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Sad Day for Maine Organic Milk Farmers

Robert Mickley said:
Heres where that rut comes in,, to many farmers( I'm not saying you) only see the amount of grain coming off of an acre, and don't look at the nutritional value of that grain.

Feed a more nutritional feed and feed less of it. Then you end up with a higher net income. We don't feed any oats or wheat anymore. Even in the cold weather we had this year my brothers chickens never quit laying, years before it was not uncommon to have egg production down 50 or 60% in cold weather. Now we are only down 15 to 20%.
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I am glad you clarified things though, I was about to head out of state and have that tractor to tractor show down like they had in "Foot loose".

It does get my dander up when I hear that statement though, only because I see so many people fall into the great many farming fads that are out there. It's not so much a rut as it is being cautious.

As for feed, I hear you on that. We went to high protein feed long before it was vogue around here. Now we are making 16 dollars a hundred weight when others are making $9 simply because their quality is down. I can't feed sheep oats or wheat however because of the copper content in it...it would kill them. That leaves me with corn, but I'm fine with that. You get more tons to the acre with it and obviously we plant enough of it. But keep in mind, we grow hybrid-corn too so it is designed to be softer and the cows/sheep eat a lot more of it. Overall it makes good feed and if you were in the same position as me, your probably would feed it out too. It just makes sense.

PS: Have you seen that new corn planted by John Deere that can plant a staggered row? Each row head can be controlled by a computer hooked to GPS so that you never plant over a previous row. Its a cool invention because it will save a lot in planting costs. They call it the John Deere RTK Planter. Here is what it can do. Amazing huh?

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Vaughn McMillan said:
Frank, the very first Google hit I got was for this entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelt

:huh:
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Probably was for me also. But, for me, a wikipedia entry might as well not be there. Wiki statements have no credibility, I do not read. Anyone can post anything and only some of the false material is ever edited. And, often, the editing is no more credible than the original entries. Wuthless, in my books.

Edit: But, I digress. Apologies.
 
Wow: Maine's organic milk woes just hit the National News. Maybe this will get the farmers some help.

I talked to the local USDA center the other day and she laughed and said "she wanted to go out onto some farms and check out the producers, but was going to wait until she had some checks to hand out first."

I told her the farmers have never looked for money...they simply want a good price for the product they work so hard to produce.
 
Frank Fusco said:
Probably was for me also. But, for me, a wikipedia entry might as well not be there. Wiki statements have no credibility, I do not read. Anyone can post anything and only some of the false material is ever edited. And, often, the editing is no more credible than the original entries. Wuthless, in my books.
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I dunno, Wikipedia's probably more reliable than the average Internet forum, and we seem to glean a fair amount of worthwhile information from forums. Wikipedia is usually a good start, especially if you can find other references for corroboration. Merriam-Webster (first definition) or Dictionary.com (second definition) for example, in this instance. ;)

I realize you asked the question here as much for other peoples' enlightenment as your own (which is a good thing), but you implied the definition isn't easily available, and IMHO it is. I'll be quiet now. I really don't mean to sound like I'm picking on you. :)
 
Vaughn McMillan said:
I dunno, Wikipedia's probably more reliable than the average Internet forum, and we seem to glean a fair amount of worthwhile information from forums. Wikipedia is usually a good start, especially if you can find other references for corroboration. Merriam-Webster (first definition) or Dictionary.com (second definition) for example, in this instance. ;)

I realize you asked the question here as much for other peoples' enlightenment as your own (which is a good thing), but you implied the definition isn't easily available, and IMHO it is. I'll be quiet now. I really don't mean to sound like I'm picking on you. :)
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I know what you are saying, but I will say with Wikipedia you can get an awful lot of opinion on a subject disguised as facts. This is a farm thread and with that being the case, check out the NAIS wikipedia definition of this program and you get some opinion that leaves a lot to be desired.

I know teachers here are discouraged from using Wikipedia in their class rooms because of the distortion that can result. I am not bashing you, or sticking up for Frank, but I can see why people are leery of using Wikipedia.
 
spetlz

There are many smaller cereal grains, We grew speltz when I was a child as well as several ryes and durum wheat, I think buckwheat requires cooler weather than Texas. Our first combine was a six foot sacker and we combined many small acreages for beer, seed, noodles and other home industry.
You want a sad tale in agriculture and how big government screwed it up -- it is --- RICE. Most rice growers were renters of some sort and now that the government pays payments to landowners not to farmers more and more land just lays fallow. This is playing havoc with the inland flyway because much of wintering is in Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana where the rice was big.
The fastest growing cereal grain is pizza wheat; most of you don't remember; but pizza outside of NY, NJ and Chicago only arrived with the yuppies.

When you read == thank a teacher. When you eat == thank a farmer.

When you breathe fresh free air == thank the boys in uniform. And I do mean boys; if you look at our pix it is hard to believe how young.

Ray Gerdes US Army 1946-1962
 
Frank Fusco said:
Probably was for me also. But, for me, a wikipedia entry might as well not be there. Wiki statements have no credibility, I do not read. Anyone can post anything and only some of the false material is ever edited. And, often, the editing is no more credible than the original entries. Wuthless, in my books.
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Hmmm... this whole thing strikes me as odd, but it's all in fun, and diverting, so what the heck... ;)

First, there's no such thing as a credible source. Citing something else technically constitutes non-artistic evidence, and is to be avoided. It's also true that an appeal to authority begs questions about that authority. All encyclopedia entries used to be signed. Case in point: Brittanica. Most of the entries about 19th century poetry in a turn of the last century edition were signed "a.c.s" That's Algernon Charles Swinburne, who had an ax to grind. Trusting what Swinburne had to say about any other poet was a recipe for disaster! No text should be taken as gospel... ;)

Second, when english professors stoop to appeals to authority, they use the O.E.D.. Here's the OED entry for Spelt:

1. A species of grain (Triticum spelta) related to wheat, formerly much cultivated in southern Europe and still grown in some districts.
a1000 in Wr.-Wülcker 273 Faar, spelt. Ibid. 401 Farris, hwætes, speltes. Ibid. 405 Far serotina, spelt samgrene. 1392 Earl Derby's Exp. (Camden) 225 Pro spelt per ipsum empt' ibidem [sc. at Modon]. 1398 TREVISA Barth. De P.R. XVII. lxxxi. (Bodl. MS.), Some greyne is no{th}er in codde no{th}er in huole as barlich & spilt [v.r. spylt]. 1562 TURNER Herbal II. (1568) 85 The stalkes [of Phalaris] ar..much lyke vnto the strawes of spelt. Ibid. 133 Semen is called..in Duche speltz; it may in English be called spelt. 1578 LYTE Dodoens 164 This plant groweth amongst wheate and Spelte, in good frutefull groundes. 1597 GERARDE Herbal I. xlii. 61 Spelt is like to wheate in stalks and eare. a1656 USSHER Ann. (1658) 770 He passed it..thorough unbeaten paths, where his food was spelt and dates. 1661 LOVELL Hist. Anim. & Min. 55 The meale of spelt, in red Wine helpeth the stingings of Scorpions, applied warme. 1736 BAILEY Houshold Dict. s.v. Brawn, Bread made of Spelt is hard of digestion. 1762 MILLS Pract. Husb. I. 408 Spelt, though commonly reckoned a summer corn, is sowed either in autumn, or in the spring. 1805-6 CARY Dante, Inf. XIII. 101 There sprouting, as a grain of spelt, It rises to a sapling. 1855 SINGLETON Virgil I. 75 There, upon the season being changed, You'll sow the golden spelt. 1884 De Candolle's Orig. Cultivated Pl. 362 Spelt is now hardly cultivated out of south Germany and German-Switzerland.

2. attrib., as spelt-cake, -corn, -ridge, -wheat.
1610 W. FOLKINGHAM Art of Survey I. xi. 35 Spelt-corne in a fat moist layer degenerats from bad to better, viz. in three yeeres space to Wheat. 1688 HOLME Armoury II. 87/1 Spelt-Corn is lesser and blacker than Wheat. 1694 MOTTEUX Rabelais II. Let. i. 3 Oats, Spelt-Corn, and Barly. 1753 Chambers' Cycl. Suppl. s.v. Zea, The bread made of the spelt corn..is lighter and whiter than any other bread. 1832 Veg. Subst. Food of Man 35 Spelt Wheat{em}Triticum spelta{em}is imagined to have been the Triticum of the Romans, and the Zea of the Greeks. 1853 A. SOYER Pantropheon 43 Among other delicate dishes..he had ordered a spelt cake to be made.

See for yourself: http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry...e=1&search_id=NH8o-DDbHg1-280&hilite=50232919

Cool. Lots of stuff there. But incomplete, and shockingly biased... even though they try to avoid bias, it's built in to the generation process... :doh:

Third, like it or not, Wikipedia is the largest repository of knowledge humans have ever created. Yes, it has human failings, but it also has self-correction built in (unlike printed repositories, whose generations I have been privy to... hence my complete distrust of them! ;) It is, of course, merely one stop along the research journey. See tenet one, above: There is no such thing as a credible source... :rofl:

Thanks,

Bill
 
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Bill Lantry said:
First, there's no such thing as a credible source. Citing something else technically constitutes non-artistic evidence, and is to be avoided. It's also true that an appeal to authority begs questions about that authority.
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My Grandfather would disagree with that. I think he truly thinks what he says and does is THE one and only way to do something. Woe is to them who has the audacity to try to prove him wrong or disagree...family or not!:rofl:

But yes, I see your point. Google is now trying to build something similar to Wikipedia but they call it a KNOL, or Unit of Knowledge. I have written 2Knol's so far on sheep farming and have a 3rd in the works.

http://knol.google.com/k/travis-johnson/probiotics-within-the-flock/3igo6fap3ewj7/1?path_author=travis-johnson#view
 
Travis Johnson said:
My Grandfather would disagree with that. I think he truly thinks what he says and does is THE one and only way to do something. Woe is to them who has the audacity to try to prove him wrong or disagree...family or not!:rofl:
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Sounds just like my dad and few of my uncles, there was 2 ways to do things,, the right way and their way,,And just like your Gramps,, don't even think of proving them wrong :rofl:
 
Travis ----

I opened your essay on probiotics, etc. U R a very rounded person I find. Don't hesitate to steer us to UR writing. Of course Maine is trying to revert to the pre-colonial ecosystem; imagine clearing land as Babe and Paul did it. I need dozer work on my farm, a D-6 is up to 100 dollars per hour; it was 80 last summer, it went up with fuel costs, but it hasn't come down. I must wait awhile The old north woods were a tough place to make a living; I wish U well. In the 17th and 18th centuries the very best ships masts came from Maine.

The comments on Reagan's elimination of a stategic food reserve shows it to be strictly a political one; the practicality of the concept has been well documented by the LDS across the USA. I don't know if you have seen our 3500 cow dairies and the hog farms with 10000 sows or our egg factories with 2 million hens (what happened to the 2 million roosters).

I would appreciate a listing of your essays, etc.

Ray Gerdes
 
Yes we certainly have it easier nowadays, but I think sometimes we get thinking there is only one way to do it, and that is with expensive equipment like bulldozers. The price is the same here so I plan to go two routes.

1. We barter A LOT here, so its not uncommon to trade say wood for bulldozing services. I might do this for some very tenacious stone walls, but for the majority of the clearing, I will revert back to using animals.

2. This is the cheapest way but it is often ignored. The old timers often used this method. Its simply using animals to convert forest to farmland. Its starts with cutting the biggest trees, then letting sheep go in and eat the limbs and leaves. After that its letting the goats in to eat the brush and saplins. As the sunshine begins to shine down, another round of sheep will grub the weeds out until the grass can be established. Finally the stumps can be rooted out with the use of pigs. Dumping a bit of salt on each stump will cause the pig to root the stump right out of the ground. Cows can then graze on the open land and abundant grass, or the land can then be plowed.

It takes years of course instead of days with a bulldozer, but it can be done. We are just too impatient these days.Me, I could care less, I'm here to leave this place for my daughter...nothing more or less.
 
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