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Watch this video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVLgt2_J1Wk

How do organic farmers control aphids and produce high quality lettuce without pesticides? With naturally occurring beneficial insects like hoverflies that eat aphids live! Farmers attract these good bugs into the field by intercropping lettuce with flowers like alyssum. This video shows how this system works, and a more efficient and novel way to achieve biological control of aphids with less land area and fewer weed problems. It is based on research by Eric Brennan at the USDA Agricultural Research Service during 9 years of commercial scale organic lettuce production in the Salinas Valley, California.

This video was modified from a video presentation at the American Society of Horticulture annual conference in July, 2013.

Click following link to download a pdf of a related publication (Agronomic aspects of strip intercropping lettuce with alyssum for biological control of aphids)

Agronomic Impacts of Strip Intercropping Lettuce with Alyssum for Biological Control of Aphids

Hi everybody. My name is Eric Brennan. I’m a scientist at the USDA Agriculture Research Service based in Salinas, California. Salinas valley opens to Monterey Bay, which acts as a natural air conditioner for much of the area. This climate is ideal for lettuce and the gross production value for lettuce here was nearly $1.3 billion in 2012. I’ve worked here since 2001, and my research over the past 12 years has focused on high value, organic production systems. Today, I’ll share some of the lessons I’ve learned over the past 10 years on how to use intercropping to biologically control aphids in transplanted organic romaine lettuce.

When you cut into a head of romaine lettuce, you can get a nice view of the densely packed interior leaves. Unfortunately, the most important insect pest of lettuce in California is a nasty aphid species that likes to infest this interior area and is easy to see. Intercropping or interplanting lettuce with plants that flower quickly like alyssum is a common and effective strategy that organic farmers in this region often use to control aphids. Alyssum is referred to as an ‘insectary plant’, because when it's intercropped with lettuce it attracts naturally occurring beneficial insects, like hoverflies, into the field. Hovering in midair requires lots of energy which the adult hoverflies get from the sugary nectar of the alyssum flowers. The pollen provides the adults with the protein that they need to reproduce. After feeding on the flowers, the females fly through the field searching for lettuce plants where they will lay their eggs. The females prefer to lay eggs on lettuce plants with aphids because the larvae that hatch from the eggs in a few days, feed on the aphids. I like to think of aphids as walking milkshakes for hoverfly larvae. Infact, the larvae of some hoverfly species can eat up to 150 aphids per day before they mature into flying adults.

In highly disturbed agricultural landscapes such as those used for vegetable production in Salinas, the presence of hedgerows around the farm and the frequent use of annual cover crops help to protect and maintain populations of beneficial insects year round. These habitats and the use of insectary intercrops, like alyssum, enhance the ability of beneficial insects to control economically important pests like aphids. We refer to this pest management strategy as Conservation Biological Control.

Let’s now move to the USDA organic research farm, where I’ll share how my approach to intercropping alyssum and lettuce has become much more efficient over the past 10 years. This 23 acre site includes an ongoing, long-term, organic systems experiment where we have grown 2 acres of romaine lettuce, broccoli, and strawberries on a commercial scale in rotation with various cover crops and compost rates over the past 10 years. Today, I’m going to focus on the intercropping practices we used to maximize the potential marketable yields during 9 years of lettuce production. This research is partially funded by the wholesale of marketable vegetables from the experiment. Therefore, in order to continue the research, I highly was motivated to maximize the marketable yield and the efficiency of the lettuce production.

Here are some details about the management of the lettuce that were consistent across years. A gps guided tractor was used to form beds that were 40 inches wide, into which we injected preplant organic fertilizer. After bed shaping, the lettuce was transplanted in two lines 12 inches apart with 11 to 12 inches between plants within each line. The transplants were approximately 30 to 35 days old at transplanting. Transplanting was usually during the first 10 days of May except during the year 3 when rains delayed it until late May. Sprinkle irrigation was used as needed to establish the transplants, but drip irrigation was used for most of the season. Liquid organic fertilizers were injected through the drip tape approximately 30 days after transplanting. Weeds were controlled by tractor cultivation and by hand weeding once during each crop. And the lettuce was harvested at maturity 39 to 49 days after transplanting.

The alyssum insectary plants were concentrated in 8 of the 48 total beds in the field. Notice that alyssum beds 1 and 8 on the edges of the field were single alyssum beds, followed by 10 beds of lettuce, then 2 beds of alyssum and 10 more beds of lettuce, etc. This picture shows 4 different alyssum varieties including the sweet variety that is the typical insectary variety in California. The alyssum and lettuce in the background were all transplanted 46 days ago and it's clear that sweet alyssum is much more vigorous and bushy than the three ornamental alyssum varieties shown here.

I’ll now highlight 3 major changes in the way that lettuce was intercropped with alyssum during the 9 years and explain my rationale for making each change. The first change occurred after year 2 and involved switching from using alyssum seed to using transplants to establish the insectary beds. Alyssum seed is extremely small and the seed of the sweet variety used for insectaries is also inexpensive. During the first two years, I thought that direct seeding alyssum would be more cost-effective than using alyssum transplants. However, direct seeding alyssum in dense lines in the field had two major problems. I’ll use a few drawings to illustrate the first problem that involved weed management.

This drawing shows a single bed with the two transplant lines of lettuce approximately 2 ½ to 3 weeks after transplanting. The field is ready to hand weed at this stage and the red dots represent emerged weeds. Note that the weeds had already been removed from the bed center and furrow by tractor cultivation. Hand weeding in a situation like this is relatively easy, because the weeds are small and easy to distinguish from the larger and evenly spaced transplants. This drawing shows weeds interspersed with 2 lines of direct seeded alyssum plants. The green dots are the densely seeded alyssum plants and the red dots are the weeds. Note that the density and location of the weeds here is the same as in the previous drawing with lettuce transplants. However, in this case, the weeds and alyssum emerged together and if had not colored the weeds red they would be very difficult to distinguish from the alyssum plants. As you can imagine this was extremely difficult to hand weed and the situation only got worse as the weeds and alyssum plants got bigger and tangled together. Furthermore, many weeds in direct seeded alyssum lines escaped control and produced seed that added to the weed seed bank.

The second major problem with direct seeding alyssum in transplanted lettuce is that even in the summer, alyssum seedlings often need to grow for about a month before they begin flowering. In fact, this alyssum seedling didn’t flower until it was 36 days old. In contrast, alyssum transplants are usually flowering at transplanting. Early flowering of the insectary plants is important for transplanted crops like lettuce that may be harvested at 39 to 49 days after transplanting.

The fact that lettuce from the first two years was not infested with aphids suggests that flowering from direct seeded alyssum was adequate for biological control. However, the cost of alyssum transplants seemed worthwhile for both weed control reasons and the likely benefits of earlier flowering for biological control of aphids. After 4 years of successful lettuce production without any major aphid problems, I wondered if I could reduce the amount of space allocated to alyssum and still control aphids. The 8 beds devoted to alyssum during the first 4 years were obviously effective, but they were also reducing the area for lettuce by 17%. This displacement of lettuce for insectary plants is a major concern for farmers in Salinas where the land rents are high.

The last two intercropping changes I’ll discuss are 2 approaches I used to reduce the field area that was displaced by insectary plantings. This photo shows the intercropping pattern during years 5 to 7. Notice, that rather than 8 solid beds of alyssum that were used during the first 4 years, the insectary beds now included 1 line of alyssum and 1 line of lettuce. This still provided excellent aphid control, and boosted lettuce yields by 8% because there were 8% more lettuce plants in the field.
Let’s now move onto the last intercropping change that was the most radical. This change was inspired by a competition experiment with alyssum and lettuce that I conducted during years 5 and 6. As you can see I tried all kinds of crazy combinations.

All the details are described in this recent publication. However, I’ll describe the most exciting results from this experiment with a simple addition equation. If we add the transplants from one bed of lettuce to the transplants from one bed of alyssum we get an intercropping pattern that has twice the normal transplant density. We call this additive intercropping because we added the two densities together. There's obviously more competition in the additive pattern because it’s more crowded. The amazing thing about this additive pattern is that the increased competition only reduced lettuce biomass by about 25% and alyssum biomass by about half compared with when they were growing separately on beds of their own. I’ll now show how the information from this competition experiment was used to improve the efficiency of intercropping lettuce and alyssum during years 8 and 9.

Here’s what the field looked like 20 days after transplanting during year 8. You might be wondering what’s happened? Where’s the alyssum? That question “Where’s the alyssum?” reminds me of a well-known and beautiful song by Pete Seeger. Sing along if you like as I play a line or two on my guitar.

[Music]. Where have all the flowers gone?
[Music]. Long time passing.
[Music]. Where have all the flowers gone?
[Music]. Long time ago.

That’s a great song, but let me answer the question: Where are the alyssum flowers? Here’s the field 44 days after transplanting and about a week before harvest during year 8. There are lots alyssum flowers out there but they’re just not as obvious as in the previous years where alyssum displaced lettuce. Here’s another shot the next day when the lighting made it easier to see the alyssum. I want to point out two things in this picture. First, notice that most of the alyssum is still concentrated in a few beds. These are the same 8 insectary beds that were used during the previous years. This close up shot shows the additive pattern that we used on the insectary beds during year 8. Notice that there's only 1 alyssum transplant every 3 lettuce transplants in 1 line of the bed. A similar additive pattern was used during year 9 except that there was only 1 alyssum transplant between every 5 lettuce transplants in 1 line of each bed.

This figure with white symbols to represent alyssum, illustrates the difference in the extremely intense additive intercropping pattern that was used in the competition experiment described earlier, compared with the additive patterns that were used during years 8 and 9. The intercropping patterns used during these last 2 years were designed to reduce the potential for competition between alyssum and lettuce. In fact, in a subsequent study, I found that there was no difference in the marketable weight of a box of a lettuce from beds with the additive pattern used during year 8, compared to the weight of a box of lettuce from beds without any alyssum. This is a very important point because it means that with these less intense additive intercropping patterns, we can a produce alyssum flowers for beneficial insects without losing any of lettuce yield. The second thing I want to highlight about the additive intercropping patterns used during years 8 and 9 are these lines of alyssum that ran perpendicular to the bed direction. If you looked at the field from the top it would be a grid like this with the insectary and lettuce beds running from the bottom to the top of the figure and the perpendicular lines running from the left to right. You might wonder why we added the perpendicular lines during years 8 and 9 to create this grid pattern. This was done because I was concerned that the relatively low intensity additive pattern on the 8 insectary beds alone might not provide quite enough alyssum flowers to encourage hover fly movement through the whole field. However, I really don’t know if this concern was justified.

You might be wondering how we created this additive pattern through the field. First, we transplanted lettuce across all 48 beds using a tractor drawn transplanter. And then in one line on the 8 insectary beds, by hand we inserted one alyssum transplant between every 3 or 5 lettuce plants, during years 8 and 9, respectively. For each of the 9 perpendicular lines, we walked across the beds and inserted one alyssum transplant by hand between two lettuce plants in one line for each bed. Our lettuce yields were highest these last 2 years when we used the additive intercropping approach because alyssum didn’t displace any lettuce.

I’ll summarize my experience with intercropping lettuce with alyssum over the 9 years with 2 figures. This first figure shows the dramatic change in the amount of lettuce that was displaced by alyssum over the years. Based on my experience, I highly recommend this additive intercropping approach for transplanted lettuce because it is much more land efficient, it didn’t reduce marketable head weight, and yet it still provided beneficial insect like hoverflies with the food they needed to survive and control aphids.

This last figure illustrates how the density of alyssum transplants changed over time. It is interesting to note that we achieved excellent aphid control all year despite the drastic reduction in the number of alyssum transplants per acre. This experience leads me to conclude that during the first 7 years we were providing far more alyssum flowers for the hoverflies than was necessary. I estimate that additive intercropping with about 500 to 1000 alyssum transplants per acre, distributed throughout the field should provide sufficient pollen and nectar for hoverflies to control aphids in transplanted romaine lettuce.

I hope this presentation has helped you to understand the value and complexity of intercropping lettuce with insectary plants like alyssum for biological control of aphids. Thanks for watching, and stay tuned for more exciting sustainable ag research. And when you eat your next organic lettuce, think of all the flowers, and hardworking people, and hoverflies, that it took to produce it!
 

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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Watch this video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLvJLHERYJI

A natural all-you-can-eat buffet keeps beneficial organisms working on the farm year-round. Hedgerows, cover crops, and insectary plants provide this biodiversity which helps farmers control pests without pesticides and makes the farm more sustainable and beautiful. This fun video by USDA-ARS scientist Dr. Eric Brennan explains how this works at the Agricultural Research Service's organic farm in Salinas, California in high-value production systems for vegetables and strawberries. It provides some details on drought-tolerant, native perennial hedgerows for California and describes some challenges and novel strategies to make intercropping vegetables with a common insectary plant (alyssum) more efficient.

See also another video by Eric Brennan: Efficient Intercropping for Biological Control of Aphids in Transplanted Organic Lettuce

Hedgerow Control. This is Hoverfly 742, maintaining 2000. Heading 180. Requesting land clearance. Hoverfly 742 turn left. Heading 090. Descend to 1000 until established on the ILS runway. Coyote Brush 32 approach. Cleared to land. Hoverfly 742. Turning left. Heading 090. Descend to 1000 until established on the ILS runway. Coyote Brush 32 approach. Cleared to land.
MUSIC

So you've probably figured out by now that I'm not your typical air traffic controller. I don't direct airplanes in and out of airports, but you might think of me as an organic air traffic controller or a biological air traffic controller. What I mean is that, as I've managed the airspace above this organic farm since 2001, I've tried to encourage a diversity of beneficial organisms to come here to help us to control our pests. And the three main components of our farm that help with this are hedgerows on the farm edges, cover crops that we usually grow when our fields don't have cash crops, and insectary plants that we interplant with our vegetables and strawberries. I like to think of these three components as providing a buffet of food options for beneficial organisms on our farm.

Over the next few minutes I'll give you a short tour of our 22 acres of high value land and explain how our conservation biological control program here works to control pests as we conduct and share cutting-edge, commercial-scale research on organic vegetable and strawberry production. I'm fortunate to have great collaborators here with lots of practical farming experience and a passion to think out of the box and develop new and creative sustainable farming strategies that apply to organic and conventional systems.

To help you understand our farm let's fly up to get a bird's eye view. The cool Pacific Ocean is about 15 miles that way as Salinas Valley opens to Monterey Bay. Our organic farm is connected to about another 150 acres of conventional USDA research land. A simple way to understand the layout of our organic farm is to divide it into four main sections that include strawberries in one section each year, and vegetables and cover crops in the other sections. For example, this section had broccoli this last summer and was just planted to strawberries. Our new strawberry planting also includes a novel cover-cropping strategy in the furrows.

Okay, so let me now provide a few details about these three critical biological control components starting with my favorite place on the farm, the hedgerow. In some ways it reminds me of the biologically diverse tropical forests in Papua New Guinea where I grew up, and which surrounded many of the agricultural fields there. Our hedgerow is a fun place to explore that's filled with biodiversity and is just a relaxing place to take a break when you need one. I consider it a sacred place, because it reminds us of the balanced natural ecosystem that once dominated this landscape and that has so much to teach us to help us to improve our agricultural systems. The hedgerow is essentially the supporting backbone of our biological control system. What I mean by supporting backbone is that the hedgerow is the most stable, complex, and permanent part of our farm. And it's a refuge for beneficial organisms when we disturb our fields with intense tillage between crops. The hedgerows are then the major source of beneficial insects to recolonize our new plantings.

I remember the fun and productive day that our hedgerow was planted in 2003 with the help of volunteers and our local hedgerow guru, my friend Sam. Since then, our hedgerow has been low-maintenance because it includes a diversity of drought tolerant, native perennials, which were irrigated only during the first year. Now a key benefit of the hedgerow and the adjacent berm with flowering annuals is that the diversity of plants ensures that there's always something flowering to provide beneficial insects like hoverflies with the pollen and the nectar that they need to reproduce and thrive. For example, the coyote brush plant where Hoverfly 742 landed—it flowers in the fall and the winter when there are few other sources of food for adult hoverflies on our farm.

Now there are some challenges with hedgerows. For example, some people think that hedgerows increase the risk of food safety problems from rodents, and try to minimize this with fences and toxic baits along the borders with neighboring hedgerows. But I've not seen any compelling scientific evidence to support this concern about food safety. In fact, recent research suggests that removing non-crop vegetation, like hedgerows, may actually increase food safety pathogens. Now one clear challenge with hedgerows is from leaf-eating birds like the White-crowned Sparrow. They like to overwinter in the hedgerows and eat leaves of some crops right next to the hedgerow. Ironically, these same birds may actually help us though, because they can also eat weed foliage under the canopy of some of our cover crops.

Speaking of cover crops, let's now consider their role in biological control on our farm. We grow lots of cover crops in rotation with our vegetables and strawberries and have seen huge benefits. This bumper sticker is one that I designed a few years ago, and it does a pretty good job of summarizing some of the benefits of cover crops in terms of their ability to reduce runoff and improve soil quality, and boost crop yields with fewer fertilizer inputs. But it doesn't say anything about cover crop benefits for biological control. So here's another bumper sticker I just designed to help clarify this. It's got a few common beneficial insects that I often see in our cover crops. I've also seen other beneficial organisms like gopher snakes. Now just like the cover crop provides the gopher snake with a good habitat to hunt for gophers, the cover crop also provides beneficial insects with a source of insects to eat—like aphid species that are usually different from the aphids that are on our cash crops.

Flowering weeds in our cover crops can also provide pollen and nectar for adult hoverflies and parasitic wasps. But the problem with many of these weeds is that they produce seeds quickly, and therefore can increase the hand weeding costs in our subsequent cash crops. So we carefully manage our cover crops to suppress weed growth and flowering. Although wild radish is one weed that we really don't mind in our winter cover crops, because it doesn't flower until late in the spring when the cover crops are usually ready to be mowed down and incorporated back into the soil.

Allright, now for the last part of our biological control buffet, the insectary plants. There are many different types of insectary plants in our region, but I'll just briefly describe two ways that my research has improved the efficiency of using one popular insectary plant, sweet alyssum. First, I'll describe it for transplanted lettuce and then also for direct-seeded lettuce. Alyssum flowers are a great source of pollen and nectar for adult hoverflies, and encourages them to move through lettuce fields. In the process, the female hoverflies lay eggs on lettuce that has aphids. And the larvae that hatch from these eggs eat the aphids, live! When I started working with transplanted lettuce in 2004, farmers here usually gave up about 5 to 10% of their field to grow alyssum in strips or as randomly scattered plants through the field. But I found that a far more land-efficient approach to get plenty of alyssum flowers into the field was simply to insert alyssum transplants between the regularly spaced lettuce, without displacing any lettuce. In other words, you don't need to give up space for alyssum. We call this additive intercropping.

The last method I'll describe is a simple, efficient, and novel way that I've been working on to help farmers plant alyssum seeds with the same precision seeder that they use to plant pelleted lettuce seed. These seeders provide very uniform and regular spacing of the pelleted seed. To achieve this, I teamed up with a local seed treatment company that was able to pellet the alyssum seed to the same size as a pelleted lettuce seed. This was a complicated process because the alyssum seed is much smaller than lettuce seed and therefore the alyssum seed had to be coated in much more pelleting material than the lettuce seed. But it's worked beautifully! And it means that farmers here can now mix just a few teaspoons of pelleted sweet alyssum into their pelleted lettuce seed, and the alyssum will be scattered randomly through the field. The lettuce thinning and weeding crews are then trained to easily identify alyssum seedlings and leave these to flower for the hoverflies. It's a great system!

That's our biological control buffet here at the USDA organic research farm in the Salad Bowl of America—Salinas, California. Our system isn't perfect but we're pretty happy with it. We're always trying to fine tune it—make it a little bit better, more efficient. So I hope you'll stay tuned as we do that. And I also hope that you can find ways that you can support farmers that are using the types of techniques that I described here today.

You know what.... I got to get back up there to hedgerow control tower because Hoverfly 742 that landed on this Coyote Brush plant right here has already fueled up with pollen and nectar and is ready to take off on another mission out there to look for aphids. So I don't want to delay her. I want to encourage her, and I want to keep her safe.

Hedgerow Control. This is Hoverfly 742. Requesting take off clearance. Roger, Hoverfly 742. You are cleared for takeoff!

MUSIC (Fly me to the moon)
 

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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Watch the video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMVCPbPUTb0

PROJECT TITLE: A whole farm approach to incorporating pasture-raised organic poultry and a novel cereal grain (naked oats) into a multi-year organic rotation.

I am John Anderson from the Department of Animal Sciences at The Ohio State University. Our study is being conducted on certified organic fields at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center near Wooster, Ohio.

We are using a three-year rotation with naked oats, broiler chickens, and spelt as the main crops. These are the three, one-acre fields in 2012 with spelt on the left, pasture in the middle, and naked oats on the right.

One of the primary goals of this grant is to study the use of pasture-reared organic broiler chickens as one component of an organic poultry and crop rotation system. Poultry would diversify the product mix from an established organic enterprise, with the poultry manure contributing to the soil fertility. The second goal of this work is to study the feasibility of incorporating naked oats, also called hulless oats, into a multi-year crop rotation, with the naked oats used as a major part of the poultry feed.

The cost of certified organic corn and soy-based diets is often the main factor limiting organic broiler production. Hulless or naked oats based diets could be an interesting option. When compared to conventional oats, the hulless varieties have less crude fiber and a significant increase in both protein and lipid. In pasture-based systems, broilers do get some nutrients from the pasture itself, but need a grain-based diet to perform economically.

In this study, chicks will be started in the brooder on a commercial organic chick starter. When the chickens are placed on pasture at three weeks of age, they will be switched to the diet containing naked oats. In this project we will also be comparing two different types of meat birds: commercial broilers and a slower growing type often used on pasture called Red Rangers or Redbros. We will compare growth rate and feed conversion of these two types.

Slower growing genotypes have reduced protein requirements compared to commercial broilers. This reduced protein requirement might be an advantage given the challenge of balancing the amino acid profile in organic poultry diets. Slower growth may also minimize growth-associated anomalies such as leg problems, and may result in some improvement in the quality of the carcass.

In order for any production system to be successful it must be economically profitable. Profitability will be estimated for each crop studied, each year of the project. Rations and broiler production will be valued at farm gate prices. Actual crop and poultry yields from the experimental plots will be used in the analysis. Cost of labor and all other inputs will be included. Outputs from the system each year include spelt, naked oats, straw, hay, and poultry.

Finally, a variety trial of available varieties of naked oats will be conducted each year. A replicated experiment with four replicates of at least three varieties (Paul, Buff and Streaker) will be established in an organic research field. Yields, test weights, and feed quality will be measured yearly.

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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In this video, organic dairy farmer Kevin Jahnke demonstrates one of his management strategies for managing fly populations on his farm in Lancaster, Wisconsin. The video was filmed by Harriet Behar of the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES) who also conducted the interview with Kevin.

Watch the video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zuaDl7cR2g/p>

Kevin Jahnke: One of the things that I've devised on my farm for fly prevention is a thing that has come to be known as the "fly barrel." It's basically an expanded version of the little one gallon containers that you put in a bait for the attractant for the flies into it. The flies fly in, there's a little liquid in the bottom, they get trapped and they can't get out. So this is basically just an expanded version of that.

I took a 55 gallon barrel, cut a hole in the top and put in a piece of plexi-glass for the light so once the flies are in the barrel, they fly toward the light. There's about 8 to 10 inches of water in the bottom with a few drops of dish soap as a surfactant so when the flies get in it, they drown. And the entrance, there are four PVC pipes on the sides with elbows that go in and down, so flies fly into the barrel, they see the light from the top window, they fly toward the light and they don't know how to get out.

To get the fly barrel started, basically you just need to use something that doesn't smell very good, like some decomposing left-over food or something that gets in that barrel and starts to rot and smells really awful and the flies will go for it. And once you have enough flies in there, I just use a little aquarium fish net to dip out the dead flies. As the flies decompose in there, they continue to make their own attractant so all summer long when it's hot out, it smells pretty bad and fills up with flies.

Harriet Behar, MOSES: So how many flies did you get recently?

Kevin: I've got three barrels on my farm and the other day, I went around with a five-gallon bucket and my little dip net, and filled the whole five-gallon bucket full of flies that I took out of these three barrels. We tried to estimate how flies were in there and came up with a round figure of about a million flies, so I was pretty happy to think there were about a million flies weren't bugging my cows.

Harriet: How often do you have to clean out the fly traps? Does it depend on the time of year?

Kevin: Yes, it depends on the fly level. On a cool day like we are going to get today and the next few days, the fly levels really drop down and they stay pretty dormant. But when it's hot and dry and the flies are active, I might have to scoop them out every week. That's the nice thing about the barrels, once you have them started, there's really nothing to do, nothing to add, nothing to worry about, you just drive by and scoop out the flies and they keep working for you.

Harriet: And I see you have it near a place where the cattle will congregate, near the water tank here.

Kevin: Yes, when the cows come in, there's lots of flies on them and anytime the cows move around, they shake the flies off and the flies will look to congregate on solid, dark objects to stay warm. I've always noticed that this whole fence post will be covered with flies so I set the fly barrel right next to the post, and when the cows walk by, the whole side of the barrel becomes covered with flies, and as we're milking, the flies will slowly filter their way into the barrel.

The other thing I've noticed is that the color of the barrel makes a big difference. A darker barrel will attract flies from farther away because flies tend to look for a cow-like object, so they'll look for something dark.

And the dark barrel warms the inside of the barrel up to keep that bait that is in there really smelling nasty to keep drawing in the flies. I always have a fly barrel next to each water tank, and then I've got one other barrel that's portable that I will take around through the farm and where ever my cows have to be in the pasture, I will set that barrel in the vicinity there, and even leave it there a couple of days after to help clean up the flies that remain there.

Harriet: And probably too this probably prevents more flies from continuously reproducing?

Kevin: Right, it really helps break up the cycle. In addition to the fly barrel, with our rotational grazing system, I manage our pastures so that the cows aren't in one pasture close to the next, close to the next. They really hop around go from one end of the farm to the other because the flies tend to stay in the pasture when the cows leave. So if the cows don't go back to the pasture right next the flies, the flies don't find them as easy, so that just helps break the cycle.

Harriet: Or as quickly.

Kevin: Right. When we clip our pastures at this time of the year when the grass heads out and gets ahead of the cows, when we clip the pastures, I pull a small harrow behind the mower and that breaks up the manure patties, and doesn't give the flies to place to reproduce.

Harriet: Great, so let's look inside.

Kevin: Okay, so as you look in there, you're going to see a bunch of black, nasty stuff stuck on the sides. Basically whenever the wind blows really hard, it tips the barrel over and all of the flies that are there get stuck on the sides. You'll see the PVC elbows that the flies enter in. The stuff down at the bottom is where the flies get trapped. And there's a little piece of bait pouch that I hung there to help get some smell going again this spring.

Harriet: Excellent. Thank you, Kevin. 

• Fly Management in the Organic Dairy Pasture Webinar by eOrganic

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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Mastitis, the medical term for inflammation of the udder, is the number one disease problem in dairy farming throughout the world. Typically, mastitis is classified into two major groups: a) environmental mastitis (caused when cows come into contact with a contaminated environment) and b) contagious mastitis (caused by bacteria on the teat and/or inside the udder). Contagious mastitits is often further divided into three groups: 1) clinical, 2) sub-clinical, and 3) chronic mastitis.

Clinical mastitis are those infections that are typically accompanied by the classic signs of inflammation including redness, swelling, pain, and abnormal milk. Subclinical and chronic mastitis, however, are infections where there are high somatic cell counts but the udder and milk may appear normal. In these cases, mastitis can only be detected with methods that measure the number of somatic cells in milk. One low-cost, easy way to detect subclinical or chronic masitits is the California Mastitis Test (CMT). The CMT is a screening test that indicates when the somatic cell count (SCC) is higher than 300,000.

In this video, filmed by Harriet Behar of the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), Wisconsin organic dairy farmer Kevin Jahnke describes how he uses the California Masistitis Test (CMT) and other strategies to maintain high quality milk. 

Watch the video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVzoIPZh_y4

Hi, my name is Kevin Jahnke. I farm with my wife, Mary, and my three boys on Jahnke Family Farm. I’m the fourth generation farmer on our farm. It’s a seasonal, grass-based dairy. We milk 50 cows. We’ve been milking here for about eight years. We started on an Organic Valley truck right away, and we’ve focused mainly on a grass-based system and producing high quality milk.

We use a CMT paddle to monitor the cows and hold out the high milk, and consistently produce high quality milk. I’m going to show you the CMT paddles that we use. The CMT paddle stands for California Mastitis Test. It consists of a simple paddle that you squirt milk from each quarter into, and then there’s a solution that you add to the milk in equal parts, a one-to-one ratio. The solution from the CMT reacts with the white blood cells in the milk, so when there’s a high somatic cell count in the milk, it will react and the milk will gel up. What you look for, in a good, clean cow, the viscosity is going to stay the same as the milk. The thicker it gets, the higher the cell count is going to be.

So what we do is, we screen every cow that comes fresh. We screen her, look for anybody with a high quarter and we hold that quarter out. And that milk goes to the calves. We use a quarter milker to isolate that milk. We also have a second pipeline installed in our barn for a cow that is high in more than one quarter, so we isolate all of that milk to go to the calves as well.

This is a quarter milker. This is what you can use to isolate the high quarter from an identified cow. So what the quarter milker does is normally you have a milking claw where the milk goes in the four quarters. With the quarter milker, you can actually take the milk from your high quarter, separate it from the other three quarters, and capture it in this bucket. It uses the same vacuum as the claw vacuum. It’s pretty handy to use, and for the price that you invest in the quarter milker, it more than pays for itself in the high milk you take out of the tank in milk premiums, so it’s win-win situation for everybody. It’s a really good tool to lower your bulk tank score to hold that high milk out.

On our farm, I’ve installed a second pipeline to isolate my high somatic cell milk. I’ve come up with a device to utilize that second pipeline. A simple thing here has become a quarter milker. I can hook this up to the second pipeline, take my milker unit, and hook the inflation up to the second hose. Right now, when I hook this up to the cow, the milk from this quarter is going up this hose into my second pipeline into the milk that I’ve isolated for calf milk.

What we’re going to do is prep these cows and I’ll do a CMT on them. A CMT paddle, in my opinion, is the absolutely best management tool that a farmer can have. You’ll get the milk to the outside ring and add equal amounts of the solution, and then you just swirl it around and look for the one that gels up. This one is obviously gelled up.

A high cell count milk can be used to feed the calves. With the second pipeline, it goes into the other room. I’ve got a plate cooler that I use as a pasteurizer or to warm up the milk. The milk falls into the barrel and I heat it up; I’ve got a water line from here to the calf building that pumps it over there. I can feed all of my calves with this system that I’ve got set up, I never even physically handle the milk—it’s pumped from here over there, it gets warmed up and it is fed to the calves and I never touch it. As far as a good labor-based system, you can’t beat it.

Healthy cows don’t fluctuate much in cell counts. When cows are under stress, when their nutrition changes dramatically, when their environment changes, that’s when the cell count really fluctuates. But if you can focus on feeding the cows right, keeping them stress-free, clean, and good udder prep with good practices, your cell counts generally are going to stay really consistent.

[Harriet Behar, MOSES: What do you average?]

Last year, we averaged about 60,000 for the year. Probably this year we might be able to be a little bit lower because we sold off a lot of our nurse cows last year so now we’re holding out some cows; some of these cows’ milk I’m feeding to the calves only have a cell count of 2 or 300,000 but they’re the highest ones I’ve got so that whose feeding the calves.

A lot of people ask me what’s the secret to having a low cell count and I don’t think there is one thing. We all are good farmers or we wouldn’t be here but there are just a lot of little things that I’ve been fortunate to be on enough farms to pick up all the good things that everybody does and be able to use them for my advantage.

• Tikofsky, L. 2009. Milk quality on organic dairy farms [Online]. eXtension Foundation, eOrganic Community of Practice. Available at: http://www.extension.org/pages/18645/milk-quality-on-organic-dairy-farms (verified 28 Jul 2011).

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

eOrganic 6099

In this video, Dr. Hubert Karreman of Penn Dutch Cow Care in Lancaster, PA demonstrates how he conducts a physical exam on a dairy cow. The video was shot at the Vermont Technical College in January 2011.

Watch the video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6uUNmZiLZY

My name is Hubert Karreman. I’m a veterinarian in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and today we are here at Vermont Technical College with the herdsman Andy Wood and our Holstein cow, Alimony. What I plan to show you is how to do a physical exam.

A little about me: I work with organic dairy herds in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania area plus all around the United States, and consult with other people in other countries as well. One thing I want to say is a physical exam on a cow is the same whether she is organic or conventional, so this is fine for everybody who is looking at this; it doesn’t matter how you farm but I’m going to work you how I, as a veterinarian, look at cows and examine them.

What we just heard from Andy is that she's a healthy girl and she does look good. She has a nice shine on her. It's winter time and normally cows will be shiniest when they're out on pasture in the summer and that's probably due to some of the compounds in the pasture that they're eating. In the wintertime, they have a little sheen (I don't know if you can pick that up but that's really good) instead of just a dry, long hair cow, I like to see a shiny cow—that's the first thing I look at.

Generally you can see her ears moving. You can see one ear up and one ear forward. One ear is forward with attention to what's happening in front here and the other one will come back here when I'm talking at a certain point. They are kind of like little antennae. You can tell by their ears where they are listening to by the direction of the ears. We have a machine in the background going and this ear is picking it up, yet this one is keeping attention here and that's good, that's a normal cow. If her ears were down, that's really bad. Ears being down on a cow is terrible, that means they are not happy, they are not feeling well, they’re sick. Cows hate having their ears messed with but certain times, especially with younger animals, they can have an ear infection. In an ear infection, you will see one ear drooped down compared to the other one and if you see that, especially in a calf, you'll want to get a little sniff of the ear if she’ll let you and it should simply smell like the fur of a cow.

If you bring a cow's nose up towards the roof, it will roll her eye down the opposite way. You can see the whites of her eyes really good this way. That's a normal white of her eye up top of her pupil if you hold the head like this. You can see the tiny red veinules in the top and that’s normal. But if they're throbbing or thickened, that can be a sign of a toxic cow, a sick cow.

The pupil – the blue in the center of that brown there – should be like a rectangular box. That is very difficult to catch but it is contracting and now it’s a slit, just a blue slit and if I take it away, the pupil will enlarge to a rectangle again. One thing with the pupils is that the muscles in the eye are dependent upon good muscle tone, just like the cow standing up, just like her digestive system needs to have good muscle tone and that is highly dependent on calcium, especially. When a cow would be down that's just fresh or just standing and has very slow contraction of that pupil, it could be a sign of low calcium.

We also want to look at the drainage here. There is a little bit of drainage here from her eyes, nothing terrible but sometimes they get gunky, snotty eyes and that would a sign you would want to consider that that something's going on. Usually it is connected with the nasal area like a cold or something like that.

If you look at her nose, it is nice and moist. See that nice shiny moist nose? That's a good nose for a cow. It's good moisture; you don't want it dry. A dry cow nose is just like a dry dog nose, you want a nice wet nose.

You should be able to use you sense of smell and smell her breath. It should smell like a normal cow, it might have a little bit of rumen scent to it. You'll want to smell each nostril. If you smell a foul scent, like a hospital incubation plate smell, there could be an infection going on in the respiratory tract somewhere. On the nose, it should be equal exhaling out of each nostril, no blockages or anything like that. Now she has a pretty black nose but you can look in there sometimes. With her it's going to be a little bit hard, but it should be moist and glistening just like the outside.

When you are drenching a cow, the head should be just about parallel with the ground and the mouth a little bit open. When drenching a cow, the nose should be about here, but never, never nose to the sky, never. When your nose is up, it's very much easier to get into the windpipe.

When you stand behind a cow, your left is her left, so when someone says give something from the left side, your left is her left when you're standing behind the cow and your right is her right.

On the left side of the cow is her rumen. The rumen occupies about this much of the abdomen at least on the surface and then it goes all the way towards the midline inside and around. It holds 35 to 50 gallons of rumen contents at any given time. You can listen to the rumen best behind the last large rib here and below the short ribs. You can listen right here—below the short ribs and behind the last long rib—and you can feel the contents of the rumen and how fibrous or not fibrous the diet is, fiber meaning hay (versus grain) by pushing in here. It should feel kind of doughy up top here because this is where the fiber raft sits. The fiber raft is very important in the cow's rumen because cows are herbivores and are meant to eat only plant materials. So you want to feel some resistance here, really good resistance and not just real easy in and out. And this is where I’m going to lay the stethoscope as well. I’m going to listen for a rumen contraction. The way you do that is you lay the stethoscope here and every minute-and-a-half to two minutes, you should hear basically, as I am right now, a thunderstorm happening really close to your stethoscope. That's a contraction of the rumen. You'll hear a thunderstorm in the distance when that contraction is starting, coming towards you and then happening and then moving away. And you can actually hear it if you just put your ear on the cow.

So the heart rate of a cow is generally just like ours, about 72. With someone like myself who the cow doesn't know me too well, she's a little bit stressed; it might go up to 80. I’m going to listen to her heart, she's just been fed some hay and that is very nice looking hay and she's enjoying it. I’m going to bring the stethoscope behind this shoulder blade area, upper leg muscle and listen. I'm listening to the heart, you can't hear it of course, but this is where we listen to it. It should be very easy to hear. It should not be muffled. I usually look at a watch and go for about 15 to 30 seconds and figure out what her heart rate is. So that's where you listen to the heart.

The lungs on the cow are generally in this area here, a lot of them are shielded by the shoulder blade but they come back into here and through here. I'm going to listen to the lungs where I can with the stethoscope. The lungs I'm going to listen up here. Cows will take about 24 plus or minus breaths per minute. If they are eating like she is (and I'm glad she eating, that means she's content right now and happy). These lungs should sound like a bellows, like you're pumping air into a fire. This is the area we're listening to the lungs. If I hear a real rough, sand-paper sound up here, sometimes it will mean they have a viral respiratory infection that is starting, and usually there is a high temperature associated with that. The more serious respiratory problems are when the secondary bacteria invade down here and we get a second bacterial invasion and the bacteria being heavier than viruses, they tend to be down in this area and you’ll hear rougher sounds here.

Sometimes unfortunately when you put the stethoscope way up front underneath (and you can do this on the other side as well), you'll hear a windpipe sound which is potentially the only sound coming through her trachea. The trachea is on the right side of her neck; the esophagus is right here (left side) and that's what the hay is going down right now. Sometimes with lungs that are a problem, you'll hear just a windpipe sound and that’s not good. So we've listened to the heart, the lungs, and the rumen.

Sometimes you'll see bloat on a cow (again, your left is her left) where this left side will be bloated out. That's where the bloat is, it's a rumen gas cap over that fiber.

If you have a fresh cow, there is a condition called "twisted stomach" or displaced abomasum, and you can listen for that with a stethoscope. If she’s off feed, fresh ten to fourteen days, you can listen to her rumen, make sure that's functioning every minute-and-a-half or so turning over like a thunderstorm like it just did, listen to her heart and lungs, and then you're going to place the stethoscope over these large ribs here, put it between the ribs, and you're going to flick the ribs real hard with your fingers. This is testing for twisted stomach. If she were to have a twisted stomach, she would have a sound of basically a tin can bouncing down an alley, or a ping, or chimes, or a basketball sound. It's unmistakable. A twisted stomach is not the rumen, it is the abomasum which usually lies on the floor of the cow becoming like a balloon and it has to go up because it's got air in it which it shouldn't. It will come up right behind these ribs, between the rumen and the ribs and so it gets really tight and that's why you can hear that high pitched ping sound when you're flicking.

The trachea, the windpipe, is on the right hand side. It important to know because if you’re going to pass a tube down a cow's throat into the rumen which is on the left side, you always want to make sure that when you bring the tube in, that you stay left of center (swallow has two “L”s in it) stay left when you pass a tube because then it goes into the esophagus. On the right side is the windpipe, the trachea.

Here is the jugular vein. You can see it extended here, bringing blood back from the head to the heart; it is on both sides of the neck. You can see it when I push here to stop the blood, you can see a little pulse up here and it will fill up when I hold it off, and you can see it right here. It runs the length of the jaw back down to the brisket. If I'm going to I.V. a cow, give an intravenous fluid, I'm going to want to have her head down because it fills up the jugular vein generally better. I'm not going to want to be too close to her jaw because there are a lot of vessels here, arteries and what not, and you don't want to be too much back here. But right about mid area in her neck is where you want to put in a needle for an I.V. fluid. You want to have the head tied up real good so she's not freely moving her head of course.

Here is a 14 gauge by 2 inch needle commonly used for intravenous administration of fluids on adult cows. Here is a 16 x 1 inch needle commonly used for intravenous administration of fluids on calves. Here is an 18 x 1.5 inch needle commonly used for intramuscular shots or under-the-skin shots for any animals, mainly cows. And here’s a 20 gauge by 1 inch needle, they get thinner as we get higher in numbers (so this is thin compared to the 14 gauge) and I use this on calves or goats or sheep, and especially horses.

Here’s the 14 x 2 inch I.V. needle. We’re going to use this size needle to give an I.V. to a cow. Here I have an I.V. line without a bottle. These I.V. lines I really like a lot – they are clear with blue (versus the tan ones). The old-fashioned tan ones have a very floppy top, these tend to be rigid in cold weather but that’s okay. With the tan ones, you can’t see through too well but you can see the white and black through there on the cow. It is very handy to know if you are in the vein or not. What we would do with this cow is we would use the I.V. needle; I would take an I.V. needle and I hold it like this. I hold it by the hub, and with her head tied, and with the jugular vein prominently showing, I would stab her real hard with the heel of my hand essentially allowing the needle in but stabilizing that needle until I would get the I.V. line attached.

The height of the bottle, when the needle is in the cow and her head is going to be strapped to something so she’s not moving around, I hold the bottle this high. This is a bottle of Calcium Boron Gluconate 23%. This is the height and if you hold it higher, it goes in faster—that you do not want to do with calcium because you can kill a cow by causing heart block with calcium going in too fast.

You can hold a bottle of anything up here you want other than calcium; it can be dextrose, hypertonic saline, Vitamin C, Lactated Ringer's solution as high as you want. But calcium, no higher than the backbone, whether the cow is standing or lying down. And if you lower the bottle lower than the point of needle insertion, blood should come back in the line which lets you know you are still in the vein in case she moved around a little.

A sign of a cow being somewhat low in calcium (she’s standing, she’s fresh, she’s a little slow). There will be little muscle twitches you’ll see along the shoulders, and also back here at the leg and maybe here. They will have cold ears and might have a very mild bloat. That's a sub-clinical low calcium. The muscles that move the skin are affected.

Here we are looking for ketones from the urine, that's the easiest and most effective way. You have to wait two minutes for this but if a cow is ketonic, this little pad is going to turn purple as most people know. The ketones would mean that she is needing energy in the bloodstream, she has low blood sugar and then the liver can convert fat to usable energy called ketones. It tells you that the animal is not taking in enough energy for whatever reason.

Now we’re on the right side of the cow, again we have the short ribs, we have the major ribs, and the abomasum or true stomach (like mono-gastrics have in people) sits underneath here a little right of center. This is where the fourth stomach sits, the abomasum. And the omasum, the third stomach, sits in this area here but in, and that's fed from the rumen, and the reticulum up front on the other side. Up here we have all the intestines, this is where all of the food is absorbed, all the nutritional absorption from either the microbes in the rumen going downstream when they die, they get absorbed, all their proteins and also other nutrients like minerals and all. Magnesium is absorbed across the rumen wall but other minerals are absorbed in the small intestine here. It is normal to hear a ping (like we heard over on the left side where we tested pings for twisted stomach).  If you hear a ping in this area, I would not be alarmed at all. A cow milking 100 pounds or a good amount of milk can have a ping here -- that's the gas in the spiral colon moving by. Usually you’ll hear a kind of ping, ping, ping, right here, you don’t even need to flick it, you can just sit and you’ll hear gas moving through the gut normally.

If a cow is off feed, and you've listened to the left hand side and the rumen is not moving or it’s sounding very smooth like the ocean hitting the beach and not a thunderstorm like it should, and you don’t hear a ping there, and she’s completely off-beat and she doesn’t look happy at all. Then you want to go to the right side as well and ping on the right. You shouldn’t hear anything on a normal cow than just thuds. If you hear a high-pitched ping in this area and the ping even comes down into this area, a real high ping, you’re going to think of a right-sided twisted stomach and those need surgery that day.

On the right side of a cow if she were to be pregnant six and a half months or more, you can push in here and what we call "bumping a calf." You’ll push in here and you will feel the actual calf’s body parts, some bony part right here by going back and forth. You will feel that at about six and a half or more of gestation. It is kind of a nice double check for farmers, the vet called the cow pregnant at 45 days, you didn’t think about her at all, and you want to make sure she’s still pregnant when you dry her off to give her a two month vacation from milking, you can just go like this a little and will likely feel the calf bumping up against your hand on the other side if she’s six-and-a-half months pregnant or more.

You'll see how the cow is sometime shifting her weight a little bit. It is milking time here, she may be feeling like she wants to get milked (I wouldn't be surprised) but if a cow is off-beat and she's treading a little--we call this "treading" --just shifting her weight on her back legs, that's a colicky sign in a cow and that's not good. Cows, unlike horses, cannot roll when they have colic so they show this movement, shifting her weight off her back feet.

Now we're going to take the temperature of this cow. Normal cow temperature will range from 100.5 to 102.5 F. Anything above 102.5 F is a fever. Now, if it’s a hot day outside, they will all run hot but if one animal out of tis higher than the rest, it’s a fever. What we normally do is we will lubricate the thermometer and put it in rectally here. But if the cow has diarrhea and she’s sucking air in, has diarrhea and sucking air in, you don’t want to take the temperature rectally, you want to take it in the vulva. That will give you a real reading whereas if you take it in the rectum when they have scours or diarrhea, it will be false low.

You’ll wet the thermometer a little and you always want to make sure it is shaken down and if you like a digital thermometer, that’s fine but they’re very sensitive to getting wet. I’m going to lift her tail and hold it in there a little. I usually leave it in for about a minute.
While we are waiting, we will pull up on the skin in the shoulder blades and this is a test for hardware disease. A cow that has hardware disease or a piece of metal in her first stomach, the reticulum which is over on her left, will not drop her back because it’s painful to do that. In a normal cow, if I left her skin off her back at the withers, you’ll most likely see her back curve like that. Some cows with hardware disease might curve their back but they won’t do it two times in a row. If she had hardware disease, she won’t do this a second time. And she does do it a second time so she wouldn't have hardware disease if that's what they thought was happening.

Okay, now we’re going to see what her temperature is – it is 101.8, totally normal. Sometimes you have to move these mecury-type thermometers around a little.

With a cow, any cow any time, you will see me put my hand on her tail and you will notice, the tail goes toward her body just reflexively. Do that first with a cow, let her do that. Don’t come up to a cow and take her tail and lift it up. Let her reflexively say hey I’m guarding myself a little bit. And then take the tail up and reach in. And then I flip it over. I’m reaching in to feel for the uterus to see how it is going along and she has what we call a good tone, maybe coming near heat. I think I feel a follicle on the left, I don’t know when she was checked last? Early on. You can see the clear mucus right here, she’s in heat right now with this clear mucus. I thought she wasn’t near heat and actually she’s in heat.

A farm that has a lot of cows that show a heat at 45 to 50 days and not again until 120 to 130 days fresh, you might want to consider breeding cows sooner than the voluntarily waiting period of 60 days, so some farms will breed her now. But she won’t peak as high in milk but you’ll get her bred back. That’s especially true with first calf heifers.

So I’m feeling the kidneys now (I’m up to my biceps), they should feel like a patchwork or quilt work. I feel the rumen inside here, it is very firm so you are getting a fair amount of effective fiber into her. And then, like I said she’s in heat. When I’m inside here, I can feel for internal lymph nodes and various other things you only know about after reaching into cows a lot.

I felt some undigested corn in here but there's not too much there. Sometimes if you have manure that's more firm and you take it out and squeeze it and you get liquid droplets coming out and firm manure up top, that can be a sign of poor digestion and also hardware if they suddenly have gone off feed.

We’ve looked at the cow from the head through the throat, both sides of the abdomen, the lungs, the heart, we’ve reached into the abdomen as we’ve could rectally. Another thing we can still look at visually before we get to the udder is the hooves.

The hooves on cows (maybe more in tie stall situations) are usually pretty easy to be seen as far as any type of irregularities. The hoof grows down from the hoof-hairline junction and there is any kind of stress on a cow, she will show a growth line or a stress line. If you look on a cow on all four hooves, you might see a line half way down the hoof. And you know that some major stress happened. It takes about five to seven months for a hoof to grow down to the ground and regenerate itself. It is something to look at and usually the whole herd has it. It is something to take note of.

Now I’m going to come to the udder. She's really full of milk. We’ll wash off the teats because we want to check her milk quality and then once we do that, we’ll let our friend, Alimony, go to the milking parlor with her friends because she’s really going to start dripping milk here in about 30 to 60 seconds. That is the reflex time from this tactile touch. If you are having trouble with a cow letting her milk down, you really want to vigorously do this, like a calf would be bumping up against the udder because it is a tactile stimuli by touch that gets them to let down their milk.

They all look nice and clean but what’s most important is right there at the teat end. The teat sphincter is a little bit everted here, coming out, meaning it is a little prolapsed, and that will gather dirt easier. I am going to look at each of the four teats and make sure they are clean. That is the entry way for environmental bacteria to get into the udder. If you see this little white ring here, that means that this cow either the milking machine is on her too long or there is a fluctuation in vacuum, too great of a fluctuation during the milking time. And this one is a little bit extruded or coming out and they shouldn’t be at all. All four teats are like that (you can see it right here, a little white ring by my index finger, and it's a little harder to see on the black teat).

We are going to check her milk quality by the California Mastitis Test (CMT), which takes this paddle and even through these letter are here, I can never keep track which quarter is which so I hold the plate like this, with the handle the same direction of the tail. So now I know that this will always be right front, right hind, left front, left hind, even if I'm out here. Now, strip out some milk into each of these plates. I will take an equal volume of this CMT fluid and swirl it around and we'll look for any type of thickening or gelling of this fluid. I don’t see any. If there was, I would take note. This is normal milk, this is great. And then we’re going to watch the drips coming off—the drips are all like raindrops and that’s good that there is no gloppiness to it. So she has a good CMT so her milk is totally normal and she’s a healthy cow, and we should let Alimony go be with her friends.

• Jodarski, G. 2010. Physical examination of a dairy cow [online]. Organic Broadcaster. Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service. Available at: http://www.mosesorganic.org/attachments/broadcaster/livestock18.2cowexam.html  (verified 07-12-2012).

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

eOrganic 6231

In this video, offered by the eOrganic Dairy Team, grazing and organic certification expert Sarah Flack demonstrates how to calculate paddock size and stocking rates for pastures an organic dairy farm. 

Watch the video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhpxvoHwy8A

My name is Sarah Flack and I'm a grazing consultant. I also do organic farm inspections. Today, we are going to quickly run through how you can figure out how large your paddock needs to be to feed a herd of animals for a day. Then you can go on and do some stocking rate calculations to figure out how many total acres of pasture you need in order to provide the amount of dry matter from pasture to your animals that meets your farm goals.

Let's use an example here. We'll assume that it is a herd of dairy cows and there are 50 in the herd. This farmer's goal is to provide 30 pounds of dry matter per cow from the pasture per day. So this is a farm that's providing the majority of the dry matter from pasture. They're supplementing just a little bit of grain in the barn.

The first thing we need to do is determine what the total dry matter requirement is of the herd for a whole day. So I'll use my calculator--I'll take the 50 animals times the 30 pounds. I come up with 1500 pounds of dry matter per day. That's the requirement of that whole 50 cow herd from pasture.

Now that we've used the grazing stick, and have gone around the pasture and measured how much available grazeable dry matter is available in a whole acre, we came up with 1200 in our example. The next thing we are going to do is divide the 1200 into the 1500 and so we get 1.25. An acre-and-a-quarter is how much you need in order to provide the 1500 pounds of dry matter.

That means for every 24 hours, if you are using 24 hour paddocks that you are putting your animals in, each paddock would need to be an acre-and-a-quarter in size. So each paddock is providing the 1500 pounds of dry matter to the whole herd for that day. And you can go on later with those numbers once you know how long it's going to take each of your paddocks to grow back up to the full pre-grazing height -- in this case to about 8 or 9 inches of height. You can figure out how many total acres that you'll need to graze the whole herd now that you know how much it will take to feed them for 24 hours.

So now that we know that the herd needs an acre-and-a-quarter to feed them for 24 hours, let's figure out how many total acres are needed to feed that herd at different times of the year.

In the spring when the grass is growing very rapidly, it's going to take about 18 days for the pasture to grow back up to the correct pre-grazing height (in this case, the farmer's goal is to graze it when it is about 8-9 inches tall). So we take the 18 days and multiple it by 1.25 (an acre-and-a-quarter), and now we know that the farmer needs 22.5 acres in the spring to rotate throughout that's giving the cows a fresh paddock every day that is an acre-and-a-quarter in size.

Now later in the summer, when the speed that these plants out here in the pasture are growing at slows down, you'll need to add more acres in the rotation. So when you bring the cows back to the paddock, it's always at the correct pre-grazing height. This farmer's goal for the pre-grazing height is about 8 to 9 inches of grass and clover height when the cows come back into each paddock. Now, instead of taking 18 days for the plants to grow back, it's going to take more like 28 to 30 days in the middle part of the summer. On some farms, that will be significantly longer than that, so you need to use the numbers that are appropriate for your own area. Assuming the farmer is putting the livestock into this acre-and-a-quarter paddock every day and it is a 30 day regrowth period, we take the 1.25 and multiply it by 30. The farmer now needs 37.5 acres to rotate throughout to provide the same amount of dry matter intake to the cows.

You can see the farm has gone from needing 22.5 acres in the spring to 37.5 acres during the summer. There may be times in the summer where the regrowth periods are even slower than that and you would need even more acres. But this is a way to give you some ballpark numbers of how many acres you need at the different times of the year for this particular 50 cow herd.

• Video: Calculating Dry Matter Intake in Organic Pastures Using a Pasture Stick, http://www.extension.org/article/28874
• Finding a Pasture Stick in Your Area for Your Organic Dairy Farm, http://www.extension.org/article/28873

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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In this eOrganic dairy video, grazing and certification specialist Sarah Flack demonstrates how to develop a grazing map now required by the USDA National Organic Program, outlined in the Access to Pasture rule's Pasture Practice Standard.

Watch the video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYM1yQf4LeQ

My name is Sarah Flack and I work as an organic inspector and I also do grazing consulting for farmers. I am going to talk a little bit today about the new access to pasture requirements in the new pasture rule. In February of 2010, the National Organic Program released the new access to pasture rule and this rule has some new requirements and some new record keeping requirements for organic farmers in the US.

Today I want to specifically talk about just one part of the new access to pasture rule which is 205.240. This is the Pasture Practice Standard and is actually a whole new section in the organic standards. This requires that every year, you have a pasture plan in your organic system plan (that's the application that the certifier has you fill out every year). This has to be updated annually. I'm just going to talk about one little piece, the pasture plan requirement. You should definitely read the pasture practice standard section 205.240 so that you know all the different pieces of it.

Today we are just going to talk about how to set up a map which is part of the requirement. This new pasture practice standard requires you to have a map of all of the pastures on your farm, and each pasture needs to have its own identification on the map. The standard also requires that you show the number of acres of the different pastures, also the location of the fences, where the sources of shade are, and also where the water is.

One of the easiest ways to do this is going to be to draw all of this right on the map. There are a couple of ways to do this. One is if you have an NRCS grazing plan, this will all get drawn for you on a map as part of the planning process. If you need to draw it yourself, you can go get one of these maps at your local NRCS office and have it include all your pastures and then you can start using colored magic markers and just draw everything right on this map.

This is a farm where there is one large pasture that has been divided into smaller areas and we are going to use this as our practice example and draw their pasture map.

This is a large field, it has a perimeter fence around it, so we are going to draw that on first in green. You don't need to draw on the temporary fences, you only need to draw on the permanent fences. This is where the perimeter electric fence goes around the whole large area that gets grazed. If you want to draw a straighter line, you can use a ruler. That's the perimeter fence for the farm and they have a central lane which divides this field into 2 large strips of pasture. These are the 2 fences on either side of the lane, and the barn is back here. This is a custom heifer grazing operation so the animals are then strip grazed using temporary fences all through these 2 large pastures, but we don't need to draw on these temporary fences.

The next thing we can do is draw in the number of acres of these 2 pastures. This is the north pasture and it is 40 acres. We are going to call it "N," and this is the south pasture and it is also 40 acres. Now we have given each of the 2 main pastures an identification letter and written on the number of acres, and we've drawn on the number of acres, and that meets that part of the requirement.

Now we are going to draw in the water sources. On this farm they have a piped water system, so we are going to draw the water pipe on in blue and they are using portable water tubs here so they will need to describe that in their grazing system plan in their application every year. That shows to the certifier where the water pipe is so the animals have access to water whenever they are out there in the paddocks.

The only other thing to add on to here is going to be the sources of shade which we are going to do in orange. This often can be helpful because a lot of times these maps will be slightly out of date, like this one is. They have actually cleared these trees out of here so there is no shade there anymore, but there is shade along the sides here and along the back of the pasture.

Now we have got a completed pasture map that can be sent into the certifier to meet the new rules requirement. Before you send this to your certifier, you'll want to make sure that you keep a copy of it for yourself so you've got one for your own records and then you can send one into the certifier.

As with all things with this new pasture rule, make sure you check with the certifier to make sure you are meeting all of their requirements, and read the whole rule so that you understand all of the different requirements that you have in order to meet it.

• Recording of Setting Up a Grazing System on Your Organic Dairy Farm Webinar by eOrganic
• Recording of How to Calculate Pasture Dry Matter Intake on Your Organic Dairy Farm Webinar by eOrganic
• Agricultural Marketing Service—National Organic Program [Online]. United States Department of Agriculture. Available at: http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/ (verified 21 July 2010).
• United States Department of Agriculture. 2000. National organic program: Final rule. Codified at 7 C.F.R., part 205. (Available online at: https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/retrieveECFR?gp=1&SID=fdf041134bb6c6b2c1fc012ba66f6c57&h=L&mc=true&n=pt7.3.205&r=PART&ty=HTML) (verified 25 Apr 2019).

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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In this video, offered by the eOrganic Dairy Team, grazing and organic certification expert Sarah Flack demonstrates how to calculate the amount of pasture dry matter per acre available for grazing using a pasture stick in a pasture of orchard grass and clover in northern Vermont. Pasture or grazing sticks are typically available from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and/or local farming organizations.

Watch the video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSYflqjP6B0&t=185s

My name is Sarah Flack and I’m a grazing consultant and I also do organic farm inspections. And today I’m going to show you how to use this grazing stick to measure the amount of dry matter that is available in a pasture for your livestock to graze.

This is called a grazing stick or a pasture stick. They are usually made by NRCS or another local organization in your state, and these are one of the simplest ways to be able to go out into a pasture, look at how tall the grass is and also look at the density of the grass and figure out how many pounds of dry matter per acre is actually available for the livestock to graze.

So the first thing you do to use this stick is you use the numbers on the side to measure about how tall the pasture plants are, and you’ll do this by actually walking around the whole pasture and taking measurements in several different areas.

So if I did this here and I walked around this pasture, we’d probably say that this pasture is on average about 9 or 10 inches of height. I’m not measuring these seed heads because those are really not the grazeable forage; the animals are really going to eat the clover and the leafy grass blades down here. So that’s what I’m measuring here.

So if we say this is about 9 inches of height, that’s the first step in using this grazing stick.

The grazing stick has all of the instructions written right on it and so you can just follow along.

And so the first step, after you’ve measured the height is to subtract 3 inches from that height and that’s so you are taking off the 2 to 3 inches that the animals aren’t going to eat and you are not including that part. So if said that was 9 inches of height, we’re going to take the 3 inches off and we’re saying that there is actually 6 inches of grazeable height in the pasture available for them to eat.

The next part of using the grazing stick is figuring out what the density of the pasture is. So there’s a grid on the side of the grazing stick with a bunch of dots in it. And the way you use this part of it is you actually slide the stick right down on the soil surface with the dots up.

So now that we’ve slid the grazing stick right down on the soil surface under the pasture plants, I’m going to stand and look straight down on the grazing stick and count how many dots that I can see. And I’m going to do this without moving my head so I can get a good objective measurement of how many I see. So I’m seeing 3 from where I’m standing here. So this gives us an estimate of the density of the plants in the pasture.

So now that we have figured out how many dots we can see when this was underneath the pasture, we’re going to go over to this section right here that will tell us how many pounds per acre inch of dry matter is available based on how many dots we saw. So we’re going to use this third column because we saw 3 or more dots and this tells you based on the type of plant species in the pasture how many acre inches or pounds per acre inch there are. We’re going to go down to orchard grass and clover because a lot of this pasture is orchard grass with red clover and white clover. And we saw 3 dots so we’re going to go down to the column on the far side here and it’s telling there are 150 to 200 pounds of dry matter per inch in an acre out here.

And so if we think back to the height measurement that we did, there were 6 inches available for grazing after we subtracted the 3 inches from the 9 inches we measured using the grazing stick. So we take that six inches and multiply it times, we’ll use this number 200, the higher number in the range, the 6 inches times (x) 200 pounds means that there is 1200 pounds of dry matter available here in each acre for the animals to graze.

So now this stick has told us that there is about 1200 pounds of dry matter available in each acre for the animals to actually graze, and that’s assuming that the whole pasture looked like this area, we’re doing this for example purposes, and this is telling you the grazeable amount of dry matter per acre not the total amount of dry matter per acre available because the animals are going to eat about half of what’s here and they are going to leave the other half behind in little clumps that they reject and don’t want to eat.

The other thing you always want to make sure when you are using any one of the many methods for measuring the amount of dry matter available per acre is to make sure that you check yourself and that you don’t have a really high number or a really low number; it’s often useful to go to some pasture walks or discussion group meetings, practice doing this with other farmers who have some experience with it so that when you get a number from the stick then you can look at the pasture and feel confident that you really did get an accurate number. And right here, I feel like this would be a pretty accurate number if I got 1200 pounds and the whole pasture looked like this, I think that is what would be available for grazing.

• Finding a Pasture Stick in Your Area for Your Organic Dairy Farm, http://www.extension.org/article/28873

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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In this video, filmed by Harriet Behar of the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), Dr. Guy Jodarski and Wisconsin organic dairy farmer Kevin Jahnke describe techniques for successfully raising organic calves.

Watch the video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cnh5rMA0a4

Dr. Guy Jodarski: Hello, my name is Guy Jodarski and I’m a veterinarian with Organic Valley, starting my 24th year of practice, and I have been working with organic dairy farmers for about six or seven years.

Today, we are looking at Kevin Jahnke’s calves. Kevin is a seasonal producer and so he has a lot of cows that calf in a short period of time. The nice thing about this is he gets a group of calves that are close in age which makes raising a group of calves easier. Some of the things that Kevin is doing very well include feeding enough whole milk—that’s one thing we really need to do is feed enough whole milk to our calves, giving at least a gallon of milk both morning and night, that’s what we suggest for people with Holstein-size cattle – at least give a gallon or 4 quarts both morning and night. With Jersey-size cattle, 3 quarts. These are cross-bred with a lot of Jersey breed in them. They are about 2 months old at this point. What you will notice is that their body condition is excellent, they are very well grown both in their frame and internal organs—they are filling out quite nicely. This milk is really an important part of the issue here.

The other thing is, it is the grazing season, the grass is growing out there and these calves are on paddocks outside. Grazing is very important, and so we like to see forage into these calves right from day one. He rotates his paddocks which is very important for parasite control. You need to move the calves to new areas because internal parasites, the worms in particular with grazing are a big problem with organic cattle. The milk really helps keep worms down and so that’s important. We want to delay the weaning, taper off the milk rather than just stopping abruptly. We want this calf to adapt to the forage diet before we take that milk away.

Here you can see some of the calves walking out, notice how straight and tall they are, the legs and backs are straight. A lot of times we look at those as being genetic traits (which they are to some degree) but also nutrition really brings on the expression of those good genetics. Confirmation and form are really influenced by nutrition. There's nothing that really replaces that whole milk—it’s so important.

The other thing to notice is these calves are chewing their cud. These calves are two months old and are chewing their cud—Kevin has told me that they’ve been chewing their cud for over a month now. This is one issue that's somewhat controversial because some nutritionists will say that a calf will not develop rumen function without grain. These calves get very little grain—they get a little bit to carry kelp, they eat only a few ounces per day, they mostly eat forage and milk and they have excellent rumen development which is just what we see with calves that are on nurse cows or with beef calves, rumen development can occur without grain.

The amount of saliva that they actually swallow probably helps the digestion and also makes them feel satisfied so they don’t want to suck. If a calf drinks out of a pail and just wolfs that milk down in a hurry, there is a lot of volume there and yet it is not going to digest properly because it doesn’t have the saliva; it’s not natural for the calf to have a big bowl of milk like that. You think about a calf nursing on a cow, it’s going to take small meals several times per day. We go down to two times a feeding per day for managing our time but we need to make that calf drink that milk over a period of time.

Kevin Jahnke: We’ve got a lot of Jersey genetics in our cattle which means that just about every calf born has some horns. We like to dehorn the calves because they grow up with horns on the cows; that’s just not safe around us and the other cattle. In the past we’ve always used an electric dehorner as it seems to be the most humane method. It’s also nice because there is no blood. The time of year we needed to dehorn our calves was getting into fly season and so the dehorner was a pretty clean method.

Harriet Behar: Now these calves were dehorned a week ago?

Kevin Jahnke: About two weeks ago we dehorned them with the electric dehorner. The difference this year is that we used lidocaine as a nerve block. We gave them a shot of lidocaine (5 cc on each side), waited about five to ten minutes and dehorned the calves. It was amazing that most of the calves when going through the dehorning process were not tensed up at all. We’ve got a little cattle chute that we use for calves; they weren’t pulled back in the chute. I was telling Dr. Guy that when we dehorned the calves, there were actually a couple of calves that, while I was dehorning them, they were licking my leg and looking around like nothing was going on. It is definitely a humane way to go; I would recommend it.

Guy Jodarski: They are developing a herd social structure, all being together like this. They are used to being together and are very calm. They are very easy to approach because they are used to people coming to feed them and also moving them between the paddocks. I'd really like to point out these fences with the tape. They've got different paddocks here. There haven't been calves on this ground for a while; this is fresh ground. This is a concept that people need to keep in mind with calves -- get them on fresh ground and then keep them moving around. And offer them some good feed. You can see there is some very good quality grass here and they are going to eat and make good use of it. That will make the weaning of these calves so much easier; if they are going to get that rumen function going and are able to digest good quality grass, then weaning is not going to be such a problem.

The Mob Feeder

Kevin Jahnke: This is the barrel we are using this year to feed our calves. It would be described as a mob feeder, gravity-type system where the milk is above the nipples. There are other systems where the milk is drawn up a hose from the bottom of the barrel. I’ve tried both systems and both seem to work equally well. We just had trouble this year--when the calves are on the system with the hoses, they have to keep continuously sucking to keep that milk coming up the hose and if they stop, the milk falls down and they have to start over, it just seemed that some of the calves weren’t doing very well on that system and were getting frustrated and it ended up being like a ring-around-the-rosy type of deal around the feeder.

This is gravity-type system. The nipples are Milk BarTM brand nipples. The nipple is very important to feeding a calf especially in a system where you are putting a gallon of milk into that calf per feeding. A lot of farmers always believed that putting too much milk into a calf would make a calf sick but my experience of 20 years with beef cows and calves is you could see a beef cow with way more milk that what her calf was going to drink and the beef calves never ever get sick. The reason is that when the calf is drinking from a cow they are always getting the right ratio of saliva. What these nipples do is make that calf work for the milk. The milk doesn’t come out very easy and they’ve got to suck pretty hard. It takes them about ten minutes to drink, so during that time, they are creating a lot of saliva with that sucking action. That saliva actually begins the digestion process as the milk is hitting the stomach. The saliva is very, very important to a good, healthy calf. There are components in the saliva that actually pre-start the digestion process to make the milk clot up so that the calf and the abomasum can digest the milk without getting sick.

Harriet: What’s the bell about?

Kevin Jahnke: I attached a dinner bell on this. I’ve got a pump in the utility room that I pour the milk into. There’s a milk line that pumps the milk over here so I don’t have to carry it. Trying to carry 5 gallon buckets of milk in a group pen with 15 to 20 hungry calves doesn’t work very well. You get trampled. So the milk is pumped into this pipe here, hits the fly wheel and makes the bell ring. I did that because with the grazing system we have for the calves, there are times that they are 300 to 400 yards away from the building and when I start pumping the milk, they don’t know it. So I rigged up a bell system so that when the milk comes in, it rings the bell and it is the dinner bell. So the calves hear the bell and come running.

My wife and kids probably like our system of mob feeding over the nurse cows for the reason that everybody becomes a pet. That’s a nice way to be on a farm to have your cows come up to you and want to be around you.

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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This eOrganic video was created by members of a project of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (NIFA OREI) entitled Biodiversity and Natural Pest Suppression (BAN-PestS). 

Watch this video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-g-1Qyrk2I

Syrphid flies, also known as hover flies, are beneficial insects. The adult fly lays its eggs on leaves near aphid colonies. As adults, they are important pollinators feeding on a wide range of flowers. In their larval stage, they prey on aphids. Each larva that hatches can consume hundreds of aphids. Syrphid fly larvae are aggressive aphid predators. They are commonly considered to be the most important aphid predator in vegetable crops.

There are many species of syrphids. The adult flies are usually yellow and black and thus resemble bees. However, like other flies, they only have one set of wings. As their namesake indicates, they can often be seen hovering above flowers or aphid colonies. The eggs resemble a grain of rice and are often laid singly on leaves.

The larvae are frequently confused with common caterpillar pests that feed on vegetable crops. Being able to distinguish between the caterpillar pest and the beneficial syrphid fly larvae is crucial as you make decisions about pest management on your farm. Luckily, there are a few simple features that will allow you to distinguish between syrphid fly larvae and caterpillars. The first thing to look for is whether or not the insect has legs. Syrphid fly larvae do not have legs and move in an undulating manner. Caterpillars have legs. If you are unsure if an insect has legs, try getting the insect to move. The legs will be apparent on a moving caterpillar.

Syrphid fly larvae have nondescript heads, no eyes, and no chewing mouthparts. Caterpillar pests have distinguishable heads with chewing mouthparts. Impressively, these blind legless syrphid fly larvae manage to consume entire aphid colonies. These are valuable creatures to respect and support on your farm.

You can make your farm more hospitable for syrphid flies by planting flowers that provide nectar for adult flies, such as sweet alyssum. Studies in apple orchards and collards have shown that planting sweet alyssum greatly increased the population of syrphid flies, leading to reduced aphid infestations (Gontijo, Beers, & Snyder, 2013; Ribeiro & Gontijo, 2017). Research out of California has looked at how to most efficiently intercrop sweet alyssum to attract aphid predators to lettuce fields. Their work indicates that as few as 1 to 2 alyssum transplants per 50 lettuce transplants is sufficient (Brennan, 2015). 

Syrphid flies are an important aphid predator and pollinator to promote on your farm. Knowing a few identifying characteristics—no legs, eyes or chewing mouth parts—can help you distinguish these beneficial insects from caterpillar pests. Being able to identify these insects will assist you in making pest management decisions that support these important predators and pollinators.

Follow this link to find a user-friendly flier that will help you distinguish between specific syrphid species. https://calcorenetwork.sites.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/249/2015/10/SYRPHID-FLYER.pdf

• Brennan, E. 2015. Efficient intercropping for biological control of aphids in transplanted organic lettuce. eOrganic article. (Available at: http://articles.extension.org/pages/72642/efficient-intercropping-for-biological-control-of-aphids-in-transplanted-organic-lettuce) (verified 3 July 2017).
• Gontijo, L. M., E. H. Beers, and W. E. Snyder. 2013. Flowers promote aphid suppression in apple orchards. Biological Control. (Available online at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocontrol.2013.03.007) (verified 3 July 2017).
• Nieto, D., et al. 2015. Beneficial and pest larval species common to broccoli on the California Central Coast. Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems. University of California Santa Cruz. (Available online at: https://calcorenetwork.sites.ucsc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/249/2015/10/SYRPHID-FLYER.pdf) (verified 3 July 2017).
• Ribeiro, A. L., and L. M. Gontijo. 2017. Alyssum flowers promote biological control of collard pests. BioControl. (Available online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10526-016-9783-7) (verified 3 July 2017).

   

   

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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This eOrganic video on scouting vegetable crops was created by members of a project of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (NIFA OREI) entitled Biodiversity and Natural Pest Suppression (BAN-PestS). 

Watch this video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkixPtTTXyA

What was the last crop you lost to a pest? When did you realize you had a problem? Many times we don’t know there is a problem until we are up close and personal with a crop. All too often that is at harvest.

Scouting is the routine monitoring of pest pressure in a crop. A scouting routine can help you identify problems in your field before they get out of control. In this video we will scout for cabbage aphid in brassica crops in the Pacific Northwest. However, the scouting principles and tips can apply to any crop or region.

Scouting is a systematic way to assess the health of your crop and threat of pest outbreaks without examining every plant. Scouting relies on sampling a subset of the field to collect data you can use to make informed management decisions. Scouting can reduce your inputs and crop losses, saving you money.

There are various tools used in scouting. The tool you will use depends on the crop and pest. Many pests must be trapped to monitor while others, such as cabbage aphid, can be observed on the crop without trapping. In this video we focus on visual observation, but many of the principles of scouting we cover will apply regardless of the scouting tool used.

To begin a scouting routine, start by researching the pests you are likely to observe and the corresponding beneficial insects. This information will help you identify which scouting tools are appropriate and when to begin scouting. Numerous extension resources are available that describe the community of pests associated with a particular crop in your area.

When you arrive at the field, commit your attention to scouting. Focus is required to capture signs of pests. First, make observations about the entire field. Look for areas that appear stunted or have a color variation. Notice any unique geographic features, such as a depression. These areas may have higher pest pressure. You will want to visit these areas.

Select a path through the field that will allow you to collect a random yet representative sample. One method is to travel through the field in a "w" pattern, selecting plants to sample randomly along that path. Adjust your path through the field to ensure you visit areas you have identified to be at higher risk for pest infestations. Record your path through the field so that on your next visit you can scout a different route. Each scouting trip, you will select a different random sample. On each scouting trip you may want to visit areas you suspect to have growing pest populations in addition to your random sample.

When you reach your first sample, assess the plant overall and then start looking at the individual leaves. Look at both young and old leaves, and don’t forget to search both sides of the leaf. You will want to remove a few leaves for closer observation. Now look at any buds, flowers, or fruit. Depending on the potential pest, you may even use your harvest knife to cut open the stalk or unearth the plant so you can see the roots.

Record your observations and a numeric assessment of the pest. For example, a numeric assessment of cabbage aphid pressure is the average number of aphids per leaf. Select three leaves from different parts of the plant and record the number of aphids and aphid predators per leaf. Repeat for ten plants.

You will follow the same procedure each time you scout, but vary your path through the field and which plants you sample. Standardizing your collection method is necessary to accurately track pest pressure over time.

Calculate the average number of aphids and predators per leaf. Reviewing these averages from visit to visit allows you to determine whether or not the pest pressure is increasing, or if beneficial insects are effectively managing the pest. This information will allow you to determine if and when you need to take action to control the pest, in other words, your action threshold.

Your action threshold is the point at which you’ll experience economic loss if control measures are not pursued. Your action threshold depends on the cost of controlling the pest, the effectiveness of your control measure, the value of your particular crop, and the potential for the pest to cause damage that will impact your ability to sell the crop. These factors vary for different crops. For instance, tolerance for aphids may be higher on kale than broccoli since aphids can get into broccoli heads where they are protected from insecticide applications.

Action thresholds also change over time, as markets fluctuate. Ask your local extension educator for help identifying a recently published action threshold for your region and crop. Keep in mind that action thresholds are usually calculated without considering biological control by beneficial insects, and you may want to adjust your action threshold if you observe high rates of natural pest suppression.

Farming is a demanding occupation. To make sure scouting gets done, it is best to make scouting a habit. Tip: For best results, scout twice a week. For instance, you could dedicate lunchtime Tuesday to scouting a few fields. Keeping a bucket of scouting tools easily accessible can help facilitate regular scouting. Must-have scouting tools include a pencil, paper, clipboard, tally counter, and camera.

Pest emergence and growth are each temperature-dependent, and vary with each crop. Check local extension resources to determine approximately when pests in your crop system emerge, and initiate your scouting routine accordingly.

Scouting is an important practice to do on your farm that will definitely pay off. Check out the Pacific Northwest Insect Management Handbook for up-to-date information on crop specific pests. There, you’ll find examples of action thresholds, local emergence times and other resources to help you prepare for and avoid pest outbreaks on your farm.
 

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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Watch this video clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCzIFVfyNow

Late blight is a serious plant disease that affects potato and tomato. It can completely destroy crops in as little as two weeks when conditions are favorable for the pathogen. Phytophthora infestans, the organism that causes late blight, is known as a water mold, which gives us a hint that late blight is favored by high humidity and wet leaves. When relative humidity levels exceed 90%, hundreds of thousands of spores are produced on infected plants, which can be carried by air currents to infect nearby fields and gardens. Late blight epidemics can develop and spread very quickly.

One of the first places to scout for late blight is in seed potatoes before planting. Look for sunken, dark lesions on the surface of the tubers. If these lesions are caused by late blight, a shallow cut across the surface of the lesion will reveal a dry, firm, reddish-brown rot. Often, other diseases will invade late blight infected tubers, making it difficult to determine if late blight is present. Submit suspect tubers to your state diagnostic lab and avoid planting seed that appears to be infected. (Find your state diagnostic lab at the National Plant Diagnostic Network: www.npdn.org)

Other places for early season scouting include piles of culled potatoes, potatoes surviving in compost piles, or volunteer potato plants growing from tubers left in the ground the prior season–especially if late blight was present in your area. Cull and volunteer potatoes should be destroyed before green tissue emerges if possible, or scouted for symptoms if it’s not possible to destroy them. When buying tomato transplants, be sure they appear healthy, with no dark spots on the leaves or stem.

When you're scouting a field, it is important to think about where you’re most likely to find early symptoms. The first symptoms are often found where environmental conditions are most favorable for infection–such as low spots and edges near woods where plants tend to stay wet longer. Also think about places in the field where an organic-approved fungicide application may have skipped, like this spot where an aerial application missed near a power line. (Note: If prohibited fungicides were applied the previous year, then the field cannot be used for organic production in the current year. Consult with your certifier/inspector before using any product or input in your certified organic operation, and read the article, Can I Use This Input on My Organic Farm?)

In this field, late blight was first found near the woods, where plants are shaded in the morning, and there is less air movement. Adding to the wet, humid conditions that favor late blight, the irrigation system was leaking at this corner of the field, so the soil was saturated, increasing the relative humidity even more.

Because seed can be the source of disease inoculum in potatoes, the first sign of late blight may be a lesion on the stem that got its start from the infected tuber, and it could occur anywhere in the field. In this case it would make sense to focus early season scouting on the stem and base of the plant.

Inside dense plant canopies is another place late blight might first appear. When scouting, always look inside the canopy where leaves stay wet and relative humidity stays high later in the day. Be sure to scout the bottom of the plant canopy where leaves dry off more slowly. Staking tomatoes can help keep leaves dry, but if plants are very healthy, humidity can stay high inside the dense canopy.

Late blight lesions on leaves tend to have rounded edges, often with a lighter border. The lesions go right across the leaf veins. Tissue in the center of the lesion may be completely dead, and may appear wet and slimy. The pathogen will produce fragile, white growth in the living tissue surrounding the lesion if relative humidity is high. This is where thousands of spores are produced, which can detach from the plant and be carried for miles on air currents. If relative humidity is low, sporulation will not be present. Very new late blight lesions resemble early signs of several other diseases, and suspect leaves should be brought in from the field and held in a plastic bag with a damp paper towel to allow symptoms and spores to develop.

Late blight affects all parts of the plant. On potato and tomato stems, lesions are black, with a greasy appearance. Sporulation often appears on stem lesions rather than at the border as it does on leaves. On tomato fruit, late blight appears as a firm, brown lesion, and spores may also be produced on the lesion itself.

We hope this introduction to scouting for late blight will help you detect infections on your farm as early as possible. Finding it early gives you the best shot at successful management.
 

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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Helen Atthowe, BioDesign Farm. Stevensville, MT. 

Disease Suppression

We’re seeing disease suppression, which is something we don’t entirely understand yet. There are many theories about what could be causing this disease resistance. But particularly the last two years, we’ve seen a very small amount of cucumber mosaic virus or pepper mosaic virus, which is a virus which attacks 800 species of plants, both monocots, grasses, and dicots, vegetable plants, and in fact, weeds as well. Our favorite weed, this Malva neglecta, is a place where the virus over-winters.

If I had seen this 10 years ago, I would’ve been scared to death, because cucumber mosaic virus can cause stunting of plants and diminished yield. But here we have this on our older leaves, mostly, and the plants outgrow it and in fact, are extremely vigorous. If we have any more peppers on these plants, you can see that the plants are falling over because there are so many peppers on this plant. And yet, if you look closely throughout all these plants, you see that there’s a small amount of this cucumber mosaic virus within the population of this living mulch field, yet it never seems to get to a point where we see a diminished yield.

So, the possibility is that these plants are kicking in with their immune system and in some way suppressing the cucumber mosaic virus. There are some theories that plants are encouraged to kick in their immune systems with microbial interactions, with soil microbe interactions, that may be enhanced by organic matter and organic residue additions which is what we think is going on here, but its still a new area and we’re not entirely sure.

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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Helen Atthowe, BioDesign Farm. Stevensville, MT. 

Nitrogen

When I first started farming and working with other organic farmers twenty years ago, one of our greatest challenges was getting nitrogen, particularly nitrate-nitrogen to our crop so that we would have early crops. What organic farmers have always faced is a microbially-controlled nutrient release and thus availability to the crop so we tended to be a little slower. What I found working in this system, is that the challenge disappeared after about five or six years of the living mulch creating a recycled nutrient foundation.

So that here in Montana, where it's an even greater challenge than anywhere else I’ve farmed, to make sure that nutrients are available to the crop early enough, we’re getting the earliest tomatoes and red peppers, and in fact green bell peppers at the market than any of the other growers, including the conventional growers. One of the reasons is plants start growing very rapidly because the nutrients, particularly nitrogen, seems to be quite readily available. One of the things that helps this system is the black plastic. I don’t think in this climate, we could do this living mulch system with warm season crops without the heat increase that we get from the black plastic.

Another interesting thing I’ve noticed as a result of this constant addition of residues developing a foundation for a nutrient base is that we don’t have surges of nitrogen the way I used to when I would add a lot of compost or a green manure only in the spring, and till it under and it would be released and then we might side-dress later. What we found is increased crop quality and lasting ability. Peppers, for example, have very thick walls. They get less sun scald problems and we can do our specialty, which is red peppers, without losing as many. We don’t have as much wrinkling and again the breakdown issues that occur with high heat and sun. I suspect that the reason is that we’re seeing lower tissue nitrate-nitrogen. We’re also seeing higher levels of calcium in the tissue; that could also be a reason. But, I suspect it all boils down to the slow release nutrients that we’re maintaining within the system.

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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Helen Atthowe, BioDesign Farm. Stevensville, MT.  

Soil Fertility

One of the exciting things that we’ve learned in exploring this living mulch system is number one: the nutrient balance that we’re seeing and number two: the side benefits of all of the organic residue addition over the last eleven years. We’ve found that this organic residue, even these legumes, that of course are nitrogen-fixing, that we add to the soil doesn’t necessarily provide nutrients immediately. When we mow like this, when we do the continuous residue application throughout the growing season, what we’re doing is building up a foundation of soil fertility that then releases slowly. So this residue that I’m mowing here, may be the nutrients for my crop next year.

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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Helen Atthowe, BioDesign Farm. Stevensville, MT. 

Habitat for Beneficials

After quite a bit of study in 1995 and ’96, we found that because the living mulch has very close proximity to the crop, in other words, for every row of crop, there is a row of living mulch, we don’t diminish the beneficial or the pollinator insect populations when we mow. Also, as crops finish, like this broccoli here, we let it go to flower and seed and it provides more habitat for beneficial insects. And remember, one of the things that we’ve found is that it’s not just the flowering, the pollen and nectar source, that our parasitic wasps, and our syrphid flies and many of our other predator and parasites need. They also need the cover and even mowing maintains quite a bit of cover. One of the predators that needs this cover the most is ground beetles, carabid beetles. Also spiders require this cover. We found significant increases in the population of those kinds of predators by doing this mowing and leaving the residue on the surface.
 

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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Helen Atthowe, BioDesign Farm. Stevensville, MT. 

Weed Ecology

We’ve learned some stories about weed ecology as well. One of the weeds that has evolved, or at least been released from competition is this Malva neglecta or common mallow. It has basically formed a strong, dominant part of the vegetative system along with chickweed and all of the annual weeds that we had when we began; lamb’s quarters, redroot pigweed, quackgrass, have all disappeared or have been very much marginalized compared to these two weeds. There was a time when I was quite concerned about it, because it’s become very dominant as you can perhaps see here. I just happened to look up in Bob Parnes’ Fertile Soil what actually the nutrient value of this particular weed is. And according to Parnes, mallows contribute 80 lbs of nitrogen per ton, which is actually higher than what legume hay will contribute. So, what’s going on here is obviously, this is not a nitrogen fixer as the clovers are or as the legumes are, so how come there’s so much nitrogen? Basically what has been suggested is this plant is a very good scavenger, a very good accumulator of nitrogen and that it helps cycle it through the system and because I’m creating, over the last eleven years here, a system based on recycled nutrients, we’ve created perfect habitat for this scavenger.
 

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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Helen Atthowe, BioDesign Farm. Stevensville, MT. 

Cover Crops

The species of cover crops that I’ve used in my system are mainly legumes, mainly clovers. We’ve used Dutch white clover, Alsike clover, red clover, crimson clover, an annual clover called Berseem clover. I’ve also used a number of Australian medics, mainly because they’re drought resistant and they don’t require as much overhead irrigation to get them established. I’ve used snail medic and Parabinga medic. The seed has become somewhat expensive so I haven’t used those in the last few years.

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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This is a Weed 'Em and Reap Part 2 video clip.

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Helen Atthowe, BioDesign Farm. Stevensville, MT. 

Mowing is one of the major tasks on this farm. It’s important not only for weed management, but also for soil fertility maintenance. The most important weed component is that mowing will diminish any of the annual weeds, because we basically chop them off before they go to seed. In terms of soil fertility, what’s different about this system is that instead of growing a large amount of biomass and then tilling it in or mowing it down all at once, I do it periodically over the season. The reason that is, is we’re trying to mimic a natural prairie system, much like what would be growing around here and is growing around here in terms of the native vegetation. There, we don’t get one mass of organic residue addition all at once that the soil microbes then have to deal with all at once and they feel a little like we do after a big Thanksgiving dinner; a little sluggish and unable to digest it all at once. This way, mimicking a natural system, every three to four weeks, the clover gets to be a foot to two feet, and we often get bloom, and then we mow it down. The microbes have a steady diet to digest over the entire growing season.

This is an eOrganic article and was reviewed for compliance with National Organic Program regulations by members of the eOrganic community. Always check with your organic certification agency before adopting new practices or using new materials. For more information, refer to eOrganic's articles on organic certification.

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