BUILDING BETTER SOIL is what, and when, you choose to plant

The soil is a “living” organism, in the sense it is capable of growing something 365 days a year, either above or below ground  (as with cover crops).

Only growing a monocultural (grain) crop, which from planting to harvesting takes up to 125 days in Michigan latitudes, leaves the soil barren of crops for 240 or more days—  eroding, incubating weeds, while starving the soil biology.

Rotating crops with winter covers and spring-harvested forages, is the first step in regenerating the water holding capacity and tilth of your soils.  Yields will increase.

 

BUILDING  BETTER  SOIL   is returning your livestock to the land

Assuming that we have returned all the animal fertility to the soil by spreading a manure stockpile (or a liquid from a lagoon) is only 30% to 40% true.

Nothing stimulates soil life as much as the real-time passage of livestock across the land.    In the days of wagon trains moving west, the immense growth of grass in the prairies (which annually saw the passage of buffalo and year-around all the species lesser in size) was so dense, and so TALL, that you could not see wagons moving.    (They followed paths of Indian hunters to avoid being totally lost).   It is not just manure fibers, but urine and its retained enzymes, it is hair, it is sluffed off cells, anything falling off the buffalos’ (or cattles’) backs fed some element of the soil life.   

The separation of livestock from soil contact  (accelerated since 1968’s sweeping farm bill beginning subsidies for exportable row crops)  has been part of degrading soil structure, tllth and productivity.

 

If you don’t mind building fence, send your momma cows to pasture, where they will get sunlight vitamins, eat fresh grass, attain healthier levels of body condition, improve circulatory health from exercise, and regain muscle tone to calve easier.

Allen Williams, PhD (Genetics and Reproductive Physiology) thoughts

Allen grew up on a multi-specie farm in South Carolina;  attended Clemson University intending to return to the family farm.   Instead he was recruited into grad school on a research fellowship and ended up a tenured professor, teaching at Clemson for fifteen years.    He came to perceive that the trend in Agricultural colleges was to research and treat “symptoms” -- rather than the causes – of farm management issues, including lack of profitability.    Leaving Clemson to return to the farm, his college colleagues told him he was making a “disastrous financial mistake”!   He saw that attitude as an indictment of the Ag college viewpoint, that anyone trained as they do could not “make it” actually farming!!!   Today he is a recognized leading voice in “Regenerative Agriculture” concepts and consults worldwide.

Allan has a regular column in Stockman Grass Farmer magazine.   I am taking his online course  “The Basics of Sound Genetics”  and wanted to share some of his introductory ideas with you.

Adaptive  Stewardship

In Allan’s grasp of Genetics  (the “Genetics” industry is basically trait statistics, not biology)  we are forgetting that genotypes do not have a rigid response in all environments,  but “adapt” to the environments we provide (from our view, either positively or negatively).    The emerging science of “Epigenetics” is his current focus, and his term “Adaptive Stewardship” pushes us to be more proactive in creating an environment in which the genetics of soil biology, plant variety and animal breeding have a productive coexistence.

Compared to the North American continent when settlers first arrived here, ALL our farmed and pastured land is a “degraded” resource  --  supporting less bioactivity in the soil, fewer varieties of plants, and thus animals that tend to need energy supplementation to reach market stages.

Degraded ecosystem

In specifics, the ratio of mycchorizal fungi to bacteria is way off the optimum.    Fungi produces the “glue” that holds soil structure together, and aids in the transport of nutrients into the root zone of our plants.    The loss of this fungal balance in soils has led us to an increasing volume of chemical fertilizer use, increasing the cost of every crop we grow.

The goal in “Regenerative Ag” is (1) to redevelop bio-active soils with high organic matter, (2) a soil structure that provides proper water cycling, (3) an increased diversity in beneficial plant species, leading to (4) improved and ,more predictable animal performance.     These are steps beyond the concepts of “Sustainable Agriculture”, in which we focus on practices that keep us in business through controlling cost of inputs (in commodity agriculture, profits flow to lowest cost producers rather than those who keep buying inputs seeking higher volume production).

Both Sustainable Ag and Regenerative Ag are clearly different approaches than what is seen as “spend your way to prosperity” mainstream agriculture thinking (as extolled by most land grant universities whose research focuses are financed by industrial Ag vendors).    In the mainstream of agriculture, the typical consultant will say things like  “at current crop values we can’t afford to feed the SOIL so let’s focus on feeding the next CROP”.     Given a strong trend in farming over the recent fifty years toward more annual row crops and less perennial forages and permanent pasture, farmers struggle with more soil compaction, less rainfall retention, more weeds, losing organic matter, and with the separation of livestock into concentrated feed lots, losing biological balance in the soil.    Thus our animals have more health and insect trouble, as nutrient density in their feed decreases linearly with the relentless chasing of higher crop yields via chemicals.

Summary quotes

“Nature will humble you, and if you are fighting nature she will defeat you.”    In the linear study of individual traits (plant or animal) we have tended to pursue these too far, into extremes.

Wendell Berry, KY farmer and sage, writing in New York Times in 2018:
“Agricultural choices must be made by these inescapable standards:  the ecological health of the farm, and the economic health of the farmer.”     [Farmer suicide rates have increased each year since 2018, clearly Mr Berry’s standards are not being followed.]

Masenobu Fukuoka, Japanese researcher and eminent farming observer:
“An object seen in isolation from the whole is not the real thing.”    [This is applicable to current tendencies in ag research to break the big picture down to fractions of the total issue.]      

What does all this mean?

To focus on animal genetics alone, instead of starting with soil biology, is to limit your success.

Among recent announcements from Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding

Mark Curry    (989) 984- 7027      Route Services and Sales
Sue Palen       (989) 277- 0480      Office manager/  Product order desk
Greg Palen     (989) 277- 6031      Approver “aAa” Breeding Guide analyzer  (since 1994)

Mich Livestock Service, Inc     “For the Best in Bulls”    “High Energy forage seeds”
110 N Main St   (PO Box 661)   Ovid, MI  48866                phone (989) 834-2661
email: greg@michiganlivestock.com       website: www.michiganlivestock.com

“We are no longer using Mature Equivalent (ME) factors in genetic evaluations”

This is quite a profound statement, as I will prove in the following.    Ever since the AIPL (USDA) changed the “one size fits all” dairy ranking from “Net Merit” (focused on accelerating lactation milk volume) to “Lifetime Net Merit” (adding in “Productive Life”) and, fifteen years later, proceeded to change over to “Genomics” (reading the DNA instead of waiting for progeny data)  the Genetics industry has claimed all success for the rising per-cow milk production across the mainstream Dairy world.

Primary to their salesmanship has been “accelerating” young cow production with goals of seeing increased lifetime production.    Now, with the discontinuance of “ME” factors, we can see these two goals are no longer compatible, as they might have been in the 1970s when leading Geneticists believed:  ”select for more milk based on PTA values and all other desired traits will just naturally improve alongside”…  but too many of all those “other desired traits” went sideways.     Their measurement of “more milk” was based on standard 305 day lactations (as reported by DHIA), multiplied by “ME” factors to equivalate what matured (fourth and later calving) cows typically produced.

These ME factors, depending on breed, added 33% to 40% to the actual first lactation yields of cows…  20% to 25% to second lactation yields…   across the board, “one size fits all”, whether that young cow calved back in 365 days or took 500 days;  whether she ever lived to maturity!

Generations of extra credit were given to hard breeding, shorter herdlife cows

There is no doubt that, as cows avoid conceiving for an annual re-calving  (as those grazing in seasonal calving windows always needed)  and extend their lactation, the odds of getting her rebred—and the odds of avoiding metabolic diseases on that next calving --  both decrease. 

As we learned through generations of cows where fertility declined in every generation, and led to widespread use of Ov Synch reproduction in dairies today, the measuring of production to a standard of “first 305 days” disadvantaged bulls like Paclamar Astronaut who, although +1466m at 99% Reliability in his own generation of sires AND the greatest source of milk proteins in his generation  (= Penstate Ivanhoe Star,  Pawnee Farm Arlinda Chief,  Paclamar Bootmaker,  and Round Oak Rag Apple Elevation), transmitted too much fertility  (bred back too easily)  for his sons and-- more importantly-- grandsons, to compete on PD Milk;  a measure based not on daughters compared to their dams  (the original purpose  of ME factors, enable immaturity to compare against maturity intergenerationally)  but on daughters vs unrelated herdmates, which USDA-AIPL began in 1962.     The pace of genetic change traded “milk” for “fertility” very fast.

Today it is hindsight;   in the earlier days, it was purebred breeders  vs.  extension/AI studs

Many of the more experienced breeders, including those involved in breeding the “best” sires into the 1960s  (as the bulls mentioned above were all born)  cautioned that a single-trait focus on higher PD milk sires would steadily shrink breed bloodline diversity.    Today we know that pedigree “inbreeding” began to rise from the beginning of the “index” era, and is now climbing faster in the “genomic” era.    In the AI industry there are only two bloodlines left--  “Elevation” and “Arlinda Chief” – representing 25% of the total Holstein genotype.  

Beginning in the 1970s, regional AI cooperatives began young sire programs to compete with national breeding companies (ABS, Curtiss, Carnation) who had the first access to herdsires of leading breeding herds.    With the support of USDA- AIPL and University extension geneticists designing the sampling programs, this system promoted PD yields over the broader selection of type plus production plus longevity of production on which “breeder” selection focused.    Who generated the bigger numbers?   The single-trait selection approaches based on the indexes, in which obsolete “ME” factors continued to inflate the deviations between sires.

Earlier maturity of production proved to be associated with earlier aging of the cow physique

Speed through dozens of generations.    Cows who set the highest “peaks” in the days of in-barn “challenge feeding” got more energy supplements, made a bigger 305 day record, got it inflated by the ME factors, allowing their sires the highest PD Milk values.    Breed higher-peak sires to daughters of other higher-peak sires was the genetic progression for AI stud contract matings.

At each step of dairy industry transition, the genetic theories based on hand feeding cows in stanchion barns (where no physical uniformity of cows mattered in their management) never changed, including the use of ME factors (made obsolete by the 1974 “Modified Contemporary Comparisons”, inaugurating Predicted Transmitting Ability, or PTA which now factored in sire pedigree values for “contemporary” herdmates as well as the bulls themselves).

By the time a widespread shift in favor of crossbreeding to combat obvious signs of inbreeding depression was occurring, basically a market rejection of “indexes”-- the “Lifetime Net Merit” came into being.    For the first time we now had sire indexes for Stillbirths as part of Calving Ease, Somatic Cell Score, Daughter Pregnancy Rates, and thus Productive Life to counter the shortening average herdlife of commercial dairy cows.

But by the time Genomics was introduced twelve years ago, the periodic shortage of heifer replacements led to a market for gender-selected semen, and average commercial cow life settled unchanged into an average herd life of 2.3 lactations.    Today, 80% of all cows milked have their “peak” lactation total in their second calving, leaving most herds mid lactation after their third calving.   80% of all Holsteins leave herds prior to reaching the mature age and production level predicted by the tradition of “ME” (mature equivalent).    Most of the sire bloodlines who offered production gains into physical maturity  (such as Paclamar Astronaut represented—that “Y” chromosome Dr Chad Dechow at Penn State University says is now lost from the commercial AI sire population) are essentially lost from Embryo donor herds being used by mainstream AI studs.

What can you do to get a profitable lifetime bred into your replacements?

Given herd replacements now cost twice what they did three years ago, at the same milk prices—a different breeding strategy is clearly needed.

We have built our dairy sire programs around a strategy that will succeed in breeding for a “longevity of production” as the mainstream PTA approach focused on “Productive Life” has failed.    By the time CDCB discontinued using “ME” factors, the damage to dairy genetics was already done.     However, breeding cows with competitive longevity of production still exist, and Zoetis’ genome research into “wellness” proves that cows who reach functional maturity still produce 30% more milk than first lactation cows.   That means you can breed for a full lifetime cow and accomplish it.    A 30% gain as a cow matures exceeds any theorized gain by the highest PTA Genomic values on the newest young sires.    

If you are struggling with profitability after focusing genetic selection on marginal gains of young age productivity, give us a call.     Getting just one more calving from each cow will increase your herd production cheaper than any other selection strategy that is practical.

Breeding for Longevity is quite possible !
Just requires a different strategy than you may be getting from other advisors

I analyze (aAa system)  for a 2600 cow dairy in central Ohio that recently sold a semi potload of short bred heifers to a larger dairy in Texas, receiving a check for six figures…  which covers a lot of fall expenses.     They do not use Ov Synch AI or gender-selected semen, they do not even raise GMO crops!    How did they have a surplus of heifers?   Because a quarter of their cows have now calved four or more times! -and are producing at mature levels of milk (30% more than their heifers).

You can get the same results.    

If you currently spend money on Genomic testing, our strategy will even be a lot cheaper!      Ask yourself if what you are currently doing is working in this way.
If it isn’t give us a call.

MIch Livestock Service, Inc   “For the Best in Bulls”    “For high energy forages”

Ph (989) 834- 2661    email: greg@michiganlivestock.com       text: 989 277 6031

 

Storing, shipping and handling embryos

Most semen today can be shipped via Federal Express or U P S in special containers known as “vapor phase” shippers.    These specialized tanks  (MVE calls them “Doble” tanks)  have liners that absorb the liquid nitrogen, and release nitrogen vapor into the center chamber where your semen is placed.    Upon arrival, the correct procedure is to add nitrogen to the center chamber and then transfer the shipment into standard liquid nitrogen semen tanks.

Why add liquid nitrogen into a vapor shipper on arrival?     Liquid Nitrogen is 320F below zero while Nitrogen Vapor is only 140F below zero.     Sperm cells are a simpler cell than an embryo (which has gone through a week of cell division before freezing) and are safe at vapor temps.  However, moving semen canes from vapor temps into the ambient air temp can raise semen temps enough to cause crystalline shifts in the fluids.    This can dislodge essential acrosomal caps on the heads of the sperm cells.    It is the acrosome that enables fertilization of the ovum (merely having “motile” sperm is not enough).

It is for this reason that we suggest your CATTLE VISION semen come through us, as we always have nitrogen at the office to pour into shippers to cool semen down to the liquid temps.    As an added bonus, our volume of orders from C V means you will get “free” shipping, so lowers your total cost.     Maintaining semen quality up to the point of insemination is our goal.

EMBRYOS  ARE  SO  MUCH  TOUCHIER

Optimal storage and transport of embryos is to be in the liquid nitrogen at all times.    While they are often shipped in vapor shippers, here it is essential to have liquid nitrogen to charge that vapor shipper before moving the embryos into your tank storage.

An embryo is eight days old at the time it has been collected and frozen, so have gone through much cell division and is a “layered” cell, 20x the size of a sperm cell.    All those interior walls of membrane are more fragile than the simple tail, body and acrosome cap of a sperm.    Longer storage in vapor (rather than liquid) will cause deterioration of the embryo.

Thus, in our route delivery system, with so many of you storing embryos on the farm, we stick with the eight week recharge interval for your storage tanks, even though the newest models could hold semen safely for twice as long between recharges.     This is designed so that older models and large mouth models, typically only rated for twelve weeks holding, still have that margin of safety that supports long term storage of semen.    BUT if you are storing embryos, your longest holding tanks is where they belong.   In this way, enbryos will always be deep in the liquid volume of the tank not subject to that 180 degree transition from vapor to liquid nitrogen temperature.

WHAT ABOUT THOSE ¼ CC SEXED STRAWS?

These have a minimal of extender and a lower concentration of sperm cells than unsexed straws

Semen storage, transport, handling and thawing

 

There has been a lot of discussion on these topics  this winter.   Many inseminators are in such a hurry they put the straw directly into the AI gun unthawed, theorizing the cow’s body temperature will thaw it adequately.    Others, especially those trained by CRI Genex, are using “pocket thaw” rather than the universally recommended warm water bath.

CRI Genex (and Taurus Service) were the only major AI companies to use whole milk as a fluid extender for semen straw packaging.    “Cream” is the natural substance most able to protect the sperm cells through the critical temperatures at which water crystallizes.    Thus they could get away with recommending “pocket thaw”, knowing full well that this would damage sperm cells extended in the more common egg yolk, powdered citrate, or soybean oil fluids used by their AI competitors.   In our opinion, given you generally do not know which choice was made for the bulls you buy, warm water thaw bath at temperatures between 92 F and 98 F are your best bet, especially for late fall, winter, and early spring when air temperatures are well below a cow’s body temp.

Why was whole milk not universally used?    (1)  the cream content of commercial “whole” milk varies by 40%  (3.25% minimum to over 4% blended average);  (2)  it is the most difficult media to be able to see the motility and acrosomal retention on sperm cells, requiring more expensive magnification.   Volume semen produced in AI studs goes more smoothly with other extenders.

The bigger issues affecting conception rates over longer-term semen storage

Prior to 1968, semen was generally packaged in 1.0 or 1.2 cc pyrex (glass) ampules.   These are easier to transfer between tanks, can be stored virtually indefinitely without loss of potency, BUT required eight to ten minutes thawing time (in 40F ice water) to fully liquify.    Even after experimentation with warm water thawing, you still need two minutes to reach body temps.

From 1968 forward, the French straw system took over, using a 1/2cc plastic wand that took up less tank space (10 on a cane compared to 6 or 8 ampules) AND would thaw out in 40 seconds in warm water.    The stainless steel breeding guns offered a bit more rigidity than the plastic tubes used with ampules.     Under optimal handling, conception rates initially rose from this switch from ampules to straws, as faster freezing and thawing saved sperm cells.

However, the transfer of straw canes between tanks had to be done faster (eight seconds or less is recommended), and the longer straws are stored, the risk of exposure damage to straws in the upper cups on canes was greater.    Canisters holding the canes should not be lifted above the neck tube when extracting a straw to breed a cow.     ALSO once thawed that straw needs to be in the cow within 15 minutes  and protected from temperature drops (“wind chill”) once the AI gun is loaded.    It is also advantageous to warm the AI gun before inserting the straw.    None of these precautions were necessary in the days of ampules and ice water thawing.

Gender-sorted semen (and most imported sires) are in the even more fragile 1/ 4 cc ministraw.

What really defines an outcross sire today?

 

How do we avoid “inbreeding depression” when the new sires are all related?

How do we avoid breeding cows too big for our freestalls, too straight-legged to walk concrete alleys, too short-teated to milk out without liner slippage?

How do we avoid making cows too narrow and shallow to eat a least-cost forage-based ration?     Cows who also need hoof-trimming constantly to avoid lameness?    

How do we breed cows to get a full lifetime of production, so we are not stuck with fast cow turnover and $3500+ replacement cow auction values?

 

We know how.    Maybe it is time you ask us for a little help.

 

 

Mich Livestock Service, Inc   “For the Best in Bulls”    and    “High energy forage seeds”
ph (989) 834- 2661        email greg@michiganlivestock.com       PO Box 661  Ovid, MI 48866

Examples of “heterosis” sires

In “aAa” terms, in which six major qualities relating to all the functions you expect from a cow are analyzed in your cows and in available AI sires, the vast majority of higher Genomic value sires will express these three qualities:

TALL   (aAa #2)    is the physical expression of the “growth” hormone (bovine somatotropin) in which adolescent feed intake goes to bone and internal organ growth, suppressing body energy (“fat”) deposits.   “Tall” quality heifers will mature faster, and achieve mature levels of milk production quicker.    Metabolically, they respond more to corn and oilseeds than forages.

STRONG   (aAa #4)    develops larger chests in which larger, muscled hearts pump more blood volume, building more muscle over a heavier skeletal structure.    “Strong” supports immune function and health from blood circulation of antibodies and leucocytes (infection fighters) to the extremities.    “Strong” quality heifers will become larger as mature cows.   

OPEN   (aAa #3)    The quality of “Open” aids cows to continue milking in volume after they are pregnant, thus supporting lactation persistency.    It affects elasticity of rib and width of pelvis, so supports calving ease in heifers.    It works with “Tall” to suppress diversion of energy dense grains and oilseeds into weight gain so that milk volume is maximized.

When you consider the overriding goals of Genomic indexes, you can see how they focused on these three qualities.    However, as you pursue those into multiple generations, the other half of the qualities-- #1 DAIRY   (higher natural fertility, feminine refinement)   #5 SMOOTH  (a full rumen capability to synthesize energy from forages, more even body condition, sturdier on feet) and #6 STYLE  (better blending of muscles, durability of the bone structure, less hoof trimming) are being suppressed in cows and lost from the breeding population.

These are qualities that would enable you to get a longer natural life from cows, thus get more heifers as replacements, having more cows capable of matured levels of milk yield sustainable over several lactations.   It is hard for two-lactation lifetimes to be profitable at cow prices today

 

Look at  515 HO 402  Siemers Taos PRADA   at  AI Total.    His “aAa” is 6 5 1 4 3 2, so exactly a heterosis “outcross” to the typical Genomic physique.     Now with daughters in production, his PTA values have been climbing above his original Genomic estimates.

He is unique in offering double-digit gains in butterfat % and protein %  while still +1000 milk.
He is unique having both premium Casein markers, A2A2 Beta Casein and BB Kappa Casein.
He is unique in his strong “plus” for DPR in spite of that +1000 milk rating.
He is unique as a sire that can give you longer teats, bucking the general Genomic trends.
He is unique in being +1.25 on Feet and Leg composite, avoiding a “fence post” hind leg.

We offer more “outcross” Holstein sires than anyone.   “Prada” is an example.