The Rural Voice, 2006-01, Page 20HOW BIG A COOLER DO I REALLY NEED?
MUELLER
Depends on a lot of things. But one thing's certain. Mueller
makes the milk cooler that's right for your operation. And
it's built to last. So it'll have high resale value the day you
need a bigger cooler. For help deciding how big a milk
cooler you need. contact Buchanan & Hall
BUCHANAN & HALL
REFRIGERATiGN • HEATING - AIR CONDITIONING
656 O'Loane Avenue (at Huron Street) Stratford
Email: info@buchanan-hall.com
Phone: (519) 271-4793 • Toll Free. 1-877-893-4628
THE MILK COOLING SYSTEMS SPECIALISTS
This is the season to be ordering your
seeds for the 2006 cropping season.
At Hill & Hill Farms, we bring more value to your
farming operation by offering seeds from the following
companies:
Consider these available varieties & genetics:
Roundup Ready Corn
Roundup Ready Soybeans
Liberty Link Hybrids
Bt Hybrids
Stacked Gene Hybrids
Speciality Soybean Contracts
Call Pete or Carol for further details
519-233-3218
16 THE RURAL VOICE
I don't."
For the dairy producer, for whom
forage quality is so important, how to
get the best forage is the key, says
Thomas.
For hay and haylage, most Ontario
fields will produce better with an
alfalfa/grass mixture, he said. But
often farmers spend time selecting
the right variety of alfalfa but spend
little time on the grass side of the
mixture, he said. "Don't say 'throw
in some grass'," he urged producers.
"Spend time selecting the species (of
grass) and then the variety within the
species."
"I hate orchard grass," he said
passionately. Orchard grass almost
always matures early and it's very
aggressive, he said. At the Miner
Institute where he has a herd of 310
cows, they have a 75 per cent alfalfa
mix, often with canary grass which,
he said, feeds better than it looks.
As for alfalfa varieties, there's
usually a 20 per cent yield
difference
between the best and worst varieties,
he said. He suggested producers not
be too worried about disease -
resistance in varieties but he worries
more about leaf hopper resistance.
"I've a much more aggressive
attitude toward leaf hopper
resistance," he said, though he noted
there are more hopper resistant
varieties available in the U.S. than in
Canada. The newest resistant
varieties have similar yield and seed
prices to regular varieties. Though
the earliest developed resistant
varieties had a yield disadvantage to
non-resistant varieties, with today's
resistant varieties you'll gain in a
year with leaf hopper problems and
in a year when they aren't so bad,
you'll still get a normal yield. The
cost last year was $1 per unit
difference, he said.
The hopper resistance is not due
to any kind of genetic engineering, he
said, but rather a selection process
that chooses plants with glandular
hairs that are sticky and discourage
leaf hoppers.
As performance expectations for
dairy cattle have increased, Thomas
said, alfalfa management has become
much more aggressive. When typical
milk production was 7,000 litres per
cow, recommended management saw
first cut alfalfa harvested at 10 per