RumiNation

Timestamps and Summary 

1:54

How do you feel about Meatless Monday?

Jess Pryles

I don’t feel much about Meatless Monday. It’s more of a fad […]

3:23

What can we be doing as an industry and as individuals, family-owned operations to impact our consumer demand more positively?

Jess Pryles

I think just telling the story, there are a lot of great social media platforms at the moment: Instagram, obviously big but particularly for AG, Tiktok has been extremely successful. There were a lot of big agriculture producers, […] I mean, big accounts on Tiktok, but small, independent ranchers, both on the dairy and the cattle, beef production side, who have hundreds of thousands of followers. […]

5:23

What’s one thing about Australia that you miss, and would love to bring back or have here in the States more often?

Jess Pryles

You know, I would bring back meat pies. That’s a very classic Australian thing, and the first thing that I did when I landed and got off the plane, I drove to this little pie shop that’s very famous. […]

6:32

What's your all-time favorite beef cut?

Jess Pryles

I think the point is, we do say for certain cuts to just buy the best you can afford. […]

There are other times when you can really afford to get a bit more creative. You know, in Texas tacos, […] I frequently buy select skirt steaks. […]

I think if I had to choose my favorite cut, this is very controversial in beef worlds because obviously, I feel like my death row meal would be a ribeye but one of my very favorite steaks, the one I just keep coming back to is top sirloin and top sirloin cap.

Timestamps and Summary  

Vicki Brisson (01:56)

Can you share more about the role and importance of amino acids to support the dairy industry’s sustainability initiatives?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

I think balancing for amino acids is really important and can play a very important role in improving sustainability and can be a way of leveraging nutrition to enhance their sustainability. […]

Vicki Brisson (04:28)

What should [nutritionists] keep in mind when they’re formulating for individual amino acids? Or perhaps should they be looking at them as groups instead?  

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

I’m biased, right? But certainly, we have the literature support to see that when you look at individual amino acids, we don’t really fully explain the cow’s response, so the lactation performance response. So, looking at the amino acids as a group, we have a better understanding of those responses or why the cows are responding in a certain way. […]

Vicki Brisson (06:46)

Is there a reason why you looked at these specific groups of amino acids? So let’s say methionine, lysine, and histidine, and then leucine and isoleucine and you referred to the roles as well. So what might be the key differences between these groups of amino acids?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

There were some responses in the literature that we could use. We know that methionine plays a role in there. Lysine plays a role in there. We know that when we look at those amino acids and were, for example, decreasing the protein in the diet, but adding those amino acids, histidine was missing, and then could impair some of the response. So, it’s sort of the basis behind that first group. The other one is we also had in the literature some effects from the brain chain amino acids. So, we know that leucine plays a role in the mTOR pathway that we know is behind the milk protein synthesis. We also use the same basis for our hypothesis on the role of amino acids in milk fat synthesis. […]

Vicki Brisson (10:06)

Since you’ve done lots of work on dairy goat nutrition in the past, can you please share some of the key nutritional considerations that ruminant nutritionists should account for when they're formulating rations for dairy goats, especially when it comes to energy, protein, and mineral requirements?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

Thank you for bringing that up, Vicky. For me, it was fascinating. I have always looked at small ruminants as a model, […]. But when I started working with small ruminants, especially goats, they opened so many opportunities and created so many opportunities for me. So, throughout my ten years plus experience with small ruminants, I realized some similarities that we can definitely use small ruminants as a model for […] lactating cows. […]

Vicki Brisson (15:39)

How can we successfully integrate precision livestock measurements and management tools such as precision livestock farming and digital livestock farming?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

I think this is a hot topic. So, pretty much everybody is pointing their eyes on precision livestock farming and there are so many tools out there that can be used, that can be applied. The industries are offering us some possibilities and I think that's great because we need to improve. And we need to understand this precision measurement which is what is there that we can measure but also the precision management. So, how can we implement some tool that can be useful, but also it’s profitable? […]

Vicki Brisson (20:42)

What nutritional solutions are you currently investigating or looking forward to investigate as strategies to enhance the sustainability of those dairy production systems?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

When I arrived, I was asked to look at two main nutrients, nitrogen, and phosphorus, because that's something important here with all the environmental concerns, and I use different strategies for them. Regarding nitrogen, we are developing a mobile-friendly web-based tool that we can refine the use of mun, so milk urea nitrogen to really understand the response of the animals […]

Vicki Brisson (27:49)

To wrap up our discussion today, can you share your three take-home messages when thinking of practical solutions to improve the dairy industry’s sustainability?

Dr. Izabelle Teixeira

I would say the first one is to look at nutrition not as specific boxes like protein or amino acids or energy but in a more interactive way. […]

The other take-home message would be to look at sustainability in a holistic way. […]

And I think the last one is […] the importance of training because you can formulate the best diet ever if you don’t have the workforce prepared to use that diet for feeding the cows in a proper way, it doesn’t matter.

Timestamps & Summary  

Chris Gwyn (02:09)

So John, in your work in advising agricultural businesses, and perhaps dairies in particular, talk to us about the strain that the current financial stressors of higher interest rates, softening milk prices and continuing high commodity prices cause at the farm level.

John Ellsworth

I think with inflation that we're fighting, not just in the US but Canada, everywhere, we have just higher-level inflation than we've seen for probably 40 years. And for our younger listeners, they probably never even experienced this before. And so, I was fairly young the last time we had this kind of event with inflation. But costs, the pressure on costs are crazy high and unfortunately, it's being compounded by, I think, out-of-control spending, at least in the US. […]

Chris Gwyn (04:57)

Talk to me about the practices that you're advising your clients and general producers to put in place to minimize that financial strain and that stress that it's going to cause.

John Ellsworth

I have really felt in the good times and the bad times, number one, that people need to know their costs. The reality is every operation needs to know what it costs them to produce. If it's dairy, for example, what is your cost to produce 100 pounds of milk? What are the break-even levels? If we measure something, we can understand it and we understand it, we can control it. If we can control it, we can make improvements in that area. […]

Chris Gwyn (07:34)

Is there anything unique with the current strain or stress that producers need to consider or is it just a matter of if you haven't done it now really is the time to get it done?

John Ellsworth

I think what's happening is a decrease in revenue on the revenue side, particularly milk specifically and the cost side is happening. I mean, it happens in every downturn, but this has happened a lot faster. […] It's happened at a more rapid pace, which makes it more difficult, more challenging for people, I think. So the speed at which it's happening is pretty daunting I guess is a good word for it.

Chris Gwyn (08:46)

In the past, you've written and you've spoken a lot about putting in place a business system that will help to manage financial strain and I’m wondering if you could expand upon that point and what it is.

John Ellsworth

I think it's a good time to use not just financial advisors but all your advisors very closely. […] I think it's time to use your advisors wisely and maintain focus. […] It's important to follow the advice of your advisors, your legal advice, your accountants, financial advisors such as myself, and your nutritionists. I think we have to look for ways to not just cut costs because we never want to cut costs to the point of hurting the performance of your dairy herd, for example. But I think we've got to turn over every stone that's out there, everyone that's available to us. […]

Chris Gwyn (14:48)

What would you leave with producers and their advisors, some of the key take-home messages key points that you would recommend that they implement or work on today in order to get to the next really positive milk price?

John Ellsworth

I think you always want to focus on the goal and the goal is to become more profitable, of course, in a difficult time like this. But remember that ignoring the problems doesn't make them go away. And especially on the financial side when you're dealing with bankers […] you got to plan in the good times to overcome times like this. […] So, on the feed side, for example, we try to prepare by having better contracts. That's not always possible, but one of the things I advise people, now, we're seeing feed costs come down. So, should I run out and contract everything? Not necessarily. […] I think it's important to think about laying in tiers. So, if corn is going from $300 a ton to maybe it ends up to 240 or something a ton lay in those tiers. So, if it bounces back up, you've got some locked at the decrease in cost, but you're not trapped with all of it at 275 when it gets to 230. […]

I would end with this this too shall come to pass. This is a difficult time we're going through. The bankers know it, the producers know it, and we all understand it. But I suggested to a client recently that they should talk to their vendors, but also talk to their bankers because it's not an unreasonable request in my mind if you have a $400,000 line of credit for feed in a time like this, you may need to increase it to $500,000 or something of that nature. Not an unreasonable amount, even if it's a temporary increase for six months or twelve months, and then go back to the more normal level, I think people overlook that.

Timestamps & Summary 

Dr. Greg Eckerle (01:34)
Do we see an increase in interest in vitamin nutrition in cattle over the past years? And if so, what has sparked the resurgence of looking at vitamins again?

Dr. Jason Warner
When we think about cattle nutrition, I think it's certainly an area that we've seen some increased awareness and interest in the part of the industry over the last four to five years, particularly. And I think when you really take a look at it, that's really primarily due to a couple of different main factors when we think about the increased interest that that's caused. And I would say one of the main factors is that when we think back to four to five years ago, the livestock industry, the animal nutrition industry, experienced a shortage in a supply disruption of vitamins on the market and as a result, there was a pretty substantial price increase. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (04:09)
I remember that period of time the market was really volatile. It hurt a lot of vitamin suppliers and getting into the product for sure. But when we've changed how we're doing that, what implications could we see due to those changes or anything in the cowherd or even in the feedlot animal?

Dr. Jason Warner
That's a great question. It kind of depends on how you're looking at the system, whether you're looking at it from a forage-based cow-calf or stalker perspective, or if you're looking at it more from a growing and finishing animal feedlot type of perspective. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (07:01)
What challenges does it come when we're formulating as well as getting the vitamins to the animal, where can we benefit or what strategies can we help to make sure we're supplying daily adequate needs?

Dr. Jason Warner 
What it all comes back to is understanding how we best properly supplement that animal and deliver vitamins back to that animal. Regardless of whatever dietary situation that we're looking at there. A big challenge that I think the industry has is understanding different sources and vitamin precursors and how those can be supplied to the animal, what the availability is, and what oxidation levels are like with those. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (09:41)
What type of things are going to be affecting vitamin stability and what were those antagonists that we mentioned?

Dr. Jason Warner
We can basically have degradation or destruction of those sources over time. The main things that we think about with respect to our fat-soluble vitamins, we think about things like sunlight, and UV radiation, and we know that those can have negative or deleterious effects on the stability of those sources. Heat is another one, and that's a big one. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (13:55)
When we think about formulating products, are we generally still going to over-formulate to account for some of that loss instead of being right on the nose? Or are we lowering that due to cost objections that we're seeing? Or how are we typically formulating those products today to account for some of this loss that we know that's taken place?

Dr. Jason Warner
I think what we would really like to do is be able to account for the loss that we have over time and be able to accurately measure it. That would give us a lot more knowledge when it comes to formulation and being able to account for some of those losses. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (16:43)
Where do we see water and other forage components […] that may get in there and affect nutrition as a whole when it comes to vitamin nutrition?

Dr. Jason Warner
Water potentially could be something that when we think about water quality, can potentially impact what we can see from a vitamin digestibility and utilization standpoint, particularly, I think about one of the most common challenges that we see with water quality is sulfates or high sulfur content in drinking water for livestock. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (20:16)
Is there a benefit in your opinion, to protecting some of these vitamins, putting them in a matrix or some form of protected form to kind of guard them through these productive processes to make sure that what we formulate for, what we're paying for, adding it to the product is getting delivered appropriately to the animal?

Dr. Jason Warner
I think that is an area that could certainly be really well utilized and would have a tremendous amount of benefit just for the industry in general. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

Vicky Brisson (01:33)
Can you share with our audience what are the main diseases you observe and what the economic impacts of these diseases are?

Dr. Jessica McArt
As a dairy veterinarian, I see all sorts of diseases, and new ones every week, I feel. But the main diseases I see working on farms or with mastitis are early lactation diseases such as hypocalcemia, and hyperketonemia, also known as ketosis. We see a lot of retained placentas. We see cows with metritis, we see lame cows. […]

Vicky Brisson (04:32)
Can you expand on the role of a proper nutrition program that supports those fresh cows’ performance?

Dr. Jessica McArt
I think the important parts are in our dry cows. It really starts there. So, it's very easy sometimes to not worry about those cows. But those are the cows that we're setting up to be successful in early lactation. So, I've really been sold on controlled energy diets in the prepartum period. […]

Vicky Brisson (05:27)
There's a lot of possible diseases occurring during this period. […] 

Can you explain how to best monitor and treat this disease?

Dr. Jessica McArt
First, I'll explain the idea of calcium dynamics. This is a term we've developed as we look at the calcium concentration in the blood of cows through early lactation. So, all of our dairy cows will experience a reduction in blood calcium after they calve because they begin production of colostrum and a lot of milk. […]

And so we can divide cows into basically four types of calcium dynamic groups. […]

When we looked at these calcium dynamics, we've seen that what's really important is that cows have increased their blood calcium by four days in milk. And so, the best way to monitor for this currently is by assessing the blood calcium status of cows around that four-day and milk mark. […]

Vicky Brisson (10:26)
Can you remind our audience what causes hyperketonemia and beyond that, what impacts it can have on the animal, including health production and even going as far as reproduction?

Dr. Jessica McArt
Hyperketonemia is a term we use for an excess elevation of ketone bodies in the blood. And that occurs in a lot of our early lactation cows as they go into this period of energy deficit where they cannot eat enough for the amount of energy they're using to make milk. 

Hyperketonemia itself is not a disease. […]

Vicky Brisson (12:36)
What impact do these sampling methods have on our ability to properly predict and address this metabolic condition?

Dr. Jessica McArt 
That's a great question and something that I think a lot of producers work with every day. So, depending on whether you're measuring urine, milk, or blood, you may be measuring different ketone bodies. […]

And like any test, some tests are better than others. […]

The cool thing in milk is that while there's some daily variation, it's way more consistent than with blood. And so, some of these milk measuring techniques that people are starting to develop may help us get a better sense of the cow's actual energy deficit. […]

Vicky Brisson (17:16)
Can you share your three take-home messages for nutritionists, veterinarians, and producers when thinking of practical transition cow management, especially when it comes to preventing and monitoring hypocalcemia and hyperketonemia?

Dr. Jessica McArt
I think the most important part first is having a good management team to help and talk over some of these things. […]

My second is to have routine monitoring. […]

And the third one is to implement management changes or prevention strategies that are evidence-based and that you can assess. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

Vicky Brisson (02:20)
In the last decade, modeling is a research method that's growing in popularity. However, mathematical modeling and livestock nutrition has been around for much longer than that. Can you explain models and what limitations they have?

Dr. Jennifer Ellis
A model can be anything from a single equation to a set of dozens or even thousands of equations, which represent, in our case, the behavior of a biological system. So, scientists will use models to help represent bits of the real world and to either aid our understanding of complex systems or as a tool to help make predictions. […]

Vicky Brisson (06:03)
How do models help us turn data into knowledge that actually helps our industry innovate in areas?

Dr. Jennifer Ellis
If you ever get the chance, you should really take a look at the Ackoff or DIKW Pyramid which essentially describes the steps required to transform data into information and then information into knowledge and then knowledge into wisdom. It's really fascinating when you start looking at that. But essentially, as you point out, data on its own is really just a series of signals. And with just data, we know nothing, right? Data only starts to become useful, or it becomes information when we provide context to that data. […]

So essentially, moving us up this pyramid is the task of research, and it's the task of models to translate data into actionable wisdom. […]

Vicky Brisson (09:04)
Your lab is unique in the sense that you use models to expand nutritional research for many different species, and that includes dairy cattle, veal, turkey, and horses. Can you share with us how that came to be and how your modeling approach is shaped by what we like to call cross-pollination of many different fields of study?

Dr. Jennifer Ellis
I started as a ruminant nutrition and metabolism modeler in my master's and Ph.D. And from there, I think, rather organically, I began to get pulled into projects for other species. And in fact, when I went into industry, I was filling the role as a poultry modeler. So, I think throughout my career, modeling has been a skill set. And it's a skill that can be applied to a myriad of problems, topics, and species. And I think across species, animals have more in common than you might think initially. And I think we too often stay in our species silos. […]

Vicky Brisson (11:50)
How can models support on-farm decision-making?

Dr. Jennifer Ellis
At the moment, many models are used and applied by what I call expert users within various companies. And those companies will support producers in making on-farm decisions. So, you think of your nutritionist, for example. And those models are used to forecast different scenarios and how suggested changes may impact outcomes such as performance, sustainability, andeconomics. They can really be used to examine, “what if” scenarios, what if we did this change? What if we made this adjustment? What kind of outcome are we expecting to see now? […]

Vicky Brisson (13:38)
Based on your experience, why do you believe that modeling is a skill that students should invest time into exploring and why has that become such a big part of what you do at the University of Guelph?

Dr. Jennifer Ellis
I think as the agriculture sector becomes more and more digitized, with more and more data being collected, it will need more and more graduates entering the workforce with the ability to analyze and interpret and service these digital tools or models. So, for me, my biggest piece of advice for students now is to actually learn a coding language. Become computationally competent. The challenge the industry has at the moment is that people with that combined skill set, a knowledge of animal production systems plus digital competency, is low. […]

I think that that's a skill that will become more and more in demand. […]

Vicky Brisson (15:21)
How would you define the future of modeling? What will be the main challenges in this area of research and innovation?

Dr. Jennifer Ellis
I think the future of modeling is really interesting. And I think what we'll see is the merging of traditional biological understanding based modeling, which we commonly refer to as mechanistic modeling, blending that with emerging data streams and the accompanying machine learning algorithms that are best suited to analyze them. […]
For all of these new modeling methodologies, I think the biggest challenge will be getting robust and variable enough data to develop them so that they become good models to make forecasts from. […]

Vicky Brisson (18:54)
Can you share three take-home messages for nutritionists, veterinarians, and producers when they consider applications of nutritional models on farms?

Dr. Jennifer Ellis
Number one: Get more from your data by leaning into modeling and data analytics. […]

The second one: Develop those computational skill sets in yourself and promote it in your employees, if not already. […]

And the third one is to communicate and get engaged with developers. […]

Timestamps and Summary 

Dr. Greg Eckerle (02:05)
When we see where we’re at with the cattle cycle, where do you think the next three to five years of production are going to go?

Dr. Lee Schulz
Just to give a bit of background, the cattle inventory cycle has three phases. It has expansion, has liquidation, has a turnaround phase. We’re currently in the liquidation phase. This cattle cycle started in 2014, inventories peaked in 2019, and we’ve been on a slide of inventories over the last several years. Most cattle cycles are nine to 14 years. And so, if you do the math, we’re in year nine of that cattle inventory cycle. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (06:33)
Have we seen any change in the way that our beef are being marketed, or what’s that in comparison to the domestic market supply?

Dr. Lee Schulz
I’ll note demand has been incredible the last several years. If you look at it internationally or domestically, it has taken a bit of a step back in the last couple of years, but you compare it to a really high base level when you think about demand. So even though we’ve taken a bit of a step back, we still remain historically in a really good demand spot. And prices reflect that along with the tighter supplies. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (08:48)
When we look at the domestic market and we see things happening domestically here: interest rates are on the rise, things that are affecting the American household, etc. What would we see at the retail side?

Dr. Lee Schulz
Well, I do need to commend you. You sound like an economist there, Greg, and because I think you highlight really the issue with demand, it’s not prices. So, the price of beef does not impact demand, it impacts quantity demanded, but it doesn’t impact demand. What we know impacts demand is income. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (11:04)
July 4 and Labor Day are historically great holidays for us protein market when we have a summer barbecue season and things like that. Have you looked at that impacting demand this year or is it going to remain relatively flat?

Dr. Lee Schulz
Well, I think you can look at the value of wholesale, the choice beef cut-out for this time of year, it’s a record high. I think that points to, yes, we have tighter supplies, but you need the demand to pull it as well. I think you’re seeing very strong demand within the wholesale and retail level that is really spurring prices. […]

I think it is really important to highlight it’s not a tight supply situation. The fundamentals there are a little bit easier to understand. We know that much tighter supplies will increase prices. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (12:52)
What are we going to be looking at in the fall? The best-case scenario with moisture and then maybe worst-case scenario if we maintain a drought consistency pattern.

Dr. Lee Schulz
That’s really a key question as we look at crop markets for cattle markets. […]

So, now we’re really focused on the crop development and conditions which are going to impact that new crop supply here come fall. […] If you look at the report for weekending June 12th, 61% of the nation’s crop was rated good to excellent. That’s three percentage points lower than last year. So, for benchmark it against last year, the crop isn’t as good this time of year, slightly below. It’s also slightly below the five-year average as well. […] So, we’re in a much weaker spot than we were a year ago or in really the last couple of years. […]

But I always like to remind folks we have a whole growing season in front of us. There’s a lot that has to go right and a lot that can go wrong that could impact this year’s crop. 

Dr. Greg Eckerle (19:56)
Can we have an expectation to see cows kill numbers increase, stay the same, or because we’re still in liquidation, I don’t expect them to decrease, so what kind of forecast in the cow kill numbers?

Dr. Lee Schulz
I’m glad you asked this question because I think there are a couple of keyways to really look at this data. So, as you look at beef cow slaughter year to date, we’re down about 12% compared to a year ago levels for the same period. That’s almost 200,000 beef cows over that period. This comes after last year, we were up 11%, right? Almost about 400,000 beef cows. Now you look at that and say, well, we’re killing a lot fewer beef cows this year, it must mean we may be seeing that turnaround phase. But I’ll remind us that we have a lot fewer cows than we did last year. […]

Dr. Greg Eckerle (25:09)
I guess the overall evaluation of the US marketplace seems to be on the upswing then what would be some of the main challenges coming within the next twelve to 18 months?

Dr. Lee Schulz
I think the big challenge for me is costs. I think when you look at it, not only feed costs as we talked about the crop market situation and potential for a lot of lower prices or at least lower prices as we get into the fall, which doesn’t mean that our cost of gains and dollars per cow are going to decrease all that much. I think they will decrease, but we’ve added a lot of cost to this industry over the last couple of years in the form of non-feed, variable costs, fixed costs, everything really has gotten much more expensive and those are rather sticky costs. […]

Timestamps and Summary 

Vicky Brisson (02:24)
Can you please explain why and how cows may benefit from an increased supply of B vitamins?

Dr. Mélissa Duplessis
I'm going to focus on two B vitamins, folate and vitamin B12, as these two vitamins have been extensively studied by our research group […]

Christiane Girard, who has tremendously increased the knowledge on B vitamins in dairy cows, demonstrated that plasma folate and vitamin B12 concentrations were at their lowest at calving and in early lactation, respectively.

 […] a few studies were conducted in order to evaluate the effects of supplementation in folic acid and vitamin B12 during the transition period and in early lactation on dairy cows’ health and performance. […] some showed a substantial increase in milk yield without affecting dry matter intake and plasma indicators of reserve mobilization. And some showed a decrease in plasma indicators of reserve mobilization without affecting dry matter intake and milk yield. […]

Vicky Brisson (05:19)
From a practical perspective, how can we ensure that the cows actually receive an adequate increased supply of B vitamins?

Dr. Mélissa Duplessis
One way is indeed to supplement B vitamins to the animals. Also, previous studies demonstrated that ruminal synthesis of B vitamins is affected by the cow diet and dry matter intake. Thus, it can be suggested that if ruminal synthesis is greater, this will benefit the cow as more B vitamins are available for absorption. Now, can we formulate a diet that optimizes B vitamin ruminal synthesis? It's a great question. […]

Vicky Brisson (06:53)
Your recently published papers collected data on mineral nutrition. Can you share with our audience what were the main findings of your study?

Dr. Mélissa Duplessis
We collected data on 100 Eastern Canadian dairy herds in order to compare dietary trace minerals in commercial settings to NRC recommendations. […]

[…] we observed that cobalt was fed at 405% over the recommendation, copper at 52% over the recommendation, manganese at 372 percent over the recommendation, and for zinc, it was 65% over the recommendation. This is important to note that these data represent the median, meaning that 50% of dairy herds were well above that. […]

Vicky Brisson (08:51)
How would a nutritionist use this knowledge to better balance minerals in their rations?

Dr. Mélissa Duplessis
First of all, forages are not routinely analyzed for trace mineral concentrations due to analysis constraints. Also, absorption coefficients of trace minerals are low. In a recent […], we obtained that more than 60% of nutritionists had intentionally formulated diets above trace mineral recommendations to ensure cow health and optimized reproduction performance. However, this is not clear in the literature that overfeeding trace minerals actually has benefits on cow health and reproduction. […]

Vicky Brisson (10:55)
Can you explain to our audience what is a living lab?

Dr. Mélissa Duplessis (11:03)
Living labs are open innovation ecosystems in real-life environments. […] Prior to the start of the project, producers and researchers should meet and discuss to create a sustainable project.

Vicky Brisson (11:45)
You recently concluded a project using the Living Lab approach, can you share what you did and what you learned so far?

Timestamps and Summary 

Chris Gwyn (04:01)
Why the advocacy for safety related to silage management has become so important to you, both personally and professionally?

Doug DeGroff
It’s because I’m a silage avalanche survivor that it’s near and dear to my heart. I was young and quite confident and with an attitude of “it can’t happen to me.” But my luck ran out on August 27, 2009, while taking a solid sample that I’d done thousands of times […]

Chris Gwyn (08:32)
What are some of the key points in the silage safety that you feel are extremely important to share?

Doug DeGroff
I think the first thing I’d like to say it can happen to you or it could happen to your dairy or your feedlot. […]

Once you know that, then you have to be intentional about it. If you’re a dairy owner or a feedlot owner, you have an obligation to those people who work on your business, whether they’re a full-time employee, a contract employee, maybe a silage harvester or your nutritionist or feed salespeople. […]

If somebody gets seriously hurt or tragically killed, it’s very bad for your business financially. So training, talking to your employees, talking to these people that are going to be around your silage piles, hanging up, putting up signs, there’s so much you can do. And either you have a good silage safety management program, or you make excuses when somebody gets injured or killed. It’s one or the other. You really don’t have both.

Chris Gwyn (11:53)
What would you define as a good silage safety program?

Doug DeGroff

It starts with sitting down with the employees and going over the risks […] with anybody who’s going to be in the feed area. And not just the risk of it avalanching. There are other risks with silage. There are gases, there’s equipment driving around it all the time. […]

Have some standard operating protocols at the time of harvest. […]

When you have new employees, make sure you don’t wait until the next training session. They should have a course of what’s going on within days of being hired. […]

Chris Gwyn (14:43)
What should employees working around silage management be thinking and what do they need to do differently?

Doug DeGroff

Certain employees are there in front of piles every single day, multiple times a day. They’re the people with the highest risk because they have the highest exposure. So, they need to be aware of what could be happening when they’re going up, removing tires or removing plastic. It comes pretty good, if the owners haven’t done it, if an employee is asking: “Hey, can you get me a safety harness?”, “Can you get a cable that runs across the length of the pile?” […]

I won’t recommend you pitch off bad feet anymore because God forbid somebody gets hurt. I’m the person who made the recommendation. I used to do that. I no longer do that. And I don’t support that. […]

Chris Gwyn (18:58)
What's your recommendation for safely sampling silage on dairies on feedlots?

Doug DeGroff
I’ll start off with what I used to do and why I did it. And then, I’ll tell you how stupid of an idea it was.

I liked to sample the pile up and down. So, I would get in the loader of the bucket, and I would go up and down. I get to the top of the feed because that feed is different than this feed down here. And if I went straight down the middle of the pile, I would get arguably a very good representation of the pile. […] I had a five-gallon bucket and I put so many handfuls in every foot to eighteen inches and I mixed that feed up and then I put it in my bag, and I had an incredibly good representation of the pile.

It was probably about as unsafe as you can get because at the bottom, the loader backs away because now I can get it. So, I’'m standing there for a few minutes, as much as I can reach, high and low. […]

Now, all my dairies, they know exactly what to do. They’ll either face it with a facer or they’ll scrape it with a payloader and knock it and then what they’ll mix it up, spit it out. Then we put another five thousand pounds in it, mix it up, spit it out in a safe place. I would argue that is the best representation of the pile. […]

Chris Gwyn (23:24)
Key points that you feel are important when it comes to safety around silage management.

Doug DeGroff
The most important part of any solid safety program or any silage program is safety. […]

We don’t spend enough time on safety until something happens. […]

But there’s nothing real sexy about safety, but it’s so necessary. And we just have to keep that in mind. […]

Timestamps & Summary 

1:56

As a young person growing up in dairy operations, tell me about the obstacles that you had to overcome in order to pursue a career in agriculture.

Vicky Brisson

I was really lucky growing up on my family's dairy farm, because I grew up with plenty of excellent role models, whether that be my parents being involved in the community, strong women when I was involved in forage as well. But I'd say also growing up in the Francophone community in Eastern Ontario, it was that language barrier. But beyond that language barrier, I'd say it's also a language barrier, that disconnect, between what we do in agriculture, and what the people who consume the food perceive agriculture as being.

So, I'd say it's really about bridging that gap. We're translating that content, whether it be from English to French or French to English, or whether it be from someone who works and lives agriculture, to someone who consumes agriculture on a daily basis. […]

3:46

Talk to me about your thoughts on the importance of youth in agriculture.

Vicky Brisson

I'd say first and foremost, youth is the future, right? So, I think it's important to have everyone who's invested in the future of agriculture at the table. And what youth brings to that table is really our passion. We bring a different perspective as well. We're, perhaps some might call us naive, but I'd say we're starting from a blank page. And that allows us to bring new ideas, new perspectives to challenges that have been existing for decades for generations. And youth in agriculture also brings another level of connection of collaboration. […]

7:22

What recommendations would you give to the youth today in pursuing their dreams in agriculture?

Vicky Brisson

Perhaps my advice a year from now will change. But for now, I'd say that one I'm most certain will not change is: don't be afraid to ask for help. I think of you, Chris. I think of all my colleagues at Jefo. These are the people that have made it possible for me to step into the different growing opportunities that I've had throughout the last few years. That comes from asking for help. We're not alone. If you don't have the answer, other people will have it. […]

You need to surround yourself with the right people, people who, again, you'll be able to go ask for help. But those people should also include a cheerleader and a hard truth-teller. Because sometimes you need that wake-up call, you need to be told the hard things. And then ultimately, in order to take action, sometimes it's easier when you're doing it with a peer, someone who will help you stretch to do those hard things to grow outside of your comfort zone. […]

12:56

What are the take-home messages you'd like to leave the audience listening today regarding youth and their journey in agriculture?

Vicky Brisson

I think between everyone there needs to be collaboration, there needs to be an exchange of experiences of perspectives. And that also comes through mentorship and learning by doing, not being afraid to take action. So really three simple takeaways, but that would be it for me today.