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Just the Dynamic Duo, Emily and Dr. Bradley J Heins tenured professor, in this one to discuss the 2022 MN State Fair and other various things related to the fall season. A true potpourri! Thank you for listening.
Hosted by members of the University of Minnesota Extension Beef and Dairy Teams, The Moos Room discusses relevant topics to help beef and dairy producers be more successful. The information is evidence-based and presented as an informal conversation between the hosts and guests.
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Emily: Welcome to The Moos Room. Today, we have the dynamic duo. It is myself and Bradley here. We are missing Dr. Joe, but he is off doing great things, mentoring students, supporting the university, all that lovely stuff. Dr. Joe, we miss you, but in the meantime, what's up, Bradley?
Bradley: It's been a long time since it's just been you and me on this podcast-
Emily: It has.
Bradley: -which is nice. Actually, it was probably about this time last year when we were going to discuss the State Fair and all the fun stuff that surrounds it. It's good to be with you.
Emily: Aw, [crosstalk].
Bradley: We miss you, Joe but--
Emily: But not that much.
[laughter]
Bradley: Exactly.
Emily: All right, well, somehow it was April two weeks ago and now it's September. I don't know if you feel the same way. I feel like summer just flew.
Bradley: It's been crazy that the weather has changed so much out here from spring to fall and grazing and now it's like, man, I got to start thinking about winter already, but I don't want to think that early yet, but it's on my mind.
Emily: Yes, starting to think about when pasture is going to wrap up, and oof. Yes. In any case, we didn't come here to just complain about all the future work Bradley needs to do. We are going to talk a little bit about the State Fair. Of course, we did an episode similar to this last year around this time. You may recall that Bradley and I love the State Fair, love the Minnesota State Fair so much, specifically all the 4-H dairy programs that happen up there. The interviews, the show, the showcase, the judging contest, all of that. Also, this year Bradley had two of his kids showing at the State Fair. Bradley, how did that go?
Bradley: It was interesting. My son had a dry cow, a Jersey dry cow. This is the one that we've talked about before that Brad milked during the pandemic and all that fun stuff. She is still around, so she's dry this time and he took her. Actually, got a blue ribbon, first in his class. A champion dry cow. It was the only dry cow, so we'll give him kudos there. My daughter had a winter yearly, of course, and she was second in her class. Got a blue ribbon and she was champion genetic heifer in the Jersey breed. She was pretty excited about that.
Emily: I'm sure you're excited about that too.
Bradley: Of course. It was one of the three positive net merits in the whole Jersey ring at the State Fair 4-H show. Some know that I like to breed for numbers too, so it's always good to have an animal that had some decent type and some numbers behind it too. I was pretty proud of that. It was good.
Emily: Was this an animal that you bred?
Bradley: It was, yes. One that we bred and we've raised as a calf and she's pregnant now, going to calve in the winter time here, so we'll maybe have a nice, hopefully, little Jersey calf to show next year.
Emily: I feel like it always is a little sweeter when it's an animal you've bred.
Bradley: Oh, yes, I think that's what we are proud of. She's been raised out here in Morris since she was just weaned. My daughter has participated in all the feeding and it's like she's raised it. She's pretty proud of it too. We're all happy. It was a good fair for us, but a long one, of course. There's always complaining from them. Some of you know and some of you that listen, we're in Minnesota 4-H and probably stayed in the 4-H building a long time ago. There's lots of stories to go with it, but it's interesting for kids nowadays to stay in that kind of environment that I would've stayed in 25 years ago and not much has changed.
Emily: Yes, I remember the 4-H building dorms. The dorms above the cattle barn, the dorms above the swine barn.
Bradley: It's just a different atmosphere when you're out in Western Minnesota where it's quiet at night, you can hear nature, and then you go to the city and it's hot, there's no air conditioning. You hear cars down Snelling Avenue all night. They're like, "I didn't get any sleep," but good for them, they experienced it. That's what it's all about.
Emily: [laughs] Character building. That's what it is, exactly.
Bradley: Exactly. I said my mom stayed in there in the 1950s and it was probably pretty similar. Three generations have now stayed there, so good for them.
Emily: Nice. As much as I love walking down memory lane with you, Bradley, I'm glad things went well for your family. Shout out to your kids for their blue ribbons. That's awesome. Of course, the genetic champion as well. That's awesome, but I want to talk a little bit more about the 4-H show. I was really excited this year. Obviously, last year, our first year back after the fair was shut down for COVID in 2020 and our numbers had been down, but our numbers came back up this year. In the 4-H Dairy show, I believe the final number was 424 head come through, give or take a couple.
Bradley: Give or take a few, yes, which was good. It was great to have that many. I wish we could have a lot more, but we're on the rebound.
Emily: It was really fun to see also. Brad and I both work at the show. Brad is usually in the grayed Holstein ring and I am in one of the colored breed rings, and so it was really great for me. Two of the breeds that go in my ring had a really big jump in numbers this year. We had a lot more Red and Whites, which was cool to see, and a lot more Guernseys as well. I think that that speaks a lot to our lease program that a lot of kids that maybe in the past have shown a different breed, have been able to try showing a new breed and learning about that. It was really great to see those numbers up in the shows that are usually a little smaller.
Bradley: Yes, I agree. I looked at the numbers beforehand because I'm involved with the show and my graduate students are working with the genetic merit portion of the show, but 18 Guernseys, that was phenomenal. I'm like, "Wow, where'd all those kids come from?" I think a lot of them were lease animals, which is wonderful and a good group of cows. I'll tell you the third largest breed was Red and White this year. The Red and White has been growing by leaps and bounds as well, so kudos for people wanting to show the Red and Whites.
Obviously, the Holstein numbers go down because of that, but it's good to see. There's a wide variety. For people that aren't in Minnesota, we also allow crossbreds to be shown. There was some wild markings on some crossbreds we had. I think there was some Linebacks, there was a British White Park or something crossbred. My favorite of the show was a crossbred. It was a quarter Charolais, three-quarter Holstein, and she was good. If I could have a barn like that, you would be impressed. It was wonderful.
Emily: She was beautiful, yes. She had the Holstein-type large spots, but they were the blue-gray rone. Oh, gorgeous, yes. I like that you mentioned that thing about crossbred. I know we have a lot of listeners in Minnesota, but outside of Minnesota as well. In Minnesota, our State Fair 4-H show is the top, the peak that it gets for Minnesota 4-H dairy. It's really competitive. Of course, our State Fair is large. Due to that, each kid is only allowed to bring one livestock project, just one. Not one of each species, only one. Kids have to decide which species they're going to bring.
When we say we had 424 head in the show, that means we had 424 4-Hs in our show, which I think is so exciting that that many 4-Hs have the opportunity to come to our State Fair. Of course, a lot of members of the public come to the State Fair, so it's a great opportunity for them to see cattle, cows, and heifers. 4-Hs love to interact with them as well and help educate them. It's such a cool experience and it is competitive. I think that makes it really exciting as well.
Bradley: Dairy is just one livestock species there. There's over 500 beef animals, sheep, swine, poultry, rabbits, goats. There's so many livestock there and so many 4-Hs. It's good to see that the future of the livestock industry is bright because of a lot of the things that we're doing now with 4-H. It's good to see all that and good to see all those kids showing and participating in livestock agriculture.
Emily: That reminds me, it's also really great to see all of the support that there are for these 4-H kids. The State Fair has the Purple Ribbon Auction that's for market animals that get grand or reserve champion. We have the 4-H dairy Showcase, which honors kids who get a blue ribbon, and it's then also based upon a leadership profile and their involvement in the 4-H dairy project throughout the year. All these programs are designed to give money back to the kids as scholarships, as project funds. It's really great too just to see all the support that we have in the state for these 4-Hs.
Bradley: Think about the Dairy Showcase, which, Emily, you and I have been involved with in the past. It's such a great program to recognize the dairy youth. It's not all about their animals, it's all about what they've done for leadership activities in the dairy project. It's good to recognize those 4-H youth in more ways than just their animal. I don't know if it was 14, 15 years that we've been doing the Dairy Showcase. I forget, but it's been going well and the donations this year for the program were the highest it's ever been. We keep growing that program, so it's good.
Emily: I want to stay on the State Fair, but flip away from 4-H for a second. Another big piece of the Minnesota State Fair, my favorite besides all the 4-H dairy stuff is Princess Kay of the Milky Way. That is our state dairy princess, but she gets the cool name, Princess Kay of the Milky Way. The finalists get their heads carved in a 90-pound block of butter. There are 10 finalists that are selected in May. I, of course, was a Princess Kay finalist more than a few years ago. [laughs] It was 11 years ago now, but nonetheless, and you may know, I think I've shared before on this podcast, I am from Le Sueur County in Southern Minnesota, and this year Le Sueur County crowned their first ever Princess Kay.
69th Princess Kay first from Le Sueur County. Really exciting for me as someone that was a finalist and had some other finalists from the county as well shortly after I was one. It's really fun to see how Le Sueur County has come in, and congratulations, it's Rachel Rynda. Her parents, Francis and Teresa Rynda, were actually on the ADA board and advised the dairy princesses when myself and both of my sisters were dairy princesses as well. They were longtime board members, very supportive when I was a finalist. It's so exciting now to see their daughter be crowned the 69th Princess Kay. Congratulations to Rachel and the whole Rynda family. So excited for them.
Bradley: The question is, Emily, do you still have your butterhead?
Emily: No is the short answer. I do not. I got my butterhead in 2011 and I would say in 2014, that December, I cut it all up and I gave it to friends, family, and coworkers, an early Christmas gift to use in their Christmas baking and cooking.
Bradley: That's cool. 80 pounds of butter is lot of butter.
Emily: 90
Bradley: 90 pounds of butter.
Emily: 90.
Bradley: 90?
Emily: Yes.
Bradley: That's a lot of butter.
Emily: Yes, because, obviously, they take butter off as they're sculpting it, but you also get the scraps. They put the scraps in these food-safe five-gallon pales, so you get all 90 pounds of butter and it's really cool. I will say this, there actually is a piece of my butterhead left. My nose lives in a little sour cream container in my mom's freezer.
Bradley: Nice.
Emily: When I first found out I was going to be a butterhead, my sister immediately said, "I want Emily's butter nose," and so when we cut up my butterhead, my sister lived out of state, so we cut it off and put it in a container for her and it has never left. Now it's just a funny joke and my nieces and nephews love seeing it. They think it's so funny, so butter nose.
Bradley: Emily is also a meme floating around on Instagram and other places about the butterheads, so she's famous.
Emily: Yes, I am famous indeed. Let's talk about State Fair, but like we said at the beginning, it's already September, other things are happening. I want to go back to you and the Morris Dairy. What's happening right now? What are you getting ready for? We joked at the beginning about thinking about ending the pasture season or grazing season, I should say. Give us an update from Morris.
Bradley: It's been a pretty dry summer. I even think this year was somewhat worse than last year. Pastures are starting to slow down a lot. We maybe have a month left of grazing, which is maybe two to three weeks earlier we'll stop than normal, but unless we get some rains here, you never know. We'll be stopping grazing a little bit sooner than what I'd like, which is okay, it's happened before. It's nothing new. You have to be able to adjust quickly, but we're gearing up for corn silage too. We're probably still two weeks away from that. I know some people are starting to chop corn silage in central Minnesota, so it's coming really soon.
It's going to happen. Then we'll start thinking about winter. I don't really want to, but we're going to start calving again in three weeks. We have 194 due from mid-September to the end of November. We got a lot of babies coming. Actually, a hundred of those are probably Angus cross calves that will sell. We've been doing a lot of Angus breeding. We'll still be running the last year of our calf housing project where we're moving that way so that we've been working on for the last couple years. It's exciting to see new babies being born and finishing that project. I'm excited.
Emily: Crossbred calves are so cute, I think, because they just have the most unique colors and markings. I'm excited for the babies to start arriving. If you want to check them out, you can follow Bradley's Instagram.
Bradley: UMN WCROC Dairy.
Emily: Yes, check it out because I know there will be a lot of calf content when they start arriving.
Bradley: Oh, yes, a lot, definitely a lot.
Emily: What else are you looking forward to for the fall here, Bradley? What else is on the docket?
Bradley: Like you, Emily, we probably have a few conferences and travel to go to. One is always World Dairy Expo coming up in almost a month away. World Dairy Expo is always the dairy industry event of the year, at least in the Midwest and other places in the US. Looking forward to that. I'm going to see some good cows and speaking with a lot of people. That'll be fun.
Emily: I believe you're also speaking this year.
Bradley: I am speaking there to some companies and stuff that we've been working with on some research projects related to mastitis. It'll be interesting to showcase or at least figure out what we've done and if they like our results or not. That's always a tough one.
Emily: Got to keep getting that grant money.
Bradley: Exactly. Then I'm going to California. I have some "research meetings".
Emily: Those research meetings.
Bradley: Exactly. We have some meetings out there, and then some farm tours and stuff, so it'll be good. I haven't been out to California in almost three years and I lived out there, so it's always good to get back into Central Valley and see lots of cows and lots of farms that I worked with a long time ago.
Emily: That will be exciting.
Bradley: You probably have lots of fun stuff this fall as well.
Emily: Oh, of course. The conferences as well, expo, of course, all those things are on the list. My birthday is in October, so lots of that stuff coming up. I will be taking a trip to Canada at the end of October.
Bradley: Oh, nice.
Emily: It's just fun, it's a vacation trip. It's not a work trip.
Bradley: Oh.
Emily: I am hoping to see some cows because I will be in Ontario. Hoping I can get on a couple of farms while I'm there. Like I said, it was just April, now September, and pretty soon, it'll be January.
Bradley: Exactly.
Emily: Speaking of birthdays, we have a belated happy birthday to give Dr. Joe. He, I believe, on purpose didn't tell us it was his birthday, but we have our ways of finding things out. Happy birthday to Joe. It is belated, but we will have to do a Dr. Joe episode to celebrate very, very soon.
Bradley: Happy birthday, Joe.
[laughter]
Emily: I was like, "Is he going to add anything?" Oh, man.
Bradley: Great place to end.
Emily: That's the most perfect place to wrap it. Thank you so much for listening. If you have questions, comments, or scathing rebuttals about today's episode, you can email those to themoosroom@umn.edu. That's T-H-E M-O-O-S R-O-O-M @umn.edu. You can also follow us on Twitter @UMNMoosRoom. You can call our voicemail. I almost forgot about that. If you have a question you would like answered on a future episode of the Moos Room, you can call 612-624-3610 and leave a question and you may be featured on a future episode of the Moos Room.
I'm sure there's plugs I missed, but I think we're good on those for today. I'm so glad you joined Brad and I for our little potpourri episode here and we will talk to you all next week. Bye.
Bradley: Bye. Happy birthday, Joe.
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