Manure Hauling, Disking and Seeding!

Well the past two days at Innislake Dairy farm have been fairly hectic! We finally were able to spread some manure on the fields. In dairy farming you have lagoons were you store all the feces and urine from the milking cows. We clean our lagoon out twice a year and spread it on the fields using it as fertilizer for our barley crop. It is very important to fertilize the fields so you can get the best out of your crop, spreading the manure is a cheaper than fertilizing with chemicals but has the same effect. At Innislake we have recently started stock pilling the straw from our corrals and with our first trial we were very happy with and are continuing the process.  Stockpiling was an idea from my grandpa and he is in charge of the operation. We pile it in the corner of a field were it starts to get heated and decrease in size. It is stirred around every month and the decrease in size is cheaper to spread, easier to work into the field and is more efficient as a fertilizer.  After school I have helped with disking the fields after the manure has been spread. This is important to work the manure into the field to enrich the soil for greater crop production. About 4 weeks ago we planted our 30 acres of corn for silage. Last week we spread fertilizer on our pastures that we let the cows and heifers graze on. We also fertilized our 90 acres of alfalfa that is starting to look very nice! Today we started seeding our 160 acres of barley that will be all used for silage. We bag our corn and a bit of the barley silage to keep it in the best condition and let it ferment. The majority of the barley silage is packed into a pit that we feed from all winter long! Well I better get back to work before it rains!