The 6th Annual Lower Fox River Farmer Roundtable wrapped up today – February 16th, 2021.
Usually this full day event is held in January with promises of educational opportunities, a broasted chicken lunch, happy hour, and lots of networking.
Like most things over the course of the last year, the Lower Fox Farmer Roundtable went virtual in 2021. Thanks to this virtual format, we were able to record the farmer round table and its breakout sessions.
Over the last month, we held one farmer roundtable event every Tuesday at 9 am. Videos for each session can be found below or on our YouTube page. The four weeklong event pulled in 91 individuals made up of farmers, conservation professionals, agronomists and other interested parties.
On January 26th we held the Lower Fox Farmer Roundtable which included presentations from Alliance for the Great Lakes, the Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance, a panel of farmers and agronomists talking about their use and knowledge of alternative forages, and a keynote presentation from Tom Kilcer about winter forages, storages, and soil health.
February 2nd was our manure management breakout session with speaker John Vandenboom of Holsum Dairies. John talked about the manure digestor, the use of solids, and the savings of using manure management techniques.
On February 9th, we held our grazing break out session. The speakers were Adam Abel of NRCS and Dan Diederich of Diederich Farms. Adam is known state wide for his knowledge on grazing and Dan has worked with Adam to implement grazing with their heifers.
Finally, on February 16th, we held our irrigation break out session. This was a new topic for the roundtable and lead to a great question and answer session. Nick Dallmann of Dallmann East Dairy and returning speaker John Vandenboom talked about their use of irrigation and its manure management implications.
Thank you to all our partners and sponsors!
Cover photo courtesy of Forage Innovations
