Why is this topic important?
The dairy industry has just come off of record-high feed prices, and even though milk prices have been good, the margins have not. Today the market is changing. As corn and soybean prices drop, the quandary becomes: Can I raise enough feed at a cheaper cost than the market price? With drastic changes in the market, the more critical it is that producers know their margins and the costs to produce home-raised feeds to plan for future uncertainty.
What do you hope attendees will take away from the
presentation?
By attending this session, any producer who does not know their margins or the costs to produce their feeds will see the value in monitoring these important numbers on the farm. We will discuss lessons learned from other case farms and teach how to evaluate and expand on these principles, whether it is attending a cash flow workshop held by the Penn State Extension Dairy Team or working with an independent consultant.
Other early bird case studies will include an AgBiz Masters class from AgChoice Farm Credit and a how-to of the Dairy Analyzer Tool from University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. David Galligan. PD
Visit www.padairysummit.org to learn more about the summit and to register.
