Download May 2015

The Virginia CattlemanVolume 37 Number 5 Circulation 8,000 May 2015

What’s Inside The Virginia CattlemanP.O. Box 9Daleville, VA 24083-0009

Non-ProfitOrganizationU.S. Postage

PAIDDaleville, VA 24083

Permit No. 8

Consider Real Economics of Advanced Beef Breeding Systems.................................................2

Time to Expand?...................................................Page 22

A Snapshot of Virginia Pastures........................Page 33

2015 Virginia Beef Expo............................Page 32-33-49

Photo taken at J2 Farms in Lexington, Va.

, MAY 2015, THE VIRGINIA CATTLEMAN

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As I write this piece for the May paper and look back in April, the hardest thing to miss has been the run of grass we’re seeing everywhere now and the enthusiasm it brings to the cattle market and to the farm. I was at a neighbor’s bull sale recently and I was struck by a comment he made about this past winter not being the worst there ever was but it was sure tough in spots. There’s nothing like late April and 70 degree days, 40 degree nights and knee deep grass to make you think about planting tomatoes and making hay. Speaking of the grass season, one of the truly funniest bits I have ever heard Baxter Black do, is a monologue about working cattle coming off spring grass. There are many amazing things on the farm but few rival the ability of a

cow to repaint the inside of a working facility green this time of year.On the marketing front, April brought many highs and lows to the feeder market as there is still a struggle to find price stability. Consecutive days of limit up and limit down in the futures have continued to be a product of cash and futures price disparity. However there may finally be some relief coming as the end of April shows the CME Index and the futures board closer than they have been for many months. Herd rebuilding seems to be underway in earnest and consumer preference for our beef is awe inspiring considering the drastic inflation of beef over the past 18 months. I recently heard Polly Rhuland, CEO of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board, speak to the value of the Checkoff. Consumer

demand and willingness to pay for beef is partly a testament to the value of this great program. When I was in Extension I told many producers that a dollar invested in an implant was likely the greatest sure fire investment opportunity they could make. While that is still true, the Checkoff dollar that we also invest returned our investment 11:1 last year and that is worth more than any of us can do individually. It is unlikely in this Congress that we will see any action soon on possibly increasing the Checkoff but it is reassuring that there is mostly producer unity in the idea of enhancing the Checkoff.Speaking of Congress, there have been some victories in April for free trade and furthering the opportunity to send American beef to hungry markets abroad. The Senate and House both in respective finance and means committees passed Trade Promotion Authority legislation that

gives the Executive Branch authority to negotiate a trade agreement and bring it back to Congress for approval without markups. This TPA hasn’t been available to the White House since the Clinton administration and it will certainly go great lengths to accelerating the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement where millions of beef hungry consumers are waiting. Thank you to Senator Mark Warner for supporting this out of committee and hopefully the full Senate and House will take them up before the Presidential silly season of campaigning renders things mute on the Hill. The House also gave us a huge boost in passing legislation to repeal the Death Tax. Thanks goes to Representatives Goodlatte, Hurt and Comstock for co-sponsoring this bill and recognizing the best way to preserve farm land being not to force successive generations to pay for it over and over again as it is passed along.

Finally I want to recognize the successful work of Tom McCall, Chris Wojiechowski, Joe Moore, Chad Joines and Joi Saville in organizing another Beef Expo. Keeping an annual event fresh and engaging is extremely difficult and year over year it requires teamwork to foster new ideas and continually inject new energy into something so massive to pull off. The last few years have been challenging but also constructive to clearly show how valuable the few truly industry wide events are that we have. I appreciate the work those folks did and look forward to the Virginia Cattlemen’s Association partnering with good people like that to team with and make the most of having events for this great business we’re in. July 17th is our field day near Blacksburg. There will be plenty in June about what we’re planning but please mark the day now. As always, please never hesitate to let us be of service to you.

By: Jason Carter

THE VIRGINIA CATTLEMAN, MAY 2015, PAGE 3

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The Virginia Cattlemen’s Association

Affiliated with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Assoc.

P.O. Box 9 Daleville, Va 24083-0009

540/992-1009 www.vacattlemen.org

The Virginia Cattleman 540/992-1011

540/992-4632 - FAX published monthly by the

Virginia Cattlemen’s Association

Jason Carter ....................... Stuarts DraftExecutive Secretary

Butch Foster.................................. BristolField Manager

Troy Lawson...........................ChurchvilleField Manager

FEEDER COUNCILGlenn Wheeler ............................... Atkins

Region 1Chuck Miller ................................Crockett

Region 2Joe Meek ....................................... Dublin

Region 3Forrest Ashby.............................Staunton

Region 4Rick Matthews.........................Browntown

Region 5Steve Hopkins...............................Louisa

Region 6Tom Nixon.................................. Rapidan

Region 6Lin Jones .............................New Canton

Region 7Brett Stratton........................ Appomattox

County Cattlemen

POLICY & INDUSTRYADVOCACY BOARD

Gene Copenhaver...............MeadowviewDistrict1

Joey Davenport...................Glade SpringDistrict1

Bill McDonald .........................BlacksburgDistrict2

Steve Furrow.......................Rocky MountDistrict2

Bill Tucker .................................. AmherstDistrict3

Jon Repair ................................ GlasgowDistrict3

Jared Burner .................................. LurayDistrict4

Allen Heishman......................... EdinburgDistrict4

John Goodwin ............................. OrangeDistrict5

James Kean..................................LouisaDistrict5

Jay Calhoun.............................. CallandsDistrict6

Mike Henry........................... ChesterfieldDistrict6

Editor...................................... Jason Carter [email protected]

Publication Coordinator...Jacquelynn Davis [email protected]

Issued the first week of each month. Copy deadline the 15th of the previous month.

The Virginia Cattleman is sent to members of the Virginia Cattlemen’s Association. Annual dues are $50/year or

participation in the Association’s Feeder Cattle marketing Program. Complimentary copies are sent to various

supporters of the Virginia Cattle Industry.

A Member of:

LPC

LIVESTOCK PUBLICATIONS COUNCIL

Tel-O-Auction 4-May 6:00 PM Feeders Virginia Cattlemen's Assoc 540-992-1009Radiant 5-May 10:30 AM Feeders Virginia Cattle Company 540-622-4889

Front Royal 5-May 7:30 PM Feeders Virginia Livestock LLC 540-622-7752Radiant 12-May 10:30 AM Feeders Virginia Cattle Company 540-622-4889

Harrisonburg 14-May 7:00 PM Feeders Rockingham Livestock Sales 540-490-9050Tel-O-Auction 18-May 6:00 PM Feeders Virginia Cattlemen's Assoc 540-992-1009

Radiant 19-May 10:30 AM Feeders Virginia Cattle Company 540-622-4889Front Royal 19-May 7:30 PM Feeders Virginia Livestock LLC 540-622-7752

MAY 2015

Virginia Cattlemen's AssociationSponsored Graded Sales Schedule

Check our website at www.vacattlemen.org for updatesCONTACT LIVESTOCK MARKETS OR VCA STAFF FOR QUESTIONS

VCA 540-992-1009 Butch Foster 423-360-0434 Troy Lawson 540-430-0042

Virginia’s Weekly Market ReportsApril 2, 2015

State Graded Feeder Steers, Medium and Large 1

400-500 lbs 232.50-302.00, mostly 270.00-302.00, aver-age 281.15




State Graded Feeder Heifers, Medium and Large 1




700-800 lbs 170.00-217.50, average 195.92

Slaughter Cows

Boning, 800-1200 lbs, 84.00-118.00, average 99.82

Breakers, 1200-1600 lbs, 95.00-117.00, average 106.50

April 9, 2015








500-600 lbs 218.50-236.00, average 227.20



Slaughter Cows



April 16, 2015











Slaughter Cows



April 24, 2015


400-500 lbs 245.00-287.00, mostly 270.00-283.00, aver-

age 279.94









Slaughter Cows




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Cattle producers with pastures of Kentucky 31 tall fescue know that one sign of fescue toxicosis is that their cattle spend too much time standing in ponds and shade during times of day when they should be grazing. Some also have had the misfortune of dealing with their cows suffering from fescue foot, which causes extreme lameness and eventually a gangrenous condition in hoofs and limbs. Although toxicosis-related heat stress is observed in the late spring and summer months and fescue foot is typically, but not always, observed during colder times of the year, the cause of both is very similar. Dr. Charles Bacon, an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist, determined that tall fescue can be infected with a fungal endophyte. Soon

after that discovery, Dr. Carl Hoveland, while a faculty member in the Agronomy and Soils Department at Auburn University, linked fescue toxicosis to ergot alkaloid toxins produced by the endophyte. Another noteworthy finding was by two ARS scientists at our Forage-Animal Production Research Unit in Lexington, Kentucky Drs. Jim Strickland and Jimmy Klotz, who determined that ergovaline is the most potent ergot alkaloid in disrupting blood flow in cattle that graze toxic endophyte-infected tall fescue. To make matters worse, ergovaline is typically produced in the highest concentration by the tall fescue endophyte. Drs. Strickland and Klotz further determined that the other ergot alkaloids negatively affect blood flow and, although less potent than ergovaline, can add to the disruption in blood flow. They also have determined

that ergotamine is another ergot alkaloid that is as potent as ergovaline, but is not produced by the fescue endophyte. It is actually produced by the Claviceps fungus, which can infect seed head of tall fescue (yes, the seed heads that cattle selectively graze) and other grasses. It is a particularly a problem with the small grains, such as rye and sorghum. Cases of toxicosis have been reported in Australian feedyards that feed sorghum-based diets. So how do ergot alkaloids affect blood flow and how does this change in blood flow cause fescue toxicosis? To understand this process, you first have to understand how mammals maintain their body temperature. Mammals can maintain their body temperature fairly constant through internal regulation of the flow of blood that carries heat to the skin where heat is dissipated.

Ergot alkaloids restrict the vessels, hampering this body heat reduction process. With enough buildup of body heat, animals will also sweat to increase heat transfer by the skin, but cattle do not have the density of sweat glands that horses and humans have; therefore, they have to rely more on panting to relieve themselves of excessive body heat. Heavy panting of cattle in tall fescue pastures during the hotter times of summer days is also a common occurrence. So how does fescue foot come about with the restricted blood flow? Under cold conditions, the vessels

will normally constrict to conserve heat to the internal organs and reduce heat loss via the skin, but the vessels will periodically relax to transfer needed heat to the limbs, and here lies the problem. During cold temperatures, the persistent vessel constriction caused by the ergot alkaloids restricts flow of warm blood to the limbs, tails and ears. A lack of heat and oxygen delivered to these tissues will eventually lead to hoofs, tails and ear tips developing a gangrenous condition. It can begin with lameness, and in time (sometimes a

From the Lab Bench: Why the Heat and Cold Stresses on Tall Fescue Pasture? By: Glen Aiken

USDA-ARS Forage-Animal Production Research Unit

Continued on Page 6


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short period) the condition develops into tissue death and loss. We say that cattle grazed on toxic endophyte-infected tall fescue are vulnerable to heat stress, but they are also vulnerable to frost bite during the cold months. As stated earlier, this fescue foot can happen before the first frost, which seems to

From Page 5Lab Bench

be related to excessively high concentrations of ergot alkaloids in fall growth of tall fescue. Ergot alkaloid concentrations generally drop during the summer months, but will increase during the fall and be at concentrations similar or higher to those measured in the spring and early summer. When you see the onset of lameness in the fall, the best thing to do is to get animals to a dry area and put them on an alkaloid-free diet. In this article, I discussed the mechanism by which ergot alkaloids cause cattle to be vulnerable to heat and cold stress. Next month, I will write about other biological processes that are negatively affected by ergot alkaloids and impact cattle performance.

Retail beef prices hit a new milestone in their yearlong, record-breaking march. USDA’s All Fresh beef price averaged $6 per pound in January for the first time. That’s up 95¢, or nearly 19%, from January 2014. It begs the question: Is such an increase positive or negative for the industry? One can make a case for both. If one thinks positively, the argument goes like this: American consumers love beef, and they know its taste is unique and that it is packed with vital nutrients. So they’re prepared to keep paying more for their favorite meat; in fact, they did so every month but two during the past year.Apart from buying high-priced steaks for grilling and other special occasions, consumers have also paid more for beef’s most eaten item, ground beef. January’s retail price averaged $4.24 per pound, after exceeding $4 per pound for the first time last August. The January record was 22.2% higher than a year ago and 86% higher than in January 2010. One thing’s for sure – $1.99 per pound ground beef is history. This was the benchmark price not long ago that made beef competitive with pork and chicken – but no more.One might also argue that these prices don’t fully reflect what’s going on around the country. USDA uses price data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which sends hundreds of staff to grocery stores to collect data. The BLS doesn’t disclose the precise number of stores, but its data collection is said to represent 85% of the country’s urban population. That leaves some gaps, notably of rural towns scattered across America. Another question is how much data BLS staff collect at warehouse clubs, which sell a lot of beef at

prices lower than in many grocery stores. BLS staff need permission from club stores (as from all grocery stores) to collect prices, so it’s unclear how much data they get.Nothing, however, suggests that beef is selling at lower prices than USDA reports. Perhaps the most important aspects of its monthly series are the trends and how beef prices compare with pork and chicken. In this regard, the comparison looks negative for beef. Retail pork prices in January averaged $3.99 per pound, and chicken prices averaged $1.98. Pork prices were up 6.1% from a year ago, but were $2.01 per pound cheaper than beef. Chicken was three times cheaper. So it appears beef remains over-priced relative to its competition. This has had an impact on retail beef sales since last fall. Anecdotal evidence suggests consumers are making more meat-buying decisions based

on price per pound. This trend was confirmed in the 10th annual Power of Meat study published recently by the Food Marketing Institute and the North American Meat Institute.That study found that shoppers in grocery stores continue to regard price per pound as a top factor in their meat purchases. So a significant number are seeking alternatives as the retail prices of beef and pork increase. In fact, price increases for beef and pork caused shifts in buying behavior among 40% of shoppers, with most looking for ways to save, the study says. That’s an alarming percentage.The record-high beef prices have impacted the entire beef chain. Smaller retail sales have inhibited beef processors’ ability to get higher wholesale prices without a significant decline in fed beef production. The

first two months of the year saw fed steer and heifer slaughter down 7% from the same two months last year. This, in turn, ended a January rally in live cattle prices (to nearly $170 per cwt), forcing those prices back to under $160. That, in turn, put cattle feeding margins in the red. The start of the grilling season can’t come soon enough to give a spring boost to beef demand.

Does Beef Price at Retail Matter Anymore?By: Steve Kay


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TheDelmarva Farmer

NewspaperThe voice of agriculture in the Mid-Atlantic region! We provide farmers

with weekly up-to-date information featuring local, state and national news. As well as legislative issues, government regulations, and commodity prices. We have various special sections including a BEEF & DAIRY section that we insert the 4th week of every month. DON’T MISS A SINGLE ISSUE. CALL MEGAN TODAY!

The Delmarva Farmer, April 7, 2015 1

By JONATHAN CRIBBSStaff Writer

CHESTERTOWN, Md. — Two Kent County institutions — its Farm Bureau and Washington College — publicly criticized last week a large alternative energy project that would construct up to 35 wind turbines about 500 feet tall on 5,000 acres of open farmland within the county.

The Farm Bureau opposed Apex Clean Energy’s wind turbine project at its Wednesday, April 1 meeting, joining a chorus of local residents and government officials who say the project

ignores county land use restrictions and mars the region’s rural character.

“We think it will fundamentally and forever change the scenic beauty of our county,” Farm Bureau President Jennifer Debnam said.

Both the Farm Bureau and the college said they support a bill by state Sen. Stephen Hershey Jr., R-District 36, that would prohibit the state’s public utility regulatory agency, the Public Service Commission, from granting approval to the project

By SEAN CLOUGHERTYManaging Editor

Facing the possibility of more strin-gent regulations on nutrient manage-ment, a group of Illinois farmers came to Delmarva last week to talk to farmers who have been operating that way for close to two decades.

Over a three-day tour of Maryland and Delaware farms and meetings with state agriculture officials and crop advisors, the group of Illinois Soybean Association members and Midwest farm journalists got a glimpse of what could be heading

their way in terms of how they apply nutrients and record the data.

David Droste, a Nashville, Ill., soy-bean, corn and hog farmer and ISA trea-surer said right now farmers in Illinois practice nutrient management but aren’t required to record them in a plan the way farmers on Delmarva are.

“But we’ve got a lot of questions about what to do and how to go about it,” he said during a stop at Evans Farms in Bridgeville, Del.

Flipping through the thick binders that make up Delaware grain and vegetable grower Kevin Evan’s nutrient manage-

ment plan, the Illinois group shared some collective surprise as to how detailed the plans were.

While one tour member likened work-ing with a crop advisor on the plan to hiring an accountant to do your income taxes, another joked about anticipating a “look of horror” on the faces of farmers back home after describing the amount of paperwork involved.

“We’re keeping track of what we’re putting on the fields but it’s no way as detailed as the books Kevin is showing

www.americanfarm.com

In this issue• For small and mid-size food companies considering a move to the export market, specialists in that area told them it’s def i-nitely an option for them, but preparation and using available resources are key to success. See Page 2.

• In the past decade or so, as the Maryland Extension Service has undergone a system-wide rest ructur ing and a major reduction in staff, an underly-ing yet evident sense of f r ust rat ion has emerged. See Page 3.

• A bill proposing the ban of certain pesti-cide use, under con-sideration in Mont-gomery (Md.) County Council, is causing a good deal of concern in the agr icultural community. Mont-gomery County Bill 52-14 would ban the use of listed lawn care pesticides on private and county property. See Page 9.

April 7, 2015Volume No. 40, No. 6

50¢

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The agribusiness newspaper serving Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic region

Established 1976 • www.americanfarm.com

Georgetown, Del., farmer Jay Baxter talks about weed and soil issues he faces in the fields with a group of Illinois soybean growers who toured Delmarva last week.

Photo courtesy Amy Roady

1976-2015

“When cultivation begins, culture follows. Therefore, the farmer is the founder of civilization.” —Daniel Webster, 1840

Delmarva Farmer

See TURBINE, Page 14

See TOUR, Page 19

Illinois farmers look to Delmarva for guidance

KCFB, college join protest against turbine projectThe Mid-Atlantic Beef and Dairy Farmer • February 24, 2015 1

By JONATHAN CRIBBS

Staff Writer

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania

State Police have been unable to determine the

cause of a rash of suspicious farm fires that con-

sumed three barns, more than three dozen cattle

and a welding business in Franklin County just

north of the Maryland border in November.

The cause on each of the four fires, which

occurred between Nov. 3 and Nov. 5, was unde-

termined due to the amount of damage, Trooper

Frank Hershey, a deputy fire marshal investigat-

ing the incidents, said last week. The cases re-

main open, however, he said.

The first fire occurred at Fisher Farms at 1153

Geibs Road in Peters Township at 2:32 a.m. on

Monday, Nov. 3. A barn and 19 calves were de-

stroyed. The second fire started at Ryder’s Welding in a

cinderblock building at 3959 Warm Springs Road

in St. Thomas Township shortly before 5 a.m.

on Nov. 4. The building was destroyed, taking

owner Marlin Ryder’s entire business including

roughly $500,000 in welding equipment with it,

Ryder said. Barron Keefer’s farm at 4901 Quarry Road,

also in St. Thomas, was the site of the third fire

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — More than 7,000 North-

east dairy farmers, including those in the Delmarva

region, could get an average of around $4,000 in a pro-

posed settlement with the cooperative Dairy Farmers of

America over an alleged effort to drive down prices paid

to farmers.A final federal court hearing was held last month in

Vermont on the $50 million proposal to resolve antitrust

allegations.The 2009 class-action lawsuit charged the cooperative,

its marketing arm Dairy Marketing Services and Dallas-

based Dean Foods with working together to monopolize

the market for raw milk in the Northeast.

The lawsuit claimed the cooperative created an agree-

ment with Dean Foods to source all of its milk from the

cooperative’s farms.

“If you were a small dairy farmer who had a separate

agreement with Dean, you would have to join DFA/

DMS in order to continue supplying milk. So basically

they were using these full supply agreements in order to

consolidate their power and sweep up a bunch of other

dairy farmers,” Vermont Assistant Attorney General

Ryan Kriger told the state Senate Agriculture Commit-

Farmer

A Supplement to The Delmarva Farmer • February 24, 2015

The mid-atlantic

Beef Dairy&

InsIde:

2 - Cattle Price Concerns

4-5 - DHIA Reports

7 - Marbling Selection

See MILK, Page 3

Dairy farmers in Maryland, Delaware and Virginia who have submitted a claim could get an average of about

$4,000 in a proposed settlement with the Dairy Farmers of America cooperative.Photo courtesy University of Maryland

Police: No cause determined in suspicious southern Pa. farm fires

Farmers to see payout in settlement

Researcher

investigates

cattle grazing,

cover crops

By DENNIS O’BRIEN

(Dennis O’Brien is a member of the

USDA’s Agricultural Research Infor-

mation Staff.)

For years, some growers in the

Southeast have used cover crops to

reduce soil erosion, boost organic

matter and keep more moisture in soil.

Combined with no-till production,

cover crops are credited with seques-

tering more carbon in soil so less of it

is released as a greenhouse gas.

But more growers could be using

cover crops.Alan Franzluebbers, an ecologist

in the USDA’s Agricultural Research

Service’s Plant Science Research Unit

in Raleigh, N.C., wanted to see if the

use of cover crops could be encour-

aged by allowing cattle to graze cover

crops.Conventional wisdom holds that

grazing would remove the nitrogen

and carbon otherwise left on the soil in

the cover crop plant residue. Allowing

cattle to tread on the soil could also

compact it, preventing air and water

from passing through the soil to reach

plant roots. But if grazing wouldn’t

harm the soil, it might encourage more

growers to try using cover crops.

Franzluebbers and his colleagues

conducted a seven-year study to as-

sess whether grazing cover crops at

a site near Watkinsville, Ga., affects

the health of soils typical of the Pied-

mont region of the Southeast. They

looked at growing winter and summer

See GRAZING, Page 3

See FIRES, Page 6

Special Offer to Virginia Cattlemen’sAssociation members. Call today and receive a FREETHREE-MONTH TRIAL or $5.00 OFF a subscription and a FREE HAT!

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ONE of the often-stated ethical reasons people give for choosing vegetarianism/veganism is that by eliminating animal products, especially meat, from human diets, more plant-based foods would be made available globally because animals are inefficient at converting feed to products. However, this ignores the fact that the production of human food generates a significant amount of byproducts that are not edible to people but can be fed to animals (Table 1). Economically, many of these byproducts are valuable and, accordingly, are called “co-products” in agribusiness terms. The U.S. soy and ethanol industries wouldn’t be viable if they couldn’t sell soybean meal and dried distillers grains as part of their business models.From a human nutrition point of view, the primary products from food processing are the human-edible portions — e.g., flour, vegetable oil, nuts, etc. — and the inedible remainders are byproducts. How many byproducts are generated in human food production in the U.S.? A lot! Looking at individual crops (Figure 1), the edible portion varies from a low of 20% in the oil from soybeans to a high of 75% for flour from wheat. In the case of soybeans, it could be argued that 20% is too low because it doesn’t consider tofu and soy milk production. For this analysis, I am looking only at major food uses of crops in the U.S., not minor uses or what potential alternatives there are. When citrus and other fruits and vegetables are eaten fresh, any inedible portion occurs at the retail/home level and isn’t considered a contribution to the animal feed supply. Rather, the proportions for these items given in Figure 1 are when they’re processed for juice, canned, frozen or dried.

The ethanol and biodiesel industries also generate significant amounts of byproducts that add to the animal feed supply. Over the 2009-13 crop years, 136.7 million tons of human food were produced from primary crops in the U.S. (Table 2). An almost equal amount of byproducts — 137.5 million tons — were generated in human food and biofuel production combined. These byproducts are incorporated into feed for aquaculture species, livestock, poultry and pets. Ruminant livestock are especially good “sinks” for these byproducts since they are more able to digest and utilize the nutrients in high-fiber feeds than monogastric species are.Not all of the 136.7 million tons of food and 137.5 million tons of feed are consumed in the U.S.; large amounts are exported. Also, primary crops (corn, wheat and soybeans) are exported and are not included in Table 2; nor do the byproducts include feeds from secondary processing, e.g., bakery waste, the rendering industries (animal protein meals, tallow, yellow grease, etc.) or crop residues (corn stover, straws, etc.).Ruminants as recyclersByproduct feeds typically comprise 20-25% of common livestock and poultry diets in the U.S. (Figure 2). For swine and poultry, this portion is smaller than the grain portion in commercial rations, but the inedible proportion of those diets is still larger than the edible portion. With cattle, there’s a much wider range among byproducts, forages and grain, depending on the life stage. Of course, it is possible to feed a 90%-plus byproduct ration to cattle. These proportions consider the use of corn stover, wheat straw, etc., in cattle diets as forage and not as food byproducts, which is arguable. Although it’s possible to estimate how much of these crop residues

are produced each year, it’s very difficult to calculate the amounts used in livestock feeding versus other uses such as bedding or by the equine industry.While U.S. feedlot rations contain high amounts of grain, the number of days a beef animal is on feed is a small portion of the whole cattle life cycle. Currently, beef from dairy cull cows and calf-fed Holstein steers comprises 22-25% of the beef produced in the U.S. When both cull beef and dairy cows are considered, only 65% of the beef animals slaughtered each year spend time in a feedlot (Knapp, 2014). Combining these facts into a life-cycle assessment approach that accounts for animal-days per year, I estimated that U.S. cattle spend only 11-12% of animal-days per year in feedlots before slaughter (Knapp and Cady, 2014). Another way to think about it is that 35 million-plus fed cattle spend an average of 175 days in feedlots, while

50 million-plus brood cows, dairy cows, stockers and replacement heifers spend 365 days elsewhere. The 11-12% of animal-days in a feedlot translates into grain comprising 16-17% of animal feed-days when diet composition is taken into account, with byproducts, forage and mineral/vitamin supplements comprising the other 83-84%. In other words, the U.S. produces more than 25 million lb. of beef and 200 million lb. of milk per year in a system that uses 16-17% grain to maximize the utilization of byproducts and forages. The grain used in cattle feeding is like a fuel additive; adding it to the byproducts and forages allows for the achievement of 25-40% greater productivity than would be possible without it. It would be nice to calculate the efficiency for byproduct and forage feeding, i.e., how many pounds of beef or milk are produced per pound of byproducts. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to estimate,

with any confidence, how many byproducts are fed to the different species and what amount is exported, given what data are publicly available.

A l t e r n a t i v e disposal routes?

What if there were no animals on this planet to feed byproducts to? As an alternative to being used in animal feeding, byproducts can be disposed of by composting, combusting and fermenting to generate electricity, tilling back into the soil as an amendment and landfilling. All of these would be an expense to the food producer/processor. Imagine how the U.S. soybean industry would dispose of 40 million tons of soybean meal and hulls or how the corn and ethanol industries would get rid of 62 million tons of gluten feed, gluten meal and distillers grains?Composting and combusting can eliminate much of the solid mass, but this occurs

Handling Inedible Food Production ByproductsBy: Joanne Knapp

Continued on Page 9


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with a substantial release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (Russomanno et al., 2013). It seems much better to capture this carbon in meat and milk. Likewise, fermentation captures some of the carbon in methane as well as releasing carbon dioxide, but when it is burned to produce electricity, the methane ends up in carbon dioxide. More carbon can be sequestered in soil amendment and landfilling. However, amending soils with byproducts would

From Page 8Food Production

require the use of fossil fuels for tilling. There is simply not enough landfill space to contain all of the byproducts from food production and processing. The flow of municipal solid waste into U.S. landfills over the 2008-12 period was 134 million tons annually (Environmental Protection Agency, 2015). Disposing of byproducts by landfilling would double that flow. All evidence indicates that feeding byproducts to livestock and poultry is the most environmentally and economically sustainable way to dispose of byproducts.

SummaryPoultry and livestock, especially cattle, are excellent recyclers of the byproducts of human food production and processing. Here are some talking points to help educate others about the importance of animal agriculture:* For every 1 lb. per ton of human food produced and processed in the U.S., another 1 lb. per ton of byproducts is

generated.* The amount of byproducts generated from human food processing of primary crops is larger than the amount of municipal solid waste going to landfills — 137.5 million versus 134 million tons annually.* The most economically and environmentally sustainable way to dispose of these byproducts is in animal feed. Composting, combusting or landfilling are less desirable disposal options.* The use of byproducts reduces the need for grain feeding and results in more food available for people. This is a double benefit achieved by sparing grain for human consumption AND converting inedible feedstuffs into highly nutritious, edible animal-derived foods.The production and disposal of inedible byproducts in the human food production system is not the only fact ignored by those who try to justify eliminating animal agriculture; there are more.

The weekly USDA grading reports have marked a significant accomplishment for the beef industry. That is, the percentage of the fed steer/heifer slaughter achieving the Choice grade has surpassed 70%. Meanwhile, the percentage of cattle grading Prime is consistently running near 5%. In combination, the grading mix of the fed steer and heifer population has eclipsed 75% for the first time in recent history.The last time the industry achieved that type of performance was in the early 1970s. From a long-run perspective, the 2011 National Beef Quality Audit outlined historical combined Prime and Choice percentages as follows: • 1974 – 74%• 1991 – 55%• 1995 – 49%

• 2000 – 51%• 2005 – 55%• 2011 – 61%N e v e r t h e l e s s , t h e performance thus far in 2015 isn’t a fluke. It’s merely a continuation of a long-standing trend. The beef industry has been highly committed during the past 20 years to improving the quality and consistency of beef products. The business has becoming increasingly effective at incentivizing producers along the way to become more consumer-centric. Producers have responded accordingly. It has all resulted in widespread strategic changes with respect to breeding systems, genetics and management systems to achieve the grading trend outlined in the results so far in 2015.Clearly, that’s been an important development. Improved quality and consistency keeps consumers coming

back – they’re more likely to make repeat purchases with little or no hesitation. And most important, when that occurs, it allows for improved pricing power – as the beef industry has witnessed during the past 15 months or so.

Carcasses Grading Prime & Choice Hit a Record-High

By: Nevil Speer, University of Tennessee


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Beef cattle are king in Routt County, Colorado but when C.J. Hale, Routt’s first-ever agriculture agent arrived on the scene in 1919, livestock producers in the Yampa Valley were doing their best to squeeze a little milk out of their beef cows and literally skimming the cream off the top for year-round cash. In his annual report that year, Hale wrote that the cream checks cashed at Yampa Bank were averaging $4,000 monthly. Farmers and ranchers here didn’t have any true dairy cattle but they were “milking whatever range cows were gentle enough to permit it,” Hale wrote.It’s likely that Hale started the trend when he encouraged local farmers to bring three registered Guernsey cows into the Yampa area and a half dozen registered Ayrshires, including a bull, to the Hayden area. Longtime Elk River Valley rancher Dean Look told the gathering his family was milking Holstein dairy cattle when he was a boy, and there were about six dairy operations in the Elk River Valley including

the Moser and Bedell families. It was when Sinton built a large dairy plant in Craig in 1963 or 1964 and required their producers to install modern equipment, including pipeline milking and refrigerated bulk tanks, that dairy farmers in the Elk River Valley said “no thanks.” They all got together and decided to trade in their Holsteins for beef cattle, Look said.He recalled his teenage years when annual cattle drives to the railhead in Steamboat Springs began near the Wyoming line and grew in size as they continued south. “They’d start out at Snake River, and by the time they got to our place, there were 5,000 or 6,000 head of cattle in the drive,” Look said. “The men spent a week sorting out brands and cattle at the stockyards.” He recalled there were so many head of cattle that many got loose and headed for the lush grass of the cemetery where they ran wild. The boys were assigned to gather up the strays. “The biggest problem was getting across the Yampa River,” Look recalled. “They finally put up the Stock Bridge. The Stock Bridge was

where most of the teenage boys settled their disputes.”Sam Haslem, who succeeded Bill Coffey as Colorado State University extension agent in 1970, grew up on a Moffat County cattle ranch where

his family almost always had one foot in Utah. Haslem told the Ag Appreciation audience it was a beef cow that put him through Colorado State University where he graduated with a

degree in animal production. “My dad bought a heifer calf for me and all of her progeny was to get me though college. And by golly, it did,” Haslem said. “Times were hard in

Please, No Cows in the CemeteryBy: Tom Ross, Steamboat

Today

Continued on Page 12


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those days, and that’s how we (funded) our education.”Haslem told his audience a story about the days when cowboys in far western Moffat County drove their cattle at a leisurely pace all of the way to the railroad yards in Phippsburg. And like Look’s story about the Stock Bridge, Haslem’s yarn about a cow puncher named Guy McNurlin also involves a cemetery.According to Haslem, McNurlin desperately wanted to be the night horse wrangler, requiring him to keep the remuda together. He fulfilled those duties, but the rest of the cowboys were mystified over how McNurlin managed to show up drunk every morning with the horses all together. One night the rest of the cowboys visited the Steamboat suburb of Brooklyn for a night in the saloons and confirmed where their colleague had been making whoopee. All the while, the horses had been pastured inside the fence of the local cemetery. “It’s never been documented in any history books, but that really happened,” Haslem said.

From page 10No Cows

We are coming to the end of what will prove to be an epic year in the cow-calf business. We all know that for decades this business has been a breakeven proposition for the “average” producer. The good managers of course make money most years, but because of the law of averages in a breakeven situation half the producers lose money.This year calf prices have reached far into record territory with 5 cwt calves at the weekly sale barn bringing

about $2.32/lb today ($1276/head) where they were $1.62/lb this time last year ($891). That is a 50% increase in price. The astounding thing is that through all this high price situation all sectors of the industry will be profitable in 2014, with cow-calf producers making the highest profits ever. There clearly is reason to celebrate, but we need to keep in mind that this looks like a bubble if you stand back and look from outside. The corn and soybean industry experienced a similar bubble over the last several years and now they are reeling from a price situation that puts them back below the cash cost of production in many cases and with a lot of funds tied up in new equipment and new land.So, we should be thankful for our good fortune, but also realize that we need to reinvest much of this excess cash flow back into our system. For many years we lived with that breakeven mindset and as a result many

of us have old facilities, pastures where fertility has dropped, and cows a little older than we probably ought to keep. As we face the year end closeout many of us will be faced with a very unusual problem; money in the farm account! It is a little exciting to see that at home, but I know that before January 1 we will reinvest most of that

in something. It is easy for me to start making a wish list and spend more money than I have, so there is still a big need to prioritize spending. Here are the things that are going through my mind and the ways we have decided to reinvest.Buy a new truck?The first thing that comes to my mind (and to many

of yours probably) is that it sure would be nice to have a new truck. My spouse will tell you I have a truck problem. I know it is true, and I inherited it from my dad. We have 7 old trucks at our farm, 3 of which run. Personally, I currently have two NCSU work trucks and

Don’t Forget: Bubbles Sometimes BurstBy: Matt Poore &

Carolina Cattle Connection


Photo taken by Todd Caudill in New Castle, VA at Caudill Livestock

This Article was Written Last Fall but it’s just food for thoughts!


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three personal trucks (2000 F-250 Diesel and 2007 F-250 diesel, and a 2000 Nissan Frontier). Don’t you agree that I need to trade in the 2000 F-250 for a new dually? When I looked at the sticker price on that new dually I realized that the new truck approach would take care of all our extra funds and just make my real “truck problem” worse. Maybe I should just keep driving that Nissan which has 255,000 miles on it, take better care of the diesels and certainly send a few to the junk yard?Buy a new tractor and hay equipment?Our 7400 John Deere tractor and hay equipment was bought in 1996. Mom and Dad sold their Flagstaff Urgent Care business and it made sense to put money into this equipment. We knew it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and have certainly enjoyed it. As that equipment comes up on 20 years old it is in remarkably good shape but age is starting to show. The hay equipment has made about 10,000 rolls and the tractor has 3000 hours on it. The baler especially needs new belts, the baler and cutter need new tires, and the tedder is about to vibrate itself into pieces. Again, pricing out new hay equipment shows that it would take a lot more money than we have to replace the hay equipment. We could of course finance that new equipment but then we would be committing ourselves to another 20 years of wide open hay making. Instead of buying new hay equipment we made one of the most difficult decisions I have ever been part of. We have not rolled one bale this year. I have felt funny about it all summer and realize that hay is another one of those addictions like the truck problem that gives you a great feeling at the time but that does

not really carry you ahead to a better system. In the big scheme of things, long-term investments in “iron” are probably not where we should put our extra funds. We should, however, add a little to our maintenance budget. When there are other business reasons to invest in equipment (like we had back in 1996) then it is a great thing to do and it sure is nice not to break down all the time because of old equipment. We just can’t expect cows to bear the cost of the luxury of high end equipment. Again when I step back and look, the least trouble we have with a tractor and our lowest cost for medium duty jobs is our Farmall Super M that was bought new to our farm in 1954. I try to drive it all I can and we use it to rake hay and spread fertilizer. Our JD 7400 will last for decades to come if we reduce the hours we put on it making hay. We will focus in the future on making only very high quality hay for our finishing cattle program and buy most of what we need from reliable sources we have found. I had to go through this whole year cold turkey to finally “kick the hay habit” and shockingly I have no desire to get out there and make hay. Jim Gerrish will be proud. Invest in working facilities!Two of our three working pens also are old and in need of repair. One of them dates back to the 70s and one of them to the mid-90s. The 90s model can be patched, but the 70s model needs to be completely replaced before someone gets hurt. The 70s model is at our small farm (45 acres pasture) where we grow our replacement heifers and beef program steers with no more than 40 head of yearlings on hand at a time. We could buy a new pen system to handle this many cattle for about $10,000 and we do have plenty in the bank to cover that. However, if we use oak sawn off our

From Page 12Don’t Forget


, MAY 2015, THE VIRGINIA CATTLEMANKNOLL CREST FARM

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place and build a system with a bud box, chute for 5 head and a catch pen for 50 we can do it at half that cost (or less). That job is on our list for this winter.Invest in other basic infrastructure!What of your infrastructure needs repaired or upgraded? Fences? Waterers? This is one of the areas to really think about. We can get cost-share funds in many situations to install waters and stream exclusion fencing. If we do the work ourselves the cost share rates will pretty much pay for the

project completely. Having cash in the bank to buy all the supplies really helps with cash flow and makes it a lot more fun to do these projects. We are completing a contract now to put 4 tire tanks in one of our largest pastures and it will be an exciting improvement to our system.Another basic item we are investing in is a new well house. I realize that might seem trivial to some of you, but we have had a block well house with a “lid” on it that had to be lifted off to get inside. It was very difficult to get in to work on anything, and the poorly fitting top was not very convenient when freezing weather came. We

had light bulbs inside, but had to cover it with a tarp and tie it down to keep from freezing up in cold weather. A month ago while, putting the lid back on the well house, we knocked a loose block off which fell in, hit the pressure gauge and sheared off the pipe to the gauge creating a geyser! What a way to end a Sunday at the farm! We shut down the water, called the plumber and then started demolition on the old block structure just to make sure we followed through with what needed to be done. The new frame well house (with a door and all!) is nearly done, and I know that will probably be some of the best money we ever spent.

Invest in Genetics!One way many will invest their funds is in new breeding stock, and that is a good thing. Bulls are expensive these days, so it is clear many cattlemen are putting some extra funds there. Cow sales are also very high priced so some producers are investing extra there too. A word of caution on this one. The classic “signals” from the market are to expand cow numbers as we all hear and read all the time. That may make sense if you are understocked. However, it makes no sense to expand if you already are fully stocked, and many of our producers in the southeast are overstocked. Spend

money on better bulls for sure, and buy replacement heifers and cows to replace market cows that need to go to town. I know very few people that should expand cow numbers but everyone can benefit from improving their genetics and the bull is the best way to get that done. At home we actually are reducing our stocking rate some to create a better system for the long run.Invest in fertility!Soil is the basis for our systems as I have written many times before. Soil testing and applying appropriate levels of lime, phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) are a key to a sustainable system. We




VIRGINIA SIMMENTAL ASSOCIATION

Dana Campbell, VSA Secretary / Treasuer

[email protected] Lowesville RoadLowesville, VA 22967

434-277-9104

VIRGINIA SIMMENTAL ASSOCIATION

At the Virginia Simmental Association annual meeting on April 16, 2015, we presented Mr. Vernon Figgins with the Simmental Service award in recognition of his many years of service to our breed and the cattle industry.

He worked in the AI industry for 55 years. In the early 70’s, he brought 18 half blood SimAngus heifers and AI’ed them to Sim-mental bulls and grew his herd of purebred cattle.

He has 4 children, 8 grandchildren and 6 great grandchildren. His children and grandchildren show cattle, all organized by him.

He and his son Keith make the breeding decisions and have always worked together with the cattle. He winters cattle at his farm and supervises the feeding and management plan, with his grandsons Aaron, Nathaniel and Isaiah doing the labor.

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can get a lot of recycling of nutrients with good grazing management, and we can get nitrogen from legumes, but you need to have at least medium levels of P and K, and pH at or above 6.0 for the healthiest pastures. We regularly soil test at our place, but don’t always follow the recommended application levels. We have had pH 5.6 to 5.8 in many of our pastures (based on tests 2 years ago) but the cost of liming is pretty high and was restrictive at that time. We do have medium or high P and K levels in most places, and we grow a lot of grass, but that can’t go on forever without lime. We last limed most of our pastures about 5 to 8 years ago. We have remarkable pH and forage production considering how long it has been, and I know it is because of our adoption of rotational grazing management. Still we have areas that clearly need help from a fertility standpoint (which we are addressing with unrolling of hay) and I know things will continue to thrive if we get our pH back up around 6. Lime is another thing that makes the priority list and goes in our budget. We put lime on 150 acres this year and have plans to put 50 acres in our budget for every year in the future.Invest in weed control!All farms have weeds and it is hard to say when “some weeds” becomes a “weed problem”. I don’t want to debate that this month and will address it sometime in the future, but some things are a no brainer. When you have a lot of weeds you should take several actions. First, what is the fertility and the current stand of desirable plants? If fertility is low and desirable plants are present (at least 50%?) then correcting fertility is the first step. Herbicides may also be called for but will not be very effective if you don’t correct fertility.

This time of year the one thing you can do is to treat brush and saplings by spot spraying. This is a good late fall job and the time, effort and herbicide cost will pay back for sure. You can spray blackberries this time of year and get a good kill, and also you can use cut stump or basal bark applications to kill saplings in fence rows and in pasture. A good hand with a backpack sprayer can treat a lot of ground in a day. I plan to spend at least 10 hours spot spraying some very prominent blackberries, sweet gums and locusts before Thanksgiving. Winter is also a good time to control buttercup which is a problem on many farms especially in areas that have historically been used for feeding or have been “torn up” for some other reason. There are a lot of areas like that this year because of last year’s winter conditions, so scout your fields, identify the places where there are a lot of buttercup seedlings and get them sprayed. A pint of 2-4 D amine during a warm spell in December-February will give a very high level of buttercup control and will not kill all your white clover. Our sprayer (a very used but functional 250 gallon pull behind unit) is serviced, we have 2-4 D and surfactant in the storage shed and we are ready to go when the right time comes. We are also trying to decide if we should get a new sprayer. There are some nice units out there on the market, but I think you probably need more acreage than we have to justify the purchase. We are talking to several neighbors about making a community purchase of a new sprayer and that is a kind of arrangement we probably all need to think about for much of our equipment in the future.Renovate pastures!If the pasture conditions are such that there are few desirable plant species, then it calls for complete renovation. This process should always start with

correcting fertility, killing the existing stand, and probably using annuals for a few years until weed populations are under control and the old sod is completely degraded. At home we have one very good pasture that we are renovating and we are coming off 2 full years of annuals. Next fall we plan to plant this field to a novel endophyte fescue. This new “non-toxic” fescue is not as tough as KY-31 but results in much better performance. We will have to reduce our stocking rate on it (because cattle eat more) and baby it along (never overgrazing it!) to keep it, but it is going to be a great part of our finishing system once it is established.Complete change your business model?Notice I went back to a question mark here because it is clearly not something everyone should do. For many producers it will still make the most sense to sell calves at or shortly after weaning at the local sale barn. However, with new opportunities to sell value added feeder cattle and locally finished cattle we all

need to be thinking about adding to that basic low input cow-calf model. At home we made the decision to cull heavily down to 100 calving cows (historically we have run 150) and finish most of our steers and extra heifers. It is a complete change in mindset but already the benefits are on us. We are in the early cycles of calving now and having a smaller number of cows so that we have two calving groups rather than three makes a huge difference. Once we finish renovating more pastures so we can reduce our concentrate feeding the system should really work well. This change really is costing us some but at this

time we have a little to invest in developing a system that will really take advantage of this new local beef market.What will you do?OK...there is my logic on our plan on how to reinvest our extra funds this year. Again, my gut wants something new and shiny to show off, while my heart know and mind know that we need to invest in our long-term future. As you ponder this question we all are dealing with, don’t forget to take care of those needs we know don’t go away. Focus on your soil fertility, genetics and forage system health before deciding if there is enough extra to buy that new truck.


Photo taken by Randy Davis at the BCIA bull sale in Wytheville, VA


Beef Council UpdateMission: To effectively maintain and build beef demand in Virginia for beef and beef products that satisfy consumer preferences through market devel-opment programs (consumer information, promotion, research, and industry information), thereby increasing the opportunity for the cattle industry to earn an adequate return on investment.

While every month is beef month at the Virginia Beef In-dustry Council, the month of May is recognized nearly na-tionwide as Beef Month to raise awareness of the importance of beef and the beef industry to consumers.

Beef cattle production is the sec-ond largest segment of Virginia agriculture, contributing nearly $450 million to the state’s econ-omy. Beef cattle that graze on more than 2.5 million acres of pasture land support fully or in part the livelihood of more than 25,000 Virginia farm families. Beef producers are the original environmentalists working to conserve the soil and making optimum use of natural re-sources.

Nationwide beef cattle produc-tion represents the largest sin-gle segment of United States ag-riculture, with cattle and calves adding more than $50 billion annually to the U. S. economy. The United States raises 20 per-cent of the world’s beef with seven percent of the world’s cattle, and in 2011, the value of

beef exports exceeded $5 billion for the first time in history.

Scientific research continues to support lean beef’s role in low-ering bad cholesterol, building muscle and cognitive health and providing other healthy benefits to people of all ages. A three ounce serving of lean beef is about 150 calories and a top dietary source of protein and nine other essential nutrients such as iron, zinc and B-vita-mins.

These important statistics about beef will be shared with con-sumers through print and on-line media as well as tips about beef’s versatility and afford-ability and recipes for families to prepare and enjoy the great taste of beef. The May is Beef Month promotion will include on-camera, television cooking demonstrations in key Virginia markets. The VBIC staff will be participating in consumer events throughout the month to sample beef recipes and answer questions about beef and the beef industry.

The Virginia Beef Industry Council (VBIC) participated in the annual conference of the Virginia Academy of Nu-trition and Dietetics (VAND) last month in Virginia Beach. The VAND is an organization of food and nutrition experts, primarily Registered Dieticians (RD) and Dietetic Technicians (DTC). Dieticians advise peo-ple on what to eat in order to lead a healthy lifestyle or to achieve a specific health related goal. It is critical for the beef industry to have a good working relationship with these individuals to insure beef is top of mind in their ef-forts.

Dieticians work in hospitals, HMOs and long term care facilities as integral members of the health care team. Others work in sports nutrition and corporate wellness programs to educate clients about the associ-ation of food, fitness and health. They work for government pro-grams such as WIC which pro-vides federal grants and nutri-tion information to low income women in communities. All schools, colleges and universi-ties have dieticians to develop the menus for on campus din-ing. Further dieticians work in private practice providing edu-cation and services to consum-ers, health care facilities and food companies. In all of these settings it is important that di-eticians are educated about the health benefits of beef and have information to assist them in in-cluding beef in the diets of their clients.

During the VAND conference, the VBIC provided educational materials to the dieticians for them to use in their practices outlining the nutrition benefits of beef and recipes with lean beef cuts. The dieticians appre-ciate the materials provided by the Beef Checkoff program and comment on the high quality of the materials. There was a breakout session at the confer-ence strictly about cholesterol and the speaker did not share

positive information about red meat. In addition the group was very informed about the current work of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Commit-tee and their recommendations to reduce consumption of red meat. Fortunately VBIC had the opportunity to address the group and shared information about the Beef in an Optimal Lean Diet study which shows the positive impacts of lean beef in an individual’s diet on cholesterol levels. Overall the

dieticians realize beef as an im-portant source of protein and other nutrients and are eager to hear from the Beef Checkoff how beef can fit into a healthy diet.

In addition to the focus on im-proving health and preventing and reducing overweight and obesity in all age groups the VAND has a new goal on their agenda in 2015. This is to sup-port a sustainable food system in Virginia through promot-ing locally produced foods in order to protect the environ-ment, supporting the economy of Virginia’s localities and the endangered family farm, and increasing the consumption of fresh, high quality foods. This new focus provides VBIC an important opportunity to showcase Virginia’s beef indus-try emphasizing the number of family owned beef operations in the state. The conference included a tour of the nearby Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) Brock Environmental Center. At the center the dieti-cians learned about the work being done to protect the Bay through restoring natural filters such as oysters and underwater

grasses. The CBF is active in working with farmers to find funding for planting trees and implementing stream buffers that have dramatically reduced run off. The tour also visited a vegetable farm in Cape Charles, VA where the dietician learned about conservation practices to prevent soil health and the en-vironment.

Jennie Schmidt, a Maryland farmer who also works as a Reg-istered Dietician, addressed the

group and e x p l a i n e d the syner-gistic farm-ing practices they have implemented on their 2,000 acre, primar-ily grain, o p e r a t i o n . Jennie is a member of a RD Farmer Expert Com-mittee that

is working to encourage dieti-cians to connect with their lo-cal farming communities. She explained synergistic as an ap-proach to farming that utilizes the best from all farm systems; conventional, biotech and or-ganic, to maximize the value per acre producing safe, high quality foods while preserving the soil and preserving the fam-ily farm. She explained how practices such as no till, crop ro-tation and planting cover crops are conventional techniques that have been used by farm-ers for decades. Jennie shared a very positive message about the carbon footprint of the beef industry sharing graphs illus-trating that the environmental impact of U. S. beef production has been reduced by improved productivity.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Foundation has a na-tional initiative to sustain the future of our food. This will provide the VBIC an unique op-portunity to work closely with Virginia’s dieticians who we have established as an import-ant influencer group to keep beef top of mind and help to in-sure beef is included in the diets of Virginians.

Virginia’s Dieticians Learn About Health Benefits of Beef

John Loonam, American Legion Post 75 and Jerry Gustin, VBIC board member and BEEF enthusiast, both of Gloucester, Virginia, model

their I Heart Beef aprons.


HIGH ROADLIVESTOCK

PHOTOGRAPHY& VIDEO

MARTIN MACQUEEN

101 Pioneer Road * Covington, VA 24426 * 540-965-2199www.highroad.photoreflect.com

The Southwest Virginia Angus Association held its Annual Meeting March 28, 2015 at the Riverfront Café in Chilhowie, Va. H.J. Denney of Double M Farm in Dublin, the 2015 President presided at this event and conducted a short business meeting, Freddie Mullins of Mullins Angus Farm was recognized for his work as President in 2014. At this meeting four board members were elected to serve a three year term, they are Jennings Whicker of Lightning Ridge Farm in Bristol, VA., Freddie Mullins of Mullins Angus in Clintwood, VA.,

Wayne Waddle of Waddle Angus Farm in Chilhowie, VA., and Chris Lawson of Lawson Family Farm in Rose Hill, VA. H.J. Denney presented a bull test report and also a Sale Coordinator report was presented to the membership by George T. Johnston Jr. of Graystone Farm in Wytheville, VA. George Stovall of Stovall Livestock in Stuart, VA. Was elected President-Elect.For more information please visit the wedsite www.swvaangus.org.

Southwest Virginia Angus Association Annual Meeting

UpdateI have an interesting life being part of a Land-Grant University Community. The mix of ideas, expertise, experience and youth is a powerful thing. Couple that with practical hands-on education for students, and extension programs that connect citizens across the state with the University and you have something very special. That is what our forefathers envisioned when they established the Land-Grant Colleges with the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890. Also critical in the development of our Land-Grant University System was the creation of the Agricultural Research Service in 1887 with the Hatch Act and the creation of the Agricultural Extension Service (now “Cooperative Extension” in most states) in 1914 by the Smith-Lever Act. As we celebrate the 100th birthday of Extension, we owe a great debt to those visionaries that started all this in motion, and we have a responsibility for stewarding and evolving the system. We are fortunate to have retained much of the original Land-Grant Mission at both NCSU and Clemson and we should be thankful. If you are reading this you are a stakeholder in our programs and are important to the evolution process. Don’t miss an opportunity to thank your local, state and federal representatives for all the support they have shown for these programs

that have been so important to agriculture and tell them your ideas for the future.What the heck does that have to do with soil health? As part of the faculty at NCSU, I am surrounded by experts in all kinds of things. The more you study something the more complicated you find it is and the narrower you need to think to figure out the details. That is why it seems that often times as a researcher advances in their career they identify a piece of the puzzle and focus in on it. Doing so will generally allow you to produce more publications, get more funding and train more graduate students. and leads to what we consider success in the scientific world. That model worked well for us in the past in agriculture, but recently has not worked as well as budgets get tighter and the problems get more complex. As we start to think about the entire pasture ecological system and plan management strategies and research approaches to understand it, it gets a lot more complicated. Our future is going to depend on teams of skilled researchers, students, extension workers, and other agencies and stakeholders working together to solve complex societal problems. More and more it is clear that systems thinking and team efforts will be needed for success in the future.So, that finally brings us to Soil Health. One of the most complicated and poorly understood parts of

the pasture system is the soil. As I think back through my education my favorite subject as an undergraduate was soils. I really did well in those classes which was kind of unusual for an Animal Science major. I never lost my interest in soils, and have been on many teams with soil scientists, but recently I have had kind of a new awakening in my interest in soils. Largely it is because I am from northern Granville County, NC where most of the topsoil eroded away more than a century ago. When I was a kid growing up I remember well working

Managing Soil Health on Beef Farms

By: Matt PooreCarolina Cattle Connection



VIRGINIA ANGUS ASSOCIATIONVirginia Angus Breeders Page

CSFCattle Company

All Cattle Available by Private Treaty!

CSF CATTLE COMPANY7725 North Lee Highway

Raphine, VA 24472C.S. Fitzgerald, Owner * 540-460-1847

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James D. Bennett Paul S. Bennett 434-376-3567 434-376-5675 Jim G. Bennett Brain R. Bennett

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OFFICE 434-376-3567 * FAX 434-376-7008Private Treaty Female Inquires Welcomed.

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Charles and Lee Rossen5728 Poindexter Road * Lousia, VA 23093

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www.quakerhillfarm.com

Annual SpringBull & Female SaleLast Friday in April

Annual SpringBull & Female Sale

Last Friday in November

Quaker Hill Farm

FOUR LOCUST ANGUS Keysville, Virginia

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Genetic Investment Sale

Friday, April 17, 2015 • 12 NOONRockingham County Fairgrounds • Harrisonburg, VA

Held in conjunction with the Virginia Beef Expo

For more information or to request a catalog, please contact the Virginia Angus Association at [email protected]

or call Tom Templeton at 540-421-8341

Featuring 50 high production cow/calf pairs, bred and open heifers from leading breeders across Virginia, highlighted

by these donor cows and special pregnancies...

Rita 2G90 of 5F56 Game On Reg. # 17185397

•Daltons on the Sycamore is selling the right to flush this Game On daughter to the bull of the buyers choice. Buyer receives 4 embryos and is guaranteed 1 pregnancy.Rita 5F56 of 1I98 FD -

Dam of Rita 2G90

QHF Blackcap 6E2 of 4V16 4355

QHF Blackcap 6E2 of 4V16 4355 Reg. # 15601886

•Quaker Hill Farm and Wild Winds Angus are selling pregnancies out of daughters of this foundation Quaker Hill donor female.

Gambles Blackcap 1079 Reg. # 16382899

•Harvester Farm selling the right to flush the newest addition to the HF donor pen. Guaranteeing 6 transferable eggs and 2 pregnancies. This female is a many time champion sired by the Reserve ROV Show Bull of the Year, Gambles Jaguar.Gambles Blackcap 1079

...plus a super female mating by GAR Prophet out of a Sitz Upward 307R cow who is out of the Z38 cow

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Division of Ashby Herd Health Services, Inc.2420 Grace Chapel RoadHarrisonburg, VA 22801

Day/Night (540) 433-04301-800-296-COWS (2697)

Randall H. Hinshaw, D.V.M. (540) 246-2697

tobacco and hitting the gumbo at the end of the rows where the clay would ball up on your shoes to the point where you could hardly walk. We used to open up the row ends halfway through the growing season at “lay by” to clear out all the eroded soil that had accumulated so the tobacco would not drown. That soil would grow a tobacco crop but it was clearly not healthy.After we went back to grassland on those fields and then later started using more controlled and thoughtful grazing management I could see some improvements in the way the soils function. They appeared to be less drought prone, more diverse, and absorb more rainfall. Some of those same old tobacco fields that I worked as a kid actually are healing back into pretty good grassland after 15 years of better management. As I was making these observations about 5 years ago, I met a man named Ray Archuleta that works for NRCS in this new area called “Soil Health”. Ray is very passionate about soils and how they function relative to their management. He does many demonstrations that help show the difference between a healthy and an unhealthy soil. If you have never heard Ray speak you should. He sure has me fired up about soil health.I am still trying to learn about soil health and how to manage it and here is a little of what I have learned. Some folks get hung up on definitions, and the definition of soil health is no different, but to me it is “the ability of the soil to function for its’ intended purpose”. The purpose I am interested in is supporting the growth of forage plants and the animals that graze them. So, a healthy soil will grow more grass and support grazing animals better than the same soil when it is unhealthy.

Some very important aspects of soil are it’s ability to take up and retain water. Soil is a semi-aquatic system which ideally has a thin layer of water on all it’s microscopic surfaces. This water layer is populated by bacteria, protozoa and fungi that are actually swimming around. All the organic and inorganic (sand, silt and clay) are bound together with biological glues that are exuded by the plant roots. Larger organisms like earthworms and dung beetles burrow through, either following existing tunnels or creating new ones. All these organisms working together with the plant roots hold the soil into “soil aggregates” and the more stable these aggregates are the better water will infiltrate, the easier it is for roots to penetrate, the more water the soil will hold and the more resistant the soil is to compaction and erosion. As soil health improves, carbon levels will increase to the point where the soil function is dramatically enhanced. Healthy soil is like a sponge and you actually can feel it give beneath your feet.We used to think that it took centuries to create topsoil. The exciting thing to me is

that many of the benefits of improved soil health come pretty soon after you start managing for it. When it comes to pasture, improving soil health is a matter of 1) correcting major nutrient deficiencies, 2) grazing fewer days out of the year and increasing rest periods, and 3) balancing the forage system.Soil Nutrients. Soil nutrients are very poorly distributed on many cattle farms. Our historical haying and feeding practices have removed nutrients from one part of the farm (hay fields) and deposited them in feeding areas. Our grazing management gathered nutrients from all over the pasture and concentrated them in loafing areas near water and shade. Thus, when you take a soil sample by compositing cores from all over a field, you will end up over-fertilizing some areas and under-fertilizing others. If you work in an area with a lot of row crop production it is likely that you can find a fertilizer dealer that will work with you to map the nutrients on your farm and more efficiently correct fertility.Remember that 90% of the nutrients an animal

consumes come back out as feces and urine. If animals are in a system where they are on the area growing grass most of the time, they will return a lot of that fertility to the system. The more frequently you move cattle the better your manure distribution. In the cooler season this is relatively easy to do with a good watering system, but in summer it

becomes more challenging because of the need for shade. Portable shades are possible but not always practical, and improvement in shade technology could change the way we think about artificial shade in the future. We all can continuously improve our ability to distribute manure nutrients if we just

From Page 19Managing Soil



Flowing Spring Gelbvieh

6235 LEE HWY.ATKINS, VA 24311

CHARLES E. ATKINSOWNER

276-783-6100

Wyndemere Farm L.L.C.

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JUDITH A. SWEETENREGISTERED NO. 48890

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Join us for a day of fellowship at one of Virginia’s premieruniversities. Enjoy a complementary BBQ lunch while you visitwith producers from around the state. Vendors and industrygroups will provide demonstrations around the dairy & beeffacilities.

10:00 – Event opens, exhibits and demonstrations begin

10:30-2:30 – Dairy tours, Educational sessions, Historical tours

12:00 - 2:00 – BBQ lunch

12:30 -1:00 – VSDA Annual membership meeting

1:30-2:00 -Virginia Holstein Association membership meeting

2:30-3:30 – VCA Annual meeting3:30 - Virginia cattle field day & dairy expo adjourns

2 0 1 5 V I R G I N I ACattle Field Day & Dairy Expo

Friday, July 17th, 2015

10:00 am-3:00 pmKentland Farms

5250 Whitehorne Road, Blacksburg VA

JBS FED Cattle Buying StationGrade and Yield Your Fed Cattle HERE.

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think about it.Grazing Management. Aside from the importance to nutrient distribution, grazing management is important because plants need rest so they can have healthy, deep root systems, so the soil is completely covered (decreasing temperature variation), and to provide a cushion for cattle feet from a large amount of plant material. When a short grazing event occurs, some of the macropores near the surface are compressed, but little damage occurs to the soil structure. When there is a lot of life in the soil (i.e. when it is healthy), during the rest period following a grazing event the organisms that make the macropores (earthworms, dung beetles, etc) will quickly restore that part of soil function. Balancing the forage system. As I have written in the past it is true that many of us have an imbalanced forage system, largely because one major forage plant is very well adapted to our soils. This is often tall fescue in the Piedmont and Mountains, and bermudagrass in the Coastal Plain. These are good forage plants in many ways, but there is growing evidence that different types of plants, and different types of roots have different effects on the soil. Some plants have fibrous roots that are usually near the surface, like many of our most common grass plants like fescue or rye. Others like alfalfa have a deep tap root that can go very deep in the soil to reach moisture and fertility other crops could not reach. One example of this deep tap root phenomenon that interests me is the Daikon Radish. This type of radish is the large white one you might see at the farmer’s market. They look like a really big white carrot. This plant has a tap root that is very good at penetrating hard pans in soil and penetrating as

deep as roots can practically go. Because it is an annual, when it dies, the root decays leaving a “root channel” deep in the soil. This allows a pathway for other roots to easily follow. I was at a Soil Health Field Day in Ohio this spring where with the use of a soil pit we saw rye only 6 inches tall that had roots over 6 feet deep which clearly were following these old root channels. Diversity of forage plants in a pasture is also beneficial. It is often observed that as pastures age, the forage system evolves into what is best adapted to the management used. Continuously grazed systems often evolve into those pure stands of fescue or bermuda. Often in old healthy pastures that have been rotationally grazed you can find many different species. It is believed by some that these plant communities are more efficient than single species (monocultures) because the different plants have different types of roots, and support different types of biological life in the soil. The truth is we need a lot of research in the area.I realize now that this soil, plant, livestock system will be very important to our future, but also that understanding it will take a very complex team and a different approach. We need Animal Scientists, Forage Agronomists, Soil Scientists, Entomologists, Hydrologists, Economists , Social Scientists, Farmers and other Stakeholders to improve soil health throughout our beef production systems.I am glad I work at a place that has all those team members and a great research station system. If we can all work together our future will be bright! This summer we are focusing on the principles of Soil Health in Pasture Systems at our summer grazing demonstrations and workshops. Attend one of those workshops and see for yourself some of the amazing things going on under your feet.

From Page 21Mangaging Soil

My pockets are empty, my jeans are patchedThe soles of my boots are worn outI’ve counted chickens that’ve never hatchedAnd my love life has gone southA rank horse left me with a bum kneeAn angry bull put the scar on my browA weekend in Nashville rearranged my nose, you seeAnd my back’s bad from wrestlin’ cowsThe list of my exes gets longer with timeAll the old flames have gone outI figure all the heart-broken tears have driedThey’ve all found new loves by nowThe woodpile is shrinkin’, the nights are so coldThe wind’s found each draft in the houseThe horses and dogs are eatin’ me out of house and homeThere’s hardly anything left for the mouse

The trailer’s broken down so I can’t go ropin’Hell it don’t matter, I don’t have the cashBetween the doctor bills and truck payments I’m still

hopin’Part of my paycheck will lastMany people have asked me many times

Cause I’m A CowboyBy: John Rudy



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Always I have the same old reply“You ain’t heard half of it yet”Between the sun rising in the east end of the valleyAnd it setting there in the westI debated and figured and contemplated and talliedAnd I still don’t know which one is best

Maybe when everything’s covered with new fallen snowOr a newborn calf on the groundThe times up on Beartown seein’ the valley belowIt all adds to the peace that I’ve found

Havin’ the horses nuzzle me while I lean on the fenceOr smelling freshly mown hayThe dogs runnin’ and playin’ like they’ve lost all good senseListenin’ as the night sounds close out the day

There’s other jobs with more in the way of financial gainBut this one’s the one brings me joyYou ask why I put up with the heartache and painSimple, Cause I’m a Cowboy.

From Page 23Cowboy

In the wake of Gov. Jerry Brown’s order to impose mandatory cuts to water usage for the first time in the California’s history, much has been made about the state’s use of water for agriculture.While the almond is the most cited example of the large amounts of water needed to produce a crop, the Los Angeles Times put together a graphic showing water usage for many different kinds of foods. According to its data, proteins — especially meats — require

the most gallons of water per ounce of food, although it is important to keep in mind that farmers produce a lot more vegetables than cows.On the other side of things, the Washington Post published an article countering some of the misconceptions

about agricultural water usage, mainly that 80% of California’s water goes to farming. When accounting for water set aside for environmental purposes, the article argues the figure is more like 41%. The article also highlights steps farmers

have already taken in recent years to reduce water usage, such as installing more efficient irrigation technology.Retailers also soon may find themselves in the crosshairs when it comes to water usage. A reporter from the

Washington Post called me this week to ask why produce departments mist their greens — is it necessary to keep them fresh, or is it just for aesthetic purposes to appease consumers? Particularly in California,

How will the California Drought Affect Food Retailing? By: Liz Webber,

Supermarket News



retailers should be prepared to answer these questions from their customers.Gov. Brown has made it clear agriculture has a major role to play in California’s economy and in feeding the nation and the world. However, if the drought becomes a permanent fixture in this country’s landscape, it’s not too hard to imagine some companies looking to greener pastures for their produce.At a conference on sustainable food in the fall of 2014, Jack Sinclair, then EVP of Walmart’s grocery division, talked about how the retailer is shifting some of its produce sourcing from California to the Carolinas, Michigan and the Mississippi River Delta. Although the drought was not mentioned as rationale for the switch, I wouldn’t be surprised if Walmart and other retailers decided to diversify sourcing more in the future as a precaution.Whether it is issues of sourcing or water usage in stores, it seems likely the California drought will be a hot topic for retailers for the foreseeable future.

From Page 24California Drought

Beef with reasonable marbling and juicy taste is preferred among consumers, and industry leaders continue to monitor how to consistently produce a product with these traits. A recent research article addresses the biology and biochemistry of beef marbling and its effects on production systems, carcass and fat quality. “We need fat in beef to improve the eating experience,” said Dr. Stephen Smith, a Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientist and Regents Professor in the department of animal science

at Texas A&M University. “We can increase the fat and marbling throughout the production cycle, but for many years there’s been this perception among consumers that too much fat in ground beef isn’t a good thing. Against conventional wisdom, ground beef of all kinds actually is healthy for you.”Smith teamed with Dr. Brad Johnson, Gordon W. Davis Regent’s Chair in the department of animal and food science at Texas Tech University, to co-author a paper, “Marbling: Management of cattle to maximize the deposition of intramuscular adipose tissue.” The research was funded by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association Beef Checkoff Program.“In our research, we examined young cattle just before they marbled, and were primarily looking at genes related to fatty acid composition,” Smith said. “We’ve always had a strong interest in the monounsaturated fatty acid, oleic acid, which is abundant in olive oil and is a healthful fatty acid. We start out the

marbling article relating how increasing the amount of fat in beef is definitely related to palatability. So we want to increase the fat content to a certain level to provide a good eating experience.” In the research article, Smith and Johnson discuss how as more cattle fatten and put down marbling, the fat becomes healthier because there is a replacement of saturated fats with oleic acid. “We are very interested in that,” Smith said. “What are the cellular processes that regulate this very natural increase in oleic acid in beef?”Smith said Johnson looked at gene expression associated with fat development. In general terms in transitioning from pasture or grass feeding, to feedlot feeding there is profound increase in genes associated with fat development and making more oleic acid, Smith said. “You can barely detect expression of genes related to marbling and fat composition in cattle on pasture, but much more so when cattle are fed grain,” he said. “The longer they are on feed the more oleic

acid they deposit. If you take Korean Hanwoo or Japanese Waygu, which are fed up to 30 months of age, they have an extraordinary amount of marbling and oleic acid. Hanwoo and Wagyu beef marbling fat is very soft, which provides a juicy mouth feel.”Smith said within the article they describe the published ground-beef studies and how ground beef affects cholesterol in humans. “In most studies, ground beef increased high-density

lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol – the good cholesterol – in men and women,” he said. According to the research, the relationship between fat and overall palatability “underscores the importance of grain feeding and intramuscular lipid in beef quality.” As fat increases, it is accompanied by a decrease in the proportion of saturated fatty acids and trans-fatty acids with a corresponding increase in oleic acid and

Marbling Research Shows Healthy Fat in Beef Has BenefitsBy: Blair Fannin, Texas A&M

University

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VIRGINIA CATTLEMEN’S ASSOCIATIONWORKING FOR VIRGINIA’S CATTLE INDUSTRY

Partner with VCA by contributing to the Policy Fund and help protect our industry

and our legislative, regulatory, environmental and social well being

Choose your contribution level:$50 – Partner$100 – Bronze$365 – Dollar A Day$500 – Silver$1000 - Gold

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other monounsaturated fatty acids. “The more cattle fatten, (the more) they put down more marbling and the more healthful the beef is,” Smith said.Both Smith and Johnson said they wondered why. Randomized, controlled studies evaluated individuals who consumed ground beef formulated from long-fed, grain-fed steers for five weeks (five patties per week), compared to consumption of regular ground beef – lower in oleic acid. HDL cholesterol increased significantly in normocholesterolemic men and postmenopausal women fed the high-oleic acid ground beef. In these studies, the men consumed ground beef containing 24 percent fat and the women consumed ground beef containing 20

percent fat. The conclusions were that, even at these high levels of fat intake, ground beef had no negative effects on lipoprotein cholesterol metabolism in men and women, and ground beef naturally enriched in oleic acid had positive health benefits.“We hope to convince everyone in the beef production chain, all the way from producers to retailers, that healthy fat in beef not only improves flavor, but you can modify the animal naturally so that the beef contains more oleic acid,” Smith said. “This provides a very palatable product that, even though it contains a relatively high level of fat, is not going to have a negative impact on cholesterol metabolism in humans.”

From Page 25Marbing Research

“The best thing about heterosis,” says Joe Paschal, Texas AgriLife Extension beef specialist in Corpus Christie, “is that it’s cumulative. So as you start down a crossbreeding program, the fact that you have daughters that are more fertile, produce more milk and have longer longevity, that’s the real benefit.” But, he stresses, it’s not the only benefit. “A lot of people ask, ‘why should I crossbreed?’ (And the answer usually is) ‘I want heterosis.’ You know what I say? I say it’s because I get to choose the breeds I want,” Pashcal says. “Breeds can be combined to fit multiple market situations and environments,” he says. “Heterosis is the icing on the cake. But breeds are what determine the taste of the cake.”However, he stresses there’s nothing wrong with a straight-breeding system. It’s simple, it makes mating choices easier, and it can be less management-intensive. “You only have one breeding

system and one breeding herd, so it makes life a lot more simple.” Should you choose to crossbreed, however, make sure you have a plan. Otherwise, you eventually just produce mongrels. “If you can’t tell what’s in ’em, there’s a very good chance they’re mongrelized,” he says, and those cattle seldom improve the taste of the cake, much less the icing.So, as you’re adding ingredients to the mixing bowl to make your two- or three-layer cake, here are some things to consider, which Paschal took from the “Texas Applied Genetic Strategies for Beef Cattle” publication: •Milking ability: “How much milk do you want your cows to produce?”•Mature size: This is an important consideration as you match your cows to your environment.•Ability to store energy.•Stress tolerance: “And that’s all stress. That’s not just you with a hot shot. That’s a cold

day, a hot day, a rainy day, a dusty day, lack of feed, all those things.”•Calving ease.•Lean-to-fat ratio as a measure of carcass composition.As you consider those traits, Paschal says your selection goals are to reach optimum, not maximum. “Remember, selection should be a goal that once you get there, you stop and maintain it. You have to remember that in context of these six things. We’re not going to continue to improve (indefinitely). Selection needs to be a destination. You need to get

there and stay there until you decide to change and do something else,” he says.And don’t lose sight of the ultimate destination. A planned crossbreeding system will help you match your cattle to your environment and utilize

heterosis, but the ultimate goal is greater profitability. “Superior animals are those with greater profitability. So we’re not selecting for bigger animals, more productive animals, we’re selecting for animals with more profit,” Paschal says.

Crossbreeding Gets You More Than Just Hybrid Vigor

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At the Iowa Agriculture Summit in March, most of the prospective Republican presidential candidates embraced the renewable-fuel standard, one of the worst examples of corporate welfare in America. This federal mandate props up the U.S. ethanol industry by forcing refiners to blend biofuels into gasoline. Despite the fact that it is an obvious business handout, White House hopefuls rarely attack the standard, lest they harm their chances of winning the Iowa caucuses.Yet there’s a promising shift under way. A bipartisan group of legislators in Washington, D.C., including Sens. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) and Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), recently introduced a bill to repeal the corn-ethanol portion of the RFS. The approach of Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.) is better: He has introduced legislation that would repeal the RFS outright. Neither proposal will be enacted, but they reflect a growing consensus that the RFS isn’t working. When Congress enacted the RFS in 2005, its backers argued it would combat America’s dependence on foreign oil. Today, thanks to huge increases in domestic oil production, the U.S. is significantly more energy independent. In 2005, domestic oil accounted for 40% of total U.S. oil consumption. Now it constitutes three-quarters.Unfortunately, the mandate has created a number of new problems thanks to its exceptionally poor design. The standard requires refiners to blend volumes—rather than percentages—of biofuels into gasoline based on fuel supplies and the EPA’s annual targets. So when gasoline consumption drops, refiners must increase

the percentage of biofuels in the blend. This is happening now: Gasoline consumption peaked in 2007 and has since dropped 6%. At today’s reduced consumption levels, complying with the renewable-fuel standard would require blending gasoline that contains more than 10% ethanol. That is higher than most cars are certified to use, according to AAA, and it would wreck lawn mowers, weed eaters, boats and motorcycles. The only reprieve has been bureaucratic ineptness at the EPA, which has failed to enforce the mandate and set thresholds for two years in a row.At the same time, the RFS increases fuel prices. According to a 2014 report by the Congressional Budget Office, the mandate could raise gasoline prices by up to 27 cents between now and 2017. Moreover, ethanol is less energy dense than gasoline, which means that fuel economy drops—and drivers must fill up the tank more often—as ethanol content rises.The renewable-fuel standard also makes it harder for families to put food on the table. Thanks to the mandate, a large and growing percentage of corn, soybeans and other crops is now used in biofuels production rather than for human consumption. Consider corn: In 2005, 15% of the nation’s corn harvest was used for fuel; today it is 40%. This makes corn more expensive. A 2012 study by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that the RFS raises costs for chain restaurants by $3.2 billion a year. Those costs are passed on to families in higher prices. Even the national environmental lobby is now expressing concerns. The World Resources Institute

The Iowa Caucuses Have a Winner: EthanolBy: Thomas Pyle, President of

American Energy Alliance



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Whether you’re an experienced hand or just learning the basics of wood, wire and tape, there’s always something more to learn when it comes to livestock fencing.1. Corner posts - This ranks as the top mistake in fencing, be it barbed, high-tensile or woven wire. The main issues are undersized posts and corner posts not set deeply enough, particularly in sandy or soft soils. Post diameter depends on the strength of the fence. The lightest-duty fence, such as a 1- or 2-wire, high-tensile pasture subdivision fence, only requires a 4- to 5-inch-diameter post. A 5-strand barbed wire fence, or 5- or 6-strand high-tensile fence, requires a 6- to 7-inch-diameter post. 2. Post spacing - Fencers tend to use too many posts, which likely stems from people’s experience with barbed wire, where the rule of thumb was 1 post every rod length (16.5 feet). In an electric-fencing system, space posts 50-100 feet apart. Use a “stay” – a shorter post that sits on top of the ground and holds wires up – if posts are spaced 100 ft. apart. 3. Correctly sized energizer – Plan on 1 joule of output per mile of fence, regardless of how many strands of wire. If there’s a total of six miles of fence, it requires a minimum of a 6-joule energizer. Gallagher recommends a low-impedance energizer, with a low-amp fuse. The larger the energizer, the smaller the voltage, because larger energizers are apt to power through more vegetation and short out. 4. Grounding - Grounding is 99% of the electric fence. Use this rule of thumb: 3 feet of ground rods per

6 Common Fencing Mistakes

By: Alaina Burt



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recently found that a gallon of ethanol—throughout its journey from stalk to pipe—emits more carbon dioxide than oil, which “undercuts efforts to combat climate change.” Another new report from the University of Michigan’s Energy Institute reaches a similar conclusion. Researchers reviewed more than 100 papers on the environmental impact of biofuels and found that ethanol offers “no significant increase in the amount of carbon dioxide being removed from the atmosphere.” The conclusion: “Therefore, there’s no climate benefit.”The only real winners are the ethanol producers, who have found a guaranteed source of income. From 2007 to 2013, the corn-ethanol industry spent $158 million lobbying the federal government on subsidies, tax credits and mandates, including the renewable-fuel standard, according to an analysis of public filings by Taxpayers for Common Sense. This is on top of $6 million in campaign contributions to

federal candidates between 2008 and 2014. That money isn’t being spent to help corn and soybean farmers in rural America, but rather to secure government handouts.These special-interest groups are, once again, planning to leverage the outsize influence of the Iowa presidential caucuses to pressure 2016 hopefuls into supporting the RFS. In January, Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Executive Director Monte Shaw promised a multimillion-dollar ethanol lobbying campaign that is “probably going to be the most aggressive issue advocacy effort people have ever seen in the history of the Iowa caucuses.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) is the only prospective candidate to unequivocally oppose the standard. The renewable-fuel standard is a corporate giveaway that makes food and fuel more expensive for American families. If presidential candidates won’t vow to repeal it, then it is incumbent upon Congress to tear it out by its roots.

From Page 27Iowa Caucuses

joule of energizer output. So if the fence is using a 6-joule energizer, 18 feet of ground rods are called for. Spacing is key, as a ground rod is essentially an antenna receiving electrons flowing through the soil and back to the energizer, completing the circuit. Ground rods can also interact with a given volume of soil. If three ground rods are driven into the ground 6 inches apart, in essence, they act as one ground rod because of the volume of soil they interact with. Space ground rods throughout the whole network of fencing, particularly if the average rainfall of the fenced area is less than ideal for proper grounding.5. Gate openings - In an electric-fencing system, creating a gate system that conducts current is a challenge. It is recommended to place a floating diagonal brace on either side of the gate opening. To keep the fence “hot,” trench both insulated hot and cold galvanized wires 1- foot deep under the opening (perhaps deeper in high-traffic areas or low-lying wet spots, or shallower in less-used pasture settings).

The gate no longer needs to carry current, because you have your current going underneath the ground.6. Insulators - Putting a steel post anywhere into an electric fence is a big mistake, because you are then relying on the insulator to keep your fence from shorting out. Highly flexible plastic or wood-plastic composite

posts are best.From Page 28Fencing

Travis Wyrick Loading out Cattle at the BCIA Sale

Please Send Photos Into VCA to publish in

the paper!!! Email to [email protected]

or call 540-992-1009 for further options.


2013-2014VCA Officers

Bill Thompson - President1295 Park AvenueClifton Forge, VA 24422540-968-1987

Kaitlin Smith - Vice President454 Old Farm RoadLexington, VA 24333540-463-6778

Deidre Harmon - Secretary124 Kindig RoadWaynesboro, VA 22980540-943-6144

Rob Farmer- Past President8030 Greenwich RoadCatlett, VA 20119540-270-3886

Chad Joines - Southwest DirectorJunior AdvisorVirginia Tech Dept Animal & Poultry ScienceBlacksburg, VA 24061540-557-7263

We would like to invite anyone interested in becoming a mem-ber of our association to call one of the officers list above.

ountain eadows

William (Bill) Thompson

1295 Park AveClifton Forge, VA 24422

CELL 540-968-1987FAX 540-962-7508

FOR SALE Several Purebred Charolais bulls

Quality Charolais Embryos

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Performance CharolaisWilliam and Agnes Anerson

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434-369-5366

“Keeping the commerical producers in mind”

Charolais bulls for most discriminating buyer

Colonial Farms124 Kindig Road

Waynesboro, VA 22980Walt Winkler540-943-6144

CrossMountainCattle Co.

Robert Farmer8030 Greenwich Rd.Catlettt, VA 20195

540-270-3886Gerry Scott 540-379-1975

CREWS FARMSRegistered Charolais

784 Payneton Rd.Chatham, VA

Billy Crews, Barry CrewsBilly C. Crews, Brent Crews

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VIRGINIA CHAROLAIS ASSOCIATION

Data from the Spring 2012 Across-Breed EPD Genetic Trends presented at the Beef Improvement Federation documents Charolais and

Charolais-infl uenced genetics lead all major breeds compared for both weaning and yearling weights. In fact, Charolais cattle were proven to

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AMERICAN-INTERNATIONAL CHAROLAIS ASSOCIATION11700 NW Plaza Circle ■ Kansas City, Missouri 64153

816.464.5977 ■ Fax: 816.464.5759

www.charolaisusa.com© American-International Charolais Association 2014

D o W h a t W o r k s

more pounds at weaning!more pounds

more pounds at yearling!more pounds

8.5x11 4c (bull).indd 1 3/10/14 1:04 PM

Below are some facts about our 23rd Annual Superior Charolais Genetics Sale.

The sale was held at the VA Beef Expo and managed by Dennis Adams of Outfront Cattle Service. Our female sale averaged $3,507.14. The top selling lots were: $5,000 bred heifer KNS Daisy Lilac 04A from Rocking K Cattle, Lexington, VA to Bent Creek Farm, Nicklesville, VA. $5,000 bred heifer VPI Lady 328A from Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA to Bent Creek Farm. $5,000 bred heifer VPI Tiara 325A to Bent Creek Farm. Thanks to the consigners, bidders and buyers for participating in our Pure Bred Charolais Sale. We would also like to thank our field rep, Floyd Wampler, for his ringmanship and additional faithful duties at our sale.All members of the Virginia Charolais Association are entitled to join all the sales we sponsor.

Our next sale, 15th Fall Herd

Improvement Sale, at Virginia Tech

November 7, 2015 1:00pm


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Tall Fescue. It performs better than any other cool season perennial grass over most of North Carolina and the upstate of South Carolina. It can be stockpiled to provide winter grazing that can nearly eliminate the winter hay feeding season with good planning. While it is not well adapted to sandy soils, it is very well adapted to the loamy and clay soils of the Piedmont and Mountains. It stands heavy grazing, is tolerant of drought conditions, and yields more than most other cool season grasses. It also persists for longer than any other perennial cool-season grass, with many stands lasting indefinitely. The fescue pastures at our place were planted in the 50s and persist today. Long stand life is a serious economic advantage. Within a few years of development at the University of Kentucky, KY-31 tall fescue was declared to be the “wonder grass” and promoted as the solution to forage problems in the south.So what’s the trouble? The trouble is that Kentucky-31 tall fescue, the variety that was released in 1943 and that took the southeast by storm, is infected with a fungus that gives it this incredible advantage over any other plant it competes with. The fungus that lives between the plant cells produces toxins known as “ergot alkaloids” that cause severe health and reproduction problems and

reduced growth in livestock. Some cows, especially those from “heat tolerant breeds” tolerate the toxins pretty well, but never the less suffer from many of the same problems temperate cattle experience. Some individuals within temperate breeds are clearly “intolerant” of toxic fescue as evidenced by very poor body condition, long hair, and generally poor health. It is important to get bulls that are tolerant to fescue when you buy bulls, but where can you find bulls selected on toxic fescue?It is unfortunate that fescue was planted on so many acres before the discovery of toxic fungus or “endophyte”. We now know that that little fungus causes many of our most severe production problems. The plant is so aggressive and successful that it now covers over 35 million acres in the Eastern US and there are very good stands even on land that was never planted to fescue. Droughts in recent years have increased the dominance of fescue in our region, and also increased the infection rate of individual plants in a pasture which increases the toxin levels. The warming climate has resulted in fescue moving up the mountains to higher elevations, and also into more northern states that never had it before.All said and done, fescue is now estimated to cost the beef industry $1 billion a year. That is not a typo folks, it costs us $1 billion a year! Let’s put that into perspective. Another major problem in the beef

industry is shipping fever more correctly called “BRD” (bovine respiratory disease). BRD costs us $1 billion a year too, but BRD is considered by most to be a much more important problem than fescue is. Why do you think that is? I think it is because the losses from fescue come as money that never gets into your pocket (and the pockets of a hundred thousand other producers). Your cows may “tolerate” fescue and still give you a 500 lb calf. Also, your breeding rate might be 85%, and your incidence of weak calves, no milk, etc. may only cost you a few calves a year. The truth is that those calves could weigh 600 lbs, your breeding rate could be 90%+, and you should have almost no losses due to weak calves or lack of milk. The difference

between the fescue problems and BRD is the lost value is something you really don’t realize you lost. With BRD, a feedlot owner is looking down at a dead calf that they paid $1400 for, and it is real obvious to them that the value of that calf was a cash loss. As we deal with our fescue problems in the Carolinas (and the entire region) we need to be aware of what it is costing us. There are a number of ways we may significantly reduce the problems we have, but they all will take a lot more research and education to get them in place. I am really excited about where we are in our studies with fescue, and both Clemson and NC State can claim to be making serious progress into figuring out the problem

which will lead to real solutions. However, we need your continued support to grow the research being done and to try the solutions we identify.How do these toxins work?Our current understanding is that fescue works through at least two major mechanisms. The first is the effect on the brain through the hypothalamic and pituitary system, and then through the ovary where some of the hormones from the pituitary work. We know that fescue toxins bind to dopamine receptors in the pituitary and inhibit the release of the important hormone prolactin. Prolactin is important for the initiation of milk production, and may also be important for weight gain and hair coat shedding

By: Matt PooreCarolina Cattle Connection

The Trouble With Fescue.



and growth. The effects of fescue on the secretion of prolactin is quickly reversed when the toxins are removed from the diet. Ergot alkaloids also appear to cause problems with the reproductive hormones including progesterone that is produced by the ovary in pregnant cows. This system that is not understood nearly as well and is under investigation.The other major mechanism elicited by fescue is through the adrenergic system where the ergot alkaloids bind the beta receptors and cause constriction of blood vessels in the peripheral circulatory system. This leads to the heat stress, the sloughing of tail switches and the loss of ear tips due to freezing. The effect on the circulation is not quickly reversed and it takes several months off fescue before the blood vessels return to normal.One of the biggest negative effects of fescue is on the feed intake of the animal. Growth rate and reproduction is directly influenced by intake, so many of the problems we see may be caused by that. We don’t understand the decrease intake very well because there is not a clear reason to explain the large reduction in intake we see. Recent work in Kentucky suggests that motility of the gut may be reduced by ergot alkaloids which may directly cause the reduction in intake. Much more work is needed to understand that, but the more we know about the fescue the worse it looks.So, why not just kill the fescue off and replace it? That does make sense in some situations, and on almost all farms in the fescue belt there should be a substantial percentage of acres in something other than infected toxic tall fescue. Non-toxic infected fescue (such as MaxQ, Bar Optima and others) or warm season grasses (like bermudagrass,

big bluestem, indiangrass switchgrass, etc.) make sense even without the toxin issue, so certainly we all should look at our forage system and diversify it away from fescue. But, fescue has become established in many environments where we can’t possibly do away with it, or where producers just don’t have the ability or desire to fight it. There is some terrain so difficult to traverse that killing and reseeding are just not options. Also, it is a great grass for stockpiling, and the toxin levels decline a lot about Christmas time. The real solution to this problem is going to take replacement of toxic fescue with other forages on some acreage, improved genetic tolerance to toxic fescue in the cattle, and supplements and/or remedies that will help alleviate symptoms of the toxins. The good news is that currently the community of researchers and extension personnel working with fescue around the country have started working together to create a cohesive strategy for dealing with the problem. Our faculty team at Clemson and NCSU is working with a variety of projects looking at both male and female reproduction, and also at optimizing the improvement and adoption of the non-toxic fescue varieties. We also are developing a research model that we can use to better screen remedies and to study other aspects of the fescue problem. These efforts have included some very talented scientists from the College of Sciences at NCSU that are more used to working with rats than cows, but they are some of the top brain biologists in the country. For an applied scientist like me, it is incredibly exciting to be engaged with that kind of team.The workers at Clemson and NCSU are also currently engaged with partners at UGA, VaTech, University of Tennessee, University of Missouri, University of Arkansas, University of

Kentucky and the USDA in additional collaborative efforts. We are very excited that the fescue community will meet early next February in Atlanta (the weekend before the NCBA Conference in San Antonio) to present the latest information on fescue, and to develop an industry-wide strategy to set research priorities and to find the funding to do the work. We hope to attract leaders from the beef industry (including Cattlemen’s Association executive officers and leading beef producers), allied industry representatives, and the

scientific community. Those if us working in this area now understand that if we are going to crack this nut we have to work together and get the industry behind us. We hope to report real progress before the end of the decade, and we can do it

with your help.

From Page 31Fescue

Angus Sale at Beef Expo 2015.

Simmental Sale at Beef Expo 2015.

Mark your Calender!! Virginia Cattlemen’s Association Annual

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Charolais Females

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Pair 1 $ 4,100.00 $ 4,100.00 Cow/bull split 1 $ 4,300.00 $ 4,300.00 Cow/hfr split 1 $ 3,900.00 $ 3,900.00 Bred Hfrs 6 $ 25,700.00 $ 4,283.33 Open Hfrs 5 $ 11,100.00 $ 2,220.00 TOTAL: 14 $ 49,100.00 $ 3,507.14 avg

Charolais Bulls 14 $ 42,350.00 $ 3,025.00 avg

Red Angus Females Bred Cows 3 $ 8,300.00 $ 2,766.67 Bred Heifers 6 $ 25,700.00 $ 4,283.33 Cow/hfr split 1 $ 3,900.00 $ 3,900.00 Open Hfrs 5 $ 11,100.00 $ 2,220.00 TOTALS: 15 $ 49,000.00 $ 3,266.67 avg

Red Angus Bulls 7 $ 19,800.00 $ 2,828.57 avg

Angus Bull 1 $ 3,500.00 $ 3,500.00

Braunvieh Bull 1 $ 2,800.00 $ 2,800.00

Charolais Embryos 15 $ 6,050.00 $ 403.33 avg Charolais Semen 5 $ 400.00 $ 80.00 avg TOTAL: $ 6,450.00

Donation Semen: 19 CML Razr 17Y 10 $ 100.00 Outfront Cattle Service by Pleasant Valley Charolais 24 CMC Smoke Signal 5 $ 150.00 Buffalo View Farms, Hillsville, VA

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lot 16 $ lot 17 $

Top Charolais Bull: lot 38 $

Top Red Angus Female lot 54 $

Top Red Angus Bull lot 43 $ Top Angus Bull lot 48 $ Top Braunvieh Bull lot 49 $

5,000.00 5,000.00 5,000.00 4,800.00

5,000.00

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Rocking K Cattle Co, Lexington, VA to Bent Creek VA Tech, Blacksburg, VA to Bent Creek Farms VA Tech, Blacksburg, VA to Bent Creek, Nicklesville, VA Shadow Springs, Havre de Grace, MD to GlenMary Farm

Rapidan, VA Deer Run Farm, Emmitsburg, MD to Paradise Farm,

Mt. Crawford, VA T&L Hedrick, Lexington,NC to Sleepy Val, GlenRock, PA Harvester Farm, VA to V. Cheatwood, Mad Hgts., VA Harvester Farm, Nokesville, VA to J. Smith, Stanley, VA

Charolais Sale at Beef Expo 2015.

Costco Wholesale Corp is working toward eliminating the sale of chicken and meat from other animals raised with antibiotics that are vital to fighting human infections. The ongoing push by Costco, which sells 80 million rotisserie chickens a year, highlights growing pressure on the supply chain in the wake of the early March announcement by fast-food giant McDonald’s Corp that it would stop buying chicken raised with so-called

“shared-use” antibiotics within two years.“We are working towards, and working with our suppliers and the regulatory agencies... to see how we can get rid of shared-use antibiotics in animals,” Craig Wilson, vice president of food safety at the Issaquah,

Washington-based retail giant, said in a phone interview. “I think all of us want to move to a point where we can get the human-use antibiotics out of the system. It’s going to take time.” Wilson and

Costco Moves to Eliminate Antibiotics in Meat



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Costco Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti said the company did not have a target date for reaching that goal, a reflection of supply constraints.Veterinary use of antibiotics is legal. However, as the rate of human infections from antibiotic-resistant bacteria increases, consumer advocates and public health experts have become more critical of the practice of routinely feeding antibiotics to chickens, cattle and pigs. Scientists and public health experts say whenever an antibiotic is administered, it kills weaker bacteria and can enable the strongest to survive and multiply. Frequent use of low-dose antibiotics, a practice used by some meat producers, can amplify that effect. The risk is that so-called superbugs might develop cross-resistance to medically important antibiotics.“I mean, you’ve got to protect human health beyond everything, and so we think eliminating shared-use antibiotics is the right way to go,” Wilson said. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued voluntary guidelines to regulate antibiotic use by producers of poultry and other livestock. Antibiotics rated medically important by the FDA for growth promotion are scheduled to be phased out by December 2016. Wilson said Costco has been working with the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the goal of eliminating shared-use antibiotics. The Center for Veterinary Medicine is involved in the effort as well, he said.Over the years Costco has grown into one of the largest retailers of food. Fresh food, including meat, produce, deli and bakery items, accounted for 13 percent of its $110 billion in net sales in the last fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2014.

From Page 33Costco Moves

On April 4th, 2015 McDonald Farms offered 62 Bulls for sale including bulls from Black Creek Farms in Rural Retreat and Foglesong Farm in Meadowview Va.34 bulls sold for a gross of $170,250 and average of $5007.High Selling Bull was 464B, a J Bar J Niteride son which commanded $9000 and sold to Gregory Wade owner of Bull Creek Farm in Nathalie Va.Other High Lights include Bull 499B a MF Ranch Magnum 79W son sold to J/C Simmental of Claire Michigan and 493B a CCR Pathway 9354Y son sold to Dixon Farms of Thomasville Al.Volume buyers include Childress Farms, Christiansburg VA., Gary Huffman, Hickory NC., Back Country Land and Cattle Blacksburg VA., Chaffin Cattle Co. Willis VA. and Lick Run Cattle Co. of Millboro VA.Bulls sold into VA, NC, WV, AL and MI.

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Weather records indicate that producers in Virginia can expect a severe drought 1 out of every 10 years and a moderate drought 1 out of every 5 years. Parts of the territory I serve here in the Shenandoah Valley are among the driest areas in the eastern U.S. Yet somehow summer droughts always seem to come as a surprise. For many beef cattle operations in Virginia currently using corn for silage, sorghum for silage offers a great opportunity to build a more resilient forage system. Sorghum is not a new idea in Virginia. It continues to be under-used, however, particularly when you consider that sorghum often matches or exceeds the yield of corn silage on marginal ground. In an extreme drought, sorghum yields can be twice that of corn. The

difference goes back to the plant’s water-use efficiency. It takes about 30% less water to produce a ton of sorghum forage as it does to produce the same amount of corn silage. Trials at Texas A&M have shown that sorghum can produce up to 2.5 tons of biomass per inch of water, compared to less than 1 ton of biomass per inch of water for corn. Additionally, the input costs associated with a sorghum crop are generally much lower than that of corn - around $10/ton cheaper than corn in a recent Penn State study. The end result is that we can usually produce the same energy and protein per acre for less money.

Variety selection: Forage sorghum varieties are preferred for silage over grain varieties due to their higher overall yield potential. They produce less grain and more vegetative growth than grain varieties, and are later-

maturing. Forage sorghum varieties vary from 6 to 15 feet tall. Plant breeding has produced dwarfing genes which reduce overall plant height without affecting other agronomic traits or yield. These are often referred to as “Brachytic Dwarfs”. These dwarf varieties are valued for their lower risk of lodging, without sacrificing tonnage or forage quality. Similarly to corn, sorghum varieties range in the days to harvest- generally from around 80 to 120 to get from planting to harvest at soft dough. In Virginia Tech variety trials at Blackstone, VA going back to 2009, silage yields of forage sorghum ranged as high as 22 tons/acre (at 35% DM), and never dropped below 12 tons/acre. On productive soils sorghum yields can reach 30 tons/acre. Important characteristics to look at when selecting a variety include: dwarf vs. full-sized, susceptibility to

lodging, stalk dry down. Also available are varieties with a brown-midrib (BMR) characteristic. Brown midrib varieties have a reduced lignin content, which usually results in higher digestibility (about 3-5 percentage points) and palatability.

Establishment: Sorghum is generally planted 1-2 weeks later than corn, when the soil temperature has reached at least 60° F. Sorghum does not match corn in its cold-soil seedling vigor. It can be either conventionally or no-till seeded using a corn planter or grain drill. In wide rows, seed should be planted at a rate of 5-10 lb/A. When seed is broadcast, 15-20 lb/A should be used. Seeding depth should be between 1 and 1 ½ inches. Planting too early and too deep are common causes

of poor sorghum stands. Fertilization should be identical to that of corn for silage. Herbicides options for forage sorghum are a bit more limited than for corn, but still include many of the same modes of action. A popular herbicide program would involve atrazine and s-metolachlor preplant followed by a postemergence application with some combination of 2,4-D, dicamba, or atrazine. Be sure to consult with an expert for herbicide recommendations, as some herbicide products may require seed treated with a safener, and height restrictions may exist with postemergence applications.

Harvesting: Forage sorghum should be harvested for silage when the seed has reached the soft dough

By: Matt Booher & John Benner, Virginia Cooperative Extension –Augusta County

Plan for Drought with Sorghum Silage



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stage to ensure optimal forage quality. Beyond the soft dough stage seed hardens quickly, dropping in digestibility. At the soft dough stage most sorghum varieties will be around 70-75% whole-plant moisture, which can result in less than ideal ensiling. Selecting a variety with a dry stalk characteristic will help with this dilemma. Forage sorghums can also harvested in the late-boot to early-head stage, wilted down to about 65% moisture, and ensiled. It is helpful to use a mower-conditioner to crush stems and use wider mower swaths to increase surface area for drying. Lastly, it’s important to note that while prussic acid poisoning is a risk with grazed or green chop sorghum, it is not a concern with sorghum that has been ensiled.

Nutrition and Feeding:From a feed standpoint sorghum silage is generally comparable in crude protein and about 80-90% of the energy value of good corn silage. This is due to sorghum’s lower grain-to-roughage ratio, as well as the fact that a larger percentage of the grain passes through the animal undigested. Sorghum silage contains more energy

than is needed by bred heifers or cows, and should be fed on a limited basis in those cases. It is a good fit for cows and heifers during the first few months of lactation. The energy requirements of growing steer and heifer calves exceed that supplied by sorghum silage. For gains of 1.5 lbs./head/day, 2 to 3 lbs. of grain per head should be fed daily along with protein, mineral and vitamin supplementation. For gains of over 2 lbs./head/day, grain supplementation should be bumped up to 4 or 5 lbs. of grain per head daily. Similarly to corn silage, the calcium, phosphorus and protein content of sorghum silage are below requirements for the classes of cattle mentioned above. Be sure to supplement these nutrients accordingly. The vitamin A content of silage tends to be deficient, and should be supplemented regularly if animals are on a diet of primarily silage. Even with additional supplementation, total feed costs per head per day should trend $0.40-$0.50 cents lower than a corn silage and soybean meal based ration (sorghum/corn gluten=$2.34/head/day; corn

silage/SBM=$2.83/head/day).

From Page 35Sorghum Silage

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Sustainability is defined as “able to last or continue for a long time.” Many livestock farmers and ranchers are sustainable – whether they raise 10 head or 1,000 head. If you have never heard of the Century Farms Program, you should check it out. The American Farm Bureau Foundation recognizes farms or ranches by state that have been in a family for 100+ years! That is sustainable.There are essentially three things that need to be considered to be sustainable: 1) the economic viability, 2) the environmental response, and 3) the social acceptance. I think you would agree that no matter the type of agriculture system, these are all important to livestock farmers and ranchers.Every farmer and rancher can be sustainable! Sustainability is seen in all types of agriculture — conventional, organic, grass-fed, grain-fed, small, and large. Size of the agricultural enterprise is NOT a determinant of sustainability. Sustainability does not just apply to niche agricultural products.Animal agriculture’s U.S. carbon footprint is small! According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) meat production accounts for 2.1% of total greenhouse gas emissions.If everybody in the U.S. went meatless every Monday for an entire year… The National carbon footprint would only decrease by less than 1/3 of 1 percent!If animal agriculture did not exist, what would be the carbon cost of sourcing product ingredients that currently come from agricultural byproducts? Think about all of the products we use daily (i.e. cosmetics, gelatin based foods, paints, etc.), medications, and even

food for our pets. Animal agriculture helps keep the carbon footprint low!Meat and dairy can be replaced with vegetable proteins, but humans produce methane too!In 1977, it took five animals to produce the same amount of beef as four animals in 2007. Raising beef has become more efficient. In 1977 it took 609 days to get them to a harvest (slaughter) weight, in 2007 it took 485 days. This equates to 3,045 animal days in 1977 and 1,940 animal days in 2007. Raising beef has become more sustainable, and is reducing resources.If we converted our current cattle feeding system entirely to a grass-fed system:We would need 64.6 million more cattle for a grass-fed system. These cattle average a 615 pound hot carcass weight (the weight after the animal has been harvested, hide, hooves, and intestines/variety meats removed), and it would take approximately 679 days to get them to a desirable harvest (slaughter) weight. In comparison, a conventional

(or grain-fed beef animal) has an approximate 800 pound hot carcass weight and takes approximately 444 days to get to desirable harvest weight. All cattle farming/ranching systems are needed and valued, whether it is grain-fed, grass-fed, organic, or natural — one is not better than another, they are just different.If, the entire beef industry converted entirely to grass-fed beef we would need an additional 131 million acres of land, 468 billion gallons of water, and 131 million tones of carbon!Hormones in food are considered unacceptable, but lifestyle hormones are acceptable.One 8 ounce steak from a non-implanted beef animal contains 3.5 ng of estrogen, from an implanted beef animal (a beef animal given additional hormones) it is 5.1 ng of estrogen. One birth control pill delivers 35,000 ng of estrogen. In comparison, a woman would have to eat 3,000 pounds of beef daily

to get the same amount of hormones through meat that is found in birth control!

Growth enhancing Sustainability

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technologies (i.e. growth hormones) reduce the environmental impact of beef by 10.7%! More specifically, 4.2 tonnes of feed, 1 acre of land, and 22,722 gallons of water per 800 pound carcass and reduced if growth enhancement technologies are used.The extra beef produced as a result of using beta-agonists and implants on a single

carcass with supply seven children with school lunches for an entire year!All foods and food systems can be sustainable. Sustainability is best achieved by optimizing efficiency across the entire food and agriculture chain. Technology has allowed beef farmers/ranchers to produce more beef using less resources.

From Page 37Sustainability

Today, seven national organizations, members of the Beef Checkoff Enhancement Working Group (BCEWG), signed a revised Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding agreed-upon enhancements to the national Beef Checkoff Program. These organizations are the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American National CattleWomen, Inc., the Livestock Marketing Association, the Meat Import Council of America, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Livestock Producers Association and the National Milk Producers Federation.

The Beef Checkoff Program is a producer and importer-funded marketing and research program designed to increase global demand for beef. This is accomplished through investments in education, research, and promotion.

The Beef Checkoff Program is funded through a $1 per head assessment each time cattle are sold. Due to inflation, the $1.00 per head checkoff which was implemented in 1986 has deflated to $.47.Highlights of the revised MOU to enhance the national Beef Checkoff Program include:

T h e s e organizations will support legislation to increase the current Beef Checkoff Program of$1.00 per head to $2.00 per head. Within a year of the legislation being signed into law, a referendum will be conducted among beef producers and beef importers to increase the assessment. If a majority of the Beef Checkoff Program payers indicate they would like to increase the checkoff,

the assessment rate would increase. Assessments will continue to be collected as they are now and State Beef Councils will have the authority to retain 50 percent of the assessment. A refund of the additional assessment amount, but not the current $1.00 per head, will be available to beef producers paying into the checkoff.

Every five years, the Secretary of Agriculture will publicize a 30-day comment period of time during which beef checkoff payers may request a referendum vote on the continuation of the Beef Checkoff Program and/or a change to the assessment rate. If ten percent or more beef checkoff payers request such a referendum, a timely

National Beef Organizations Agree on Enhancements to National Beef Checkoff

Program



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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it will establish ingredient definitions and standards for animal feed to increase transparency and assure the safety of the animal food supply. The agency said it will review the list of animal feed ingredient definitions used by industry and state regulators and intends to

align its regulatory process with the aim of making it as uniform as possible from state to state. FDA said it intends to publish a proposed rule establishing certain definitions established by the Association of American Feed Control Officials as the agency’s standards, while its scientists also will evaluate other additives.

FDA Tackles Standards for Animal Feed

referendum will be held. The wishes of beef checkoff payers indicated by a majority vote in the referendum will be implemented. The current ability for the Secretary to conduct a referendum only on the continuation of the beef checkoff if ten percent or more of beef checkoff payers sign a petition will remain in place. The new Joint Nominating Committee, which will recommend candidates to serve on the Beef Promotion Operating Committee (BPOC), will include members from the

Cattlemen’s Beef Board, the Federation of State Beef Councils, and other national organizations representing beef checkoff payers. The Cattlemen’s Beef Board will annually provide all interested eligible contractors information and training on the contracting process.

The group will continue its work to develop a road map for simultaneously recommending and advocating for the outcomes highlighted in the revised MOU.

From Page 38Beef Organizations Agree

A new beef heritage game, The Steaks Are High, was recently launched on the myamericanfarm.org website. In this game, users

pick an avatar character from the beef industry and explore the beef production process from cow-calf operation to livestock auction to stocker

ranch, and finally to the feed yard. The game reinforces national learning standards for mathematics. It also introduces users and their families to how farmers and ranchers care for their animals and the environment. The game is supported by an online eComic lesson plan and activity sheet.My American Farm is an educational game platform launched in 2011 to engage pre-K through fifth-grade learners in agriculture. Today the free site offers 20 agriculturally themed games and more than 100 free

educator resources such as lesson plans, activity sheets and comics.The My American Farm educational resource is a special project of the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture. The site and resources are made possible through the support DuPont Pioneer. Visit http://myamericanfarm.org to take advantage of the free My American Farm resources, games and activities.

A Dirt Road DiaryA Mother’s HopeSteve Lucas

A cowboy’s mom does what she canTo turn her boy into a man With her love and a soft touch.She’s well aware that there isn’t much

Time for her to impartInto her son her loving heart,Before there comes that fateful dayWhen she knows he’ll ride away

To seek his fortune in a way of livingThat is hard and unforgivingCrude and lonely, rough and wildIt breaks her heart to think her child

Could wind up like old men she’s knownOffensive, broken, and all aloneSo she prays for him every night,And that her words are the right

Ones to show how he should live his lifeAnd maybe find a cowboy’s wifeTo love him just as she has done.And she hopes her cowboy son

Will call or write her just to sayI love you, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day


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The 36th Annual Southwest Virginia Performance Tested Bull Sale sponsored by the Virginia Beef Cattle Improvement Association was held Saturday, March 28, 2015 at Wytheville. The 141 bulls offered commanded a record average price of $4740 per head. Breed averages were as follows: 74 Angus averaged $4758, 6 Charolais $4667, 2 Purebred Gelbvieh $4000, 6 Gelbvieh Balancers $4592, 9 Hereford $5250, 20 Purebred Simmental $4225, and 24 SimAngus $5042. The BCIA-influenced Virginia Premium Assured Heifer Sale held in conjunction with the bull sale sold 28 fall-calving bred heifers for an average price of $2836 per head, along with 10 yearling open heifers which averaged $1935.

The strong and steady sale was topped by Polled Hereford Lot 206, bred by Fields Edge Herefords, Terry and Roger Slusher of Floyd, VA and commanded $9000 from Shrader Farms of Rosedale, VA. This September 2013 son of CRR About Time 743 posted CE EPD of +4.3, BMI Index $24, CHB Index $28, along with test ADG and IMF ratios of 124 and 123. Another Fields Edge Polled Hereford, Lot 207, also went to Shrader Farms for $7750. This son of MSU TCF Revolution 4R posted EPDs of +4.9 CE, +57 WW, and RE +0.55 along with a BMI Index of $23. The Angus bulls were topped by the high sale index junior bull, Lot 86, bred by Lucas Farms, Joe Timmy Lucas of Blacksburg, Virginia and selling to Benny Snow of Dobson, NC for $7750. This January 2014 son of GAR Prophet had test YW and test ADG ratios of 116 and 120, complimented by EPDs of +9 CE, +135 YW, and +1.04

MB. Chimney Top Angus of Gray, TN consigned the high selling Senior Angus bull, Lot 34 which sold to William Franklin of Duffield, VA for $7500. This GAR Prophet son posted EPDs of +11 CE, +114 YW, +1.61 MB, $63 $W and +$111 $B along with test YW ratio 111 and IMF ratio of 198. Lucas Farms also bred the high indexing Senior Angus, Lot 19 sired by Rito 9M25 of Rita 5F56 Pred, which sold to Mike Cox of Allisonia, VA for $7000. Another member of Lucas Farms Senior Breeder Group Award consignment, Lot 16- a calving ease GAR Prophet son, commanded $7250 from Glenmary Farm of Rapidan, VA. Little Windy Hills Farms of Max Meadows, VA bred a Connealy Consensus 7229 son, Lot 5, which went to Glenmary Farm of Rapidan, VA for $7250. Another calving ease son of GAR Prophet, Lot 8, was bred by J&M Windy Acres of Maryville, TN and sold to Beecher Allison of Brevard, NC for $7250. Lot 24, a high growth son of EXAR Upshot 0562B from Legacy at Pine Hill Farm of Forest, VA sold

to Stuart Pratt of Draper, VA also for $7250. Brilee Angus Ranch from Timberville, VA was recognized with the Junior Breeder Group Award for their consignement of junior Angus bulls.

A solid set of Charolais bulls was paced by Lot 307 from the Virginia Tech Beef Center and brought $5500 from Warner Gibson Farms of Dailey, WV. Sired by VPI Free Lunch 708T, this bull had WW and YW EPDs of

+43 and +75, along with test YW ratio 110, ADG ratio 125 and REA ratio 108.

Demand was very strong for the SimAngus bulls, led by Lot 439 bred by Reasor Simmentals of Rural Retreat, VA and selling to John Waddy of Petersburg, WV for $7250. This high calving ease, homozygous black son of SAV Bismark 5682 posted a CE EPD +14.7, BW EPD -0.9, and RE ratio 121. Reasor Simmentals’

high sale index award bull, Lot 438, sold to Hill & Hill Farms of Duffield, VA for $6750. This homozygous black son of Sitz Upward 307R had YW EPD +110, YW ratio 119, ADG ratio 109, and RE ratio 111. Virginia Tech Beef Center bred the high indexing junior SimAngus bull, Lot416, which sold to Hillwinds Farm of Dublin, VA for $6750. This MCM Top Grade 018X son had -1.3 BW EPD complimented by

2015 Virginia BCIA Southwest Bull Test & BCIA-Influenced Virginia Premium Assured Heifer Sale Report

Joi Saville, Extension Associateand Scott Greiner, Ph.D.

Extension Animal Scientist, Beef, VA Tech



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test YW ratio 112, ADG ratio 112, and RE ratio 108. Also selling for $6750 was Lot 447 from Hounshell Farms, of Wytheville, Virginia and selling to J&V Land & Cattle of Jonesville, VA. This high performing bull had a test ADG ratio 120, YW EPD +131, and MB EPD +0.88.

The purebred Simmental bulls were led by Lot 401 from Reasor Simmentals and selling to John Waddy of Petersburg, WV for $6500. This son of MR NLC Upgrade U8676 posted +110 YW EPD, +0.36 MB and +0.97 RE, along with +142 API. Another son of MR NLC Upgrade U8676, Lot 413, bred by Virginia Tech Beef Center sold to Dennis Simmons of Elon, NC for $5500. The high sale order index Junior Simmental was Lot 422 consigned by Deer Creek Farm of Lowesville, VA and sold to BGB Farms of Radford, VA.

Demand was strong for the Gelbvieh and Gelbvieh Balancer bulls, which included a sale favorite- Lot

601 consigned by Little Windy Hill Farms of Max Meadows, VA. This September 2013 Gelbvieh Balancer sired by Xterminator 7X sold to Gale Rippey of Galax, VA for $6000. This bull had CED EPD +16, Milk EPD +36 and test ADG ratio 117. Little Windy Hill also had the high selling purebred Gelbvieh, Lot 601, selling to Dusty Long of Galax, VA. This bull was also sired by Xterminator 7X. Compton Farm of Rocky Mount, VA purchased Lot 607 Gelbvieh Balancer bull for $5000. This homozygous black Future Investment X037 son was consigned by Handfula Gelbviehs of Bland, VA.

The BCIA-Influenced Heifer Sale consisted of 28 fall-calving commercial bred heifers, and 10 yearling open heifers. All heifers were designated as Virginia Premium Assured females. Demand was strong and prices steady, as the bred heifers averaged $2836 per head. Virginia Tech Beef Center consigned Lot 2 to top the sale at $3100 selling to McConnell Angus Farm of Somerset, VA. This pair of heifers are sired by LT 598 Bando 5074, due to calve in September, and

bred to VPI Foreman 1Y37. Hillwinds Farm of Dublin, VA consigned the open heifers which averaged $1935. Topping the sale was Lot 15, a trio of GAR Prophet daughters which sold to W$4 Farms of Max Meadows for $2000 per head. A pair of MCR Horizon 081 daughters also sold to W4 Farms for $2000 each.

All bulls and heifers were consigned by members of the Virginia Beef Cattle Improvement Association. Bulls were developed at Hillwinds Farm at Dublin, VA owned and operated by Tim Sutphin. The sale was managed by Virginia BCIA and the Virginia Cattlemen’s Association, and the auctioneer was Mike Jones.

Virginia BCIA and the Southwest Bull and Heifer Sale consignors would like to thank Abingdon Equipment, ABS, Baker Cattle Company, Brilee Angus Ranch, Brown Insurance, Farm Credit, Fields Edge Herefords, First Bank & Trust, G & G Livestock, Genex, Giles Farm Bureau Cooperative,

Handfula Gelbviehs, Lucas Farms, Mt. Airy Equipment, Performance Feeds, Potts Creek Farm, Reasor Simmentals, Select Sires, Snuffy’s General Store, Virginia Gelbvieh Association, and Zoetis for their sponsorship and support.

From Page 40BCIA Sale

Report


Name ___________________________________________

Farm/Business Name ________________________________

Address __________________________________________

Town/City __________________________ State ________________________________

County: ____________________________ Zip Code: ____________________________

Phone: _______________________ Email: _____________________________________

_____ General Membership: $50.00 (Includes subscription to The Virginia Cattlemen newspaper)

______ Allied Industry Member: $300.00 (Local Cattlemen groups and breed associations with budget <$10,000)

______ Allied Industry Member: $600 (Local Cattlemen groups and breed associations with budget >$10,000)

______ Associate Member: $300 (Livestock Markets, Agribusinesses, Lenders with budget <$1 Million)

____ Associate Member: $600 (Livestock Markets, Agribusinesses, Lenders with budget >$1 Million)

____ Associate Member: $1000 (Livestock Markets, Agribusinesses, Lenders with budget >$10 Million)

_____Please renew my membership (Current members only)

♦ Please return to: Virginia Cattlemen’s Association ♦ P. O. Box 9 ♦ Daleville, VA 24083-0009 ♦

Working for Virginia’s Cattle Industry Marketing Virginia feeder cattle through special graded sales, tel-o-auctions, and

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Cattlemen have a voice

Membership benefits include a one year subscription to The Virginia Cattleman newspaper—providing valuable and timely information to VCA members!!

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