by Bea Peterson
The Sheffer family of Sheffer’s Grassland Dairy in Hoosick hosted a grazing land conservation farm workshop in conjunction with the Rensselaer County Soil & Water Conservation District and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service on Thursday, November 6. A lunch of local pastured beef hamburgers and hot dogs was enjoyed by everyone in the open under rainy skies.
About 40 people attended the event, including Hoosick Town Supervisor Marilyn Douglas and Rensselaer County Legislator Lester Goodermote. After lunch folks moved to the cover of the milk house to hear Dr. Darrell Emmick, MRCS Grazing Specialist, USDA-NRCS speak about the “Importance of Biodiversity in Pastures.” Before Emmick spoke, Eric Sheffer gave an overview of the family’s first year operating a seasonal, rotational grazing dairy, breeding heifers, calving, grazing and milking. Later Wally Sheffer showed off the Swing 12 Dairymaster milking parlor.
Welcome To Epigenetics
Dr. Emmick said it is not just genes that make the cows, the grass or any of us what we are. It is a combination of genes, environment and behavior/lifestyles that determine what we are. Welcome to the field of epigenetics. A Holstein, for example, is a very narrow diversity, bred for milk production only. Take that Holstein and put it in a different environment and production will change. “A lot of what we thought is not as true as we thought,” he said. Biodiversity can change the outcome of a field, for example. Different plants do different things, he said. Monocultural rye grass, once thought to be a good idea is not the best way to go. It is much better to have a biodiverse field. His handout explains, “The greater the biodiversity in the ecosystem, the greater the stability of the system, the more resilient the system is to disturbance and the better the ability of the system to recover after a disturbance. The best way for us to ensure that our animals are not getting a toxin overload or suffer losses in dry matter intake due to taste aversions is to plant pastures with high species diversity.”
Every food on the planet is toxic to some degree, he said. The only difference between toxins and medicines is the difference in the dose. Dandelions, for example contain 68 different nutrients.
Unfortunately, it was too wet and rainy for Dr. Emmick to guide a tour of the Sheffers’ fields to show the biodiversity of their planting.
District Conservationist Eric Swanson described some of the many programs available to benefit farmers in Rensselaer County. “Highlight what you need for good environmental stewardship,” he said. “We have an excellent strategy for good sound agricultural practices in Rensselaer County.” There are programs for conservation payment, fencing, grazing systems, livestock, water fowl, laneways, reseeding and wetland and stream equipment.
Wally and Kathy Sheffer are the fifth generation of direct descendants on their farm. Wally’s dad was operating a small dairy farm that also sold heifers when Wally and Kathy purchased the property. Working with the Rensselaer County Cooperative Extension, the new owners chose to grow and sell both hay and high moisture corn. In a few years they added raising heifers to their business. After 15 years they discontinued raising heifers and expanded the hay grown to an additional 100 acres off the farm.
“Soon after the farm purchase the Sheffers contacted the Soil & Water Conservation District and NRCS for services regarding sub-surfacing tiling. Over the course of two years they installed five and a half miles of tile on the home farm. In addition to this they installed tiling on one of the leased farms. After completing the tiling project, thousands of feet of hedgerows were removed and conservation strips were laid out across the entire farm and two leased farms. They developed a forest plan with DEC yielding the sale of thousands of board feet of hardwood and several cord of firewood.
“In the mid 1990s the Sheffers signed a long term agreement with the Natural Resources Conservation Service as part of the Tomhannock Watershed Project. Since then, as part of the project, they have installed a 500,000 gallon manure pit and set up a rotational grazing system. This rotational grazing system includes seven and a half miles of fence, closing in 113 acres of pasture on the home farm.
The Sheffers started renovating the main free stall barn in 2006 by putting in additional roofing and making the stall area into what is a composted bedded pack for up to 120 dairy cows and the trusses for the milking facilities were constructed. The barn renovation, the milking parlor, holding area and milk house roof structures were built entirely from lumber taken from the home farm’s woodland.
One hundred heifers were purchased and grazed the new pasture system in the spring of 2007.