Seniors! CELEBRATING OUR
Pages 8 - 9 of the Second Section!
DAIRY ST R
May 22, 2021
“All dairy, all the time”™
Volume 23, No. 7
“We did all of this for healthy calves.” – Jared Capko
A renewed focus on youngstock
Capkos transform calf management with new barn, protocols By Jennifer Coyne jenn@dairystar.com
MARK KLAPHAKE/DAIRY STAR
Jared Capko and Renee Hebig stand in the Capkos’ tunnel-venƟlated calf barn May 17 near Swanville, Minnesota. The Capkos built the barn this past year to improve calf health and wellbeing.
SWANVILLE, Minn. – Jared Capko and Renee Hebig can describe their calf-raising facility in three words: Clean, convenient and efcient. “We did all of this for healthy calves,” Capko said. “Our death loss is down, and these calves are healthier when they leave this barn.” In the second half of 2020, Capko and his family built a 128-by-60 tunnel-ventilated calf barn equipped with four group pens fed with two automatic feeders and 20 individual hutches. Capko milks 300 cows with his dad, Jerry, and uncle, Larry, in Morrison County near Swanville. The family put calves in the barn last November. “We’re getting that consistency now,” said Hebig, calf manager. “We’ve created a system that lets everyone be self-sufcient here, and we’re watching calves succeed.”
Turn to CAPKO | Page 6
A chance to dig in neighbors’ fields Self-guided Winona County cover crop tour encourages hands-on approach By Krista Kuzma
krista.k@dairystar.com
LEWISTON, Minn. – A drive on Winona County backroads early in the spring will showcase a variety of elds with green growth from the many farmers using cover crops. “It’s denitely catching on,” Lance Klessig said about cover crop use in the county. “There’s been a strong increase in the amount of acres cover cropped, at least in the southeast corner of the state.” Klessig, resource specialist for Winona County Soil and Water Conservation District, created a self-guided spring cover crops tour for the county. “Traditionally, we do eld days in person on the farm, but with some of the guidelines with COVID-19, we wanted to look for a different avenue,” Klessig said. “When you do a eld day, it’s a one-time deal. The benet of this tour is it’s over several months and you can go to it when it works for you so it’s got a lot of exibility.” The tour has nine sites including two dairy farm stops: Daley Farms of Lewiston owned by the Daley family and Clear Crest Farm owned by the Miller family. Both are near Lewiston. About half of the tour participants are in the early years of their cover crop experience while the other half has been doing it for many years. Each stop on the map has a sign to mark the location along Turn to CROP TOUR | Page 5
KRISTA KUZMA/DAIRY STAR
Ben Daley stands in a eld that is now planted with corn aŌer having winter rye as a cover crop over the winter on his family’s dairy near Lewiston, Minnesota. Daley’s farm is part of a ninestop self-guided cover crop tour in Winona County.