Brighter Future for Dairy on Growers

Allen Rhodes and his son's father-in-law, Lowell Grove, met me at the door of Allen's house near Columbiana, in eastern Ohio.  Home to Allen since childhood, he and his two sons, Richard and Daryl, farm 325 acres of corn, hay, beans and oats.  Besides the young stock and dry cows, they are currently milking 125 dairy cows.

Allen explained his recent past, "Four years ago in December, we lost our dairy barn and our herd of 48 cows in a fire.  Our son, Richard, not married at the time, was living with us, and was milking 35 cows in a rental unit a mile and a half from home.  We finally decided to rebuild and bring him into the new operation.  We built a 144 free stall barn with a double eight parlor.  Cows were purchased or donated from 18 different herds, and they brought in 18 different sets of bugs which have multiplied and cross bred.  We've had some problems, but, knock on wood, we're coming around. 

"Richard has since married a Growers salesman's daughter," Allen laughed.  "We got acquainted with Growers prior to the marriage through that relationship!"

The Rhodes family has been using the Growers Program for three years.  "We noticed a fair amount of changes in the right direction," said Allen.  "We like the way the cows react and milk on this program. We've had real good success with cows calving.  The cows are cleaning and doing real well in reproduction.  We probably have the same vet bill now with 125 milking cows as we did when we had 45 to 50.  We've had to look at things differently.  We've cut the DA's.  Also, after 3 months on the Program, the hoof trimmer saw noticeably better feet.   

"One reason we went on the Growers Program, is we had about seven twists in about 3 weeks time.  Seven DA's." 

Lowell added, "And they weren't normal DA's.  The late lactation cows were twisting, which is not a normal situation at all.  What did you do to correct that?"

Allen continued, "Well, the nutritional emphasis is different now.  The nutritionist we had before worked for the feed mill, and he was selling their products to help secure his job.  Growers has a different philosophy, a little simpler and a little cheaper.  We like the results.  The cows are not eating as much.  Of the 127 cows we have now, we are feeding about 120 cows' worth of forage.  They get all they want to eat and they are not hungry."

Lowell asked, "At what point did you start to see results after you started feeding Growers?" 

Allen answered, "We probably started seeing results in about 2 to 3 weeks.  It was in August, during hot weather, but the cows started becoming more active." 

Lowell injected, "He gets on my case because he can't catch his calves anymore!" 

Allen laughed, "Oh, definitely.  As soon as they get off the colostrums, they get lime and Growers right in their milk mix.  They get lime in the morning and Growers in the evening or visa versa.

"We had applied lime before, but not to the extent that Growers likes the high calcium applied.  For every new seeding of alfalfa we'd put on 2 or 3 tons to the acre and that was good for 3 or 4 years.  And then we rotated around. 

"Now we're putting on mega-lime!  We're trying to do the whole works to get ahead.  We have put 2 or 3 tons of calcium per acre on every year the last three years on all the acreage.  We just dump lime and spread it.  We've gotten some real breaks.  The last lime we got was from people hauling for the water treatment plant.  They haul it for free just to get rid of it.  The quality of alfalfa has became better, tests show improving feed values and we see flavor changing from bitter to sweet."

In the past, the Rhodes family applied 150 units of ammonia, plus cow manure and dry fertilizer in the row to grow a crop of corn.  Allen remembered, "We did grow some fairly decent corn.  It was almost blood green on account of all that excess nitrogen.  Now we're just using the liquid pit and we foliar feed the corn.  We use no starter, and the costs are very favorable with the Growers Program.  Last year we had 193 bushel on the field we checked.  We use NA (Growers Nutritional Additive) on the second foliar pass. We even did it on the alfalfa and beans." 

Lowell asked, "When you figure the discontinuation of purchased nitrogen, how important do you feel the lime has been to help stimulate the biological activity?" 
Allen answered, "Something is definitely taking place down there with the lime, because, without nitrogen, you wouldn't expect to see the yield we had."

Asked about the farm's future, Allen replied, "All of agriculture is going to be a little tough, but I think we definitely have a better handle on facing some of that adversity by being on the Growers Program than people who are not.  I really do.  From what I see happening, we've got a whole raft of young stock coming on.  Our turnover is not as great. We are not losing as many.  Our cull rate is less. The young stock are doing a good job on the Growers Program and our numbers are building.  In spring, I don't know what we'll do with all of the cattle!  And I'm looking forward to seeing more and better crops.  It's just looking that way to me. 

"I'm kind of looking forward to turning it over to the boys so once in a while I can go fishing.  These Growers grown earthworms should be more appealing to the fish, because, hopefully, there's a little extra wiggle in the water!"