Getting To The Root

摘要

Bob Schmidt grew weary trying to make his 850 acres of rolling hills near Lonsdale, MN, pay with corn and soybeans. So, in the early '80s, lie and his father began dabbling in Austrian Pinzgauer bulls bred to their Hereford and Angus cow herd, They also built a 500-plus-sow, farrow-to-feeder pig operation. The idea was to convert cropland to pasture, then spread the 4-5 million gallons of lagoon waste on grass, Today, they've accomplished that and harvest all their forage through 400 cow-calf pairsand the yearlings from the previous year's calf crop, (Roughly, they figure 2.4 acres/cow-calf pair.) Their new operating plan offers a better payback and less risk than with just crops. However, it's been an education in manure application.