The Rural Voice, 1986-10, Page 19Before the fire, the Diemerts had three full-time employees. Today
Roy and Agnes, with the help of their children, run their 1,000 -acre
farm without hired help. Clockwise, from top left: Mark, Ron, Roy,
Agnes, Pat and Stephen.
when interest rates were going up
and the banks were having trou-
ble with lenders. They put us in
that same class even though we
never missed a single payment
during that entire time," Roy
says. The Diemerts had a blanket
mortgage covering all their farms.
In retrospect, they believe that
they should have had a single
mortgage drawn up for each
farm. Eventually, however, they
obtained approval for a loan and
were able to purchase a replace-
ment herd. By June of 1982, they
were back up to full production
of milk.
With a steady income once
again, the Diemerts were able to
concentrate on setting their field
program straight. They had been
seeding 190 acres of grass each
year as part of their corn -grass
rotation program, but had seeded
nothing for two years after the
fire.
"That really threw our pro-
gram off, and we've had to buy a
lot of hay for the past two years,
although the corn crop was big-
ger," Roy says. Having gradually
built up their rotation, this year
they had 190 acres seeded to 90
per cent alfalfa and 10 per cern
timothy. Diemert prefers to direct
seed, but often sows barley as
well to fill his straw requirements.
He also grows about 300 acres of
high -moisture corn or corn silage.
Except for 5,000 bales, all the
hay is made into haylage to fill
ten upright silos. (One upright ce-
ment silo was cracked by the in-
tense heat of the fire.)
But the Diemerts had been
forced to cut back on their
operating expenses during the
period when the bank refused
them an operating expense loan.
They reduced fertilizer usage
drastically, saving considerable
expense. Since that time,
however, they have increased
their fertilizer usage. "With all
our cattle now, we need every
stalk we can grow," Roy says.
Their dairy herd now includes up
to 200 cows, and they have a
total of 650 cattle in six barns.
Separate barns are set up for
steers, pre -bred and bred heifers,
mixed calves, and breeding.
One of the few buildings that
was saved from the fire is the calf
barn. A cost efficient structure, it
houses about 60 calves. No straw
is required for bedding. Wash
water from the milkers fills a col-
lection basin and is pumped
through the calf barn, flushing
the waste. "There's not a speck
of straw in that barn." Roy says,
"Can you imagine how much
straw it would otherwise take?
That saves a man because there's
never any cleaning to do. We
haven't cleaned that barn
manually since we built it seven
or eight years ago."
The majority of the cows pur-
chased after the fire were the
same age. As Roy says, "they're
all getting old at once." As a
result, the Diemerts are now cull-
ing. Before the fire, they'd sold
heifers to the U.S. and Mexico,
and had had three local reduction
sales. This year they managed to
sell 13 heifers to Texas, but will
be keeping the majority to build
up their herd quality and increase
their BCA of 119. "We've just
had heifers that are worthwhile in
OCTOBER 1986 17