From Traditional Confinement Dairying to Grazing Replacement Heifers

I would like to share an account of a transition from a conventional dairy operation to our current Management Intensive Grazing (MIG) enterprise. In 1974, I joined my father who at that time had been dairying on a 265 acre farm in Lincoln County, Kentucky for twenty five years. We fed our registered Holsteins corn silage and alfalfa haylage and purchased a manufactured feed. Our herd of 70 Holsteins spent most of their time on concrete. We did make an effort to allow access to an exercise lot when weather permitted. However, during the greater part of the 1990’s we spent a great deal of time treating various hoof problems. These problems included heel warts, abscesses and foot rot. I was spending more time trimming hooves than managing the dairy. Milk production was more than adequate, but herd health was not. We had always raised our own heifers, mostly on pasture; their health was acceptable. Foot problems were almost non-existent for these heifers

Farmer Panel--Managed Grazing and Profits

Profits are the goal of any business model and mine is no exception. My plan assumes that available natural resources are efficiently utilized in a responsible manner.I have chosen to implement that plan by producing, managing and marketing our forage resources by utilizing Management Intensive Grazing (MIG.

How I Produce, Manage and Market Forages

I would like to amend the title to: “How I Produce, Manage and Market Forages, Profitably.” My experience has led me to believe that keeping things simple has allowed me to focus better and that has led to profitability. This has led me to make every effort to reduce my reliance on machinery and to allow the cows to do the work. I focus on maximizing forage utilization and minimizing the number of days of feeding stored feeds

Technical Service Provider: What Is It and Why Is It Important To You?

Progressive graziers and forage managers are continually looking to improve their operations’ productivity. The opportunity exists to have a Grazing Management Plan developed for your operation at little or no cost to you. By contacting your county NRCS office, you can apply to have this plan developed by a Technical Service Provider, an independent professional certified by NRCS

From Confinement to Grazing

A Tale of Two Businesses: I would like share an account of a transition from a conventional dairy operation to our current Management Intensive Grazing (MIG) enterprise. In 1974, I joined my father who had been dairying on a 265 acre farm in Lincoln County, Kentucky for twenty five years. We fed our registered Holsteins corn silage and alfalfa haylage and purchased a manufactured feed. Our herd of 70 Holsteins spent most of their time on concrete. We did make an effort to allow access to an exercise lot when weather permitted. However, during most of the 1990’s we spent a great deal of time treating various hoof problems. These problems included heel warts, abscesses and foot rot. I was spending more time trimming hooves than managing the dairy. Milk production was more than adequate, but herd health was not. We had always raised our own heifers, mostly on pasture; their health was acceptable. Foot problems were almost non-existent for these heifers

Alfalfa as a Grazing Crop

Planning a “Forage Sequence” implies that a stockman provides nutritious and palatable forage crops for grazing for as many days of the year possible. Cool season perennial grasses and legumes give Kentucky forage growers an competitive advantage over those in many other states. That advantage declines during the heat of our summers, however. Providing a solution to our “Summer Slump” is a challenge to stockmen throughout the South. This “Summer Slump” is the result of low yield of cool season forages during the heat and drier conditions of July, August and September. Another factor hindering livestock gains is the fescue endophyte which affects heat tolerance and gains in cattle

Electronic structure of superconducting graphite intercalate compounds: The role of the interlayer state

Although not an intrinsic superconductor, it has been long--known that, when intercalated with certain dopants, graphite is capable of exhibiting superconductivity. Of the family of graphite--based materials which are known to superconduct, perhaps the most well--studied are the alkali metal--graphite intercalation compounds (GIC) and, of these, the most easily fabricated is the C${}_8$K system which exhibits a transition temperature $\bm{T_c\simeq 0.14}$K. By increasing the alkali metal concentration (through high pressure fabrication techniques), the transition temperature has been shown to increase to as much as $\bm 5$K in C${}_2$Na. Lately, in an important recent development, Weller \emph{et al.} have shown that, at ambient conditions, the intercalated compounds \cyb and \cca exhibit superconductivity with transition temperatures $\bm{T_c\simeq 6.5}$K and $\bm{11.5}$K respectively, in excess of that presently reported for other graphite--based compounds. We explore the architecture of the states near the Fermi level and identify characteristics of the electronic band structure generic to GICs. As expected, we find that charge transfer from the intercalant atoms to the graphene sheets results in the occupation of the $\bm\pi$--bands. Yet, remarkably, in all those -- and only those -- compounds that superconduct, we find that an interlayer state, which is well separated from the carbon sheets, also becomes occupied. We show that the energy of the interlayer band is controlled by a combination of its occupancy and the separation between the carbon layers.Comment: 4 Figures. Please see accompanying experimental manuscript "Superconductivity in the Intercalated Graphite Compounds C6Yb and C6Ca" by Weller et a