Bren 2 Farm Site And Study Design

Understanding Nutrient & Sediment Loss at Breneman Farms - 2
Farm, Site and Study Design
Kevan Klingberg
UW Extension/Discovery Farms

Breneman Farms
Breneman Farms, Inc. is located in south-central Wisconsin, 5 miles east of Wyocena in Columbia County.
The grass-based dairy is owned and operated by Bob and Karen Breneman.

Breneman Farms
Columbia County, WI.
Middle Branch Duck Creek Watershed.
Embedded within the Lower Wisconsin Watershed.
Eventually drains to the Mississippi River.

Breneman Farms
In 1970 the Brenemans built a free stall barn and milking parlor complex.
For the first 20 years it was operated as a modern confinement dairy.

Breneman Farms
In 1993 they began planting permanent grass pastures.
Over the next 3 years the entire farm was fenced and converted to Management Intensive Grazing (MIG).

Breneman Farms
200 acres open pastureland.
Divided into 42 paddocks.
75 % grass + 25 % legume mix.
Lapeer-Wyocena sandy soils.
1-9 % slopes on paddocks.
Subject to seasonal drought.
Careful management needed to minimize wind erosion and N leaching.

Breneman Farms
Property line fences are permanent.
Larger paddocks are subdivided daily with temporary polywire.
System includes simple electric wire gates, each opening into the next paddock for animal travel.
Improved cattle walking lanes are maintained between paddocks, as well as to the milking facility.
Remote water is provided by permanent water lines (some buried, others on the surface) that supply tanks equipped with floats.

Breneman Farms
Rotationally graze 80 crossbred dairy cows + 40 replacement heifers.
Grazing season stocking rate is 1.6 acres per mixed animal unit.

Breneman Farms
Dairy cows and replacement heifers spend the majority of their time grazing within the paddock system.
Cows are milked 2 times per day.
For disease control, calves younger than 6 months have a paddock system separate from the older animals.

Breneman Farms
Forage management and animal movement into paddocks varies based on seasonal plant growth.
Cows graze for 12-36 hours, depending on paddock size.
Heifers move into paddock vacated by the cows for another 12-36 hours of “clean up” grazing.
Grazed paddocks receive approximately a 30 day rest.
South-central WI primary grazing season = 180 days.

Breneman Farms
Existing vegetative cover on pastures include orchard grass,
brome grass, reed canary grass, timothy, quack grass, Kentucky
blue grass, Kura clover, red clover and white clover.

Breneman Farms
All paddock areas are accessible by machinery for forage harvesting and stand improvement.
Pasture renovation includes frost seeding of select legumes and grasses to improve and diversify forage stands.
Re-seed and repair heavy traffic areas, remote feeding areas and out-winter areas.
Row crops are not grown. All grain and some winter forages are purchased.

Breneman Farms
Through the winter 80 dairy cows and 40 replacement heifers are congregated into 2 acre out-winter paddock lots for 7-10 days.
128 mixed animal units on 2 acre paddocks
moved ~ every week.
Fed on-site.
Utilize as much as 100 acres through the winter, depending on season, weather, desire to renovate paddocks, etc.
Winter stocking rate is approximately 0.5 acres / mixed animal unit, depending on season and paddock acres used.

Breneman Nutrient Management
The farm has a nutrient management plan developed to meet specifications of the WI-NRCS Nutrient Management 590 Standard.
The farm also cooperated with UW-Discovery Farms and NRCS to develop a Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plan (CNMP).

Wisconsin Phosphorus Index (PI)
WI-NRCS 590 sets upper PI limit of 6.0.
PI on Breneman paddocks that are not used to out-winter cattle are all less than 1.0.
Rotational PI for paddocks where cattle are out-wintered range from 1.1 to 3.6.
Meets PI standard

Annual P removal from the soil for this grazing system is estimated at 45 lbs / acre P2O5, based on 3 ton DMI forage production.
Grazing season manure deposition = 24 lbs / acre P2O5 nutrient credit.
Out-winter manure deposition = additional 15 lbs / acre P2O5 nutrient credit for paddocks used as out-winter sites. (24 + 15 = 39).
Current farm P applications (natural deposition via grazing cattle) are less than crop removal rate from the soil.

Paddocks are managed for productive, high quality forage from perennial sod, as needed for livestock grazing.
Tolerable (T) soil erosion levels are 4 or 5 tons per acre per year, depending on soil type.
RUSLE 2 soil loss estimates on this farm average 0.04 tons per acre per year.

Grazing season manure nutrient crediting:
Rotationally graze 1,200 lb crossbred cows and associated replacement stock through the spring, summer and fall growing season. (2/3 of the year).
An estimate of 8 tons per acre of solid dairy manure is deposited directly to the land within the pasture system, April – November.
Using UWEX book value nutrient content: 24 N – 24 P2O5 – 56 K2O per acre is supplied back to the pasture soil fertility and plant nutrient needs cycle.

Winter season manure nutrient crediting:
Cows and older heifers are out-wintered on selected paddocks through the winter. (1/3 of the year).
An estimated 5 tons per acre of additional solid dairy manure is deposited directly to the land within the out-wintering paddocks, December - March.
This manure supplies: 15 N – 15 P2O5 – 35 K2O per acre in addition to manure nutrients supplied in the grazing season. (UWEX book value nutrient content, solid dairy manure, 1st year available).

Breneman On-Farm Research
On-farm research was conducted on the Breneman farm to investigate environmental challenges and opportunities for grass-based dairies on the Wisconsin landscape, 2002-2007.
Surface water quality monitoring was conducted to measure sediment and nutrient loads in runoff water from paddocks that were used for regular rotational grazing, then again used to seasonally out-winter the dairy herd.

Information Available
This presentation is the second in a series of seven developed to provide the data and information collected at Breneman Farms.
All of the presentations, factsheets and briefs are available on the UW - Discovery Farms website.
http://www.uwdiscoveryfarms.org

Information Available
There are seven factsheets available for Breneman Farms.
There are eight briefs available for Breneman Farms (2 page summaries of the factsheets).
There are seven presentations available for Breneman Farms.

For Additional Information
http://www.uwdiscoveryfarms.org
UW Discovery Farms
40195 Winsand Drive
PO Box 429
Pigeon Falls, WI 54760
1-715-983-5668
jgoplin@wisc.edu or drframe@wisc.edu

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Bren 2 Farm Site And Study Design

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