Greetings from President Haily Sand!
Hello WAPAC Members,
For those who don’t know me, my name is Haily (Henderson) Sand. I grew up on a dairy farm in Ettrick, WI, where my passion for agriculture took root. I received a bachelor’s degree from UW-River Falls in Crop and Soil Science, with minors in Hydrogeology and GIS. While there, I worked with UW-Discovery Farms and the Nutrient and Pest Management Programs. Since I didn’t think my ‘germination’ time was up, I continued on to graduate school at UW-Madison where I received a Master’s in Soil Science. I have since emerged with AgSource laboratories out of northwest Wisconsin as a GPS/NMP Technician.
I am excited to begin this year as President of WAPAC. Our organization is growing and I’d like to see it continue on the same path. I’m looking forward to some potentially new events, such as a field day, to bring in the next generation of Professional Ag Consultants.
In addition to adding to our membership, we intend to continue keeping our members updated with WAPAC’s lobbying efforts. Although it is a new endeavor, we feel we have already accomplished so much in such a short time by having Jordan Lamb of DeWitt, Ross & Stevens take our suggestions and speak on our behalf.
I look forward to working with all of you and representing WAPAC this year!
Haily
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2018 Annual Meeting
Thank you to those who attended the 2018 Annual Meeting!
or any of your Board Members.
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New Members Wanted!
Your Membership Committee reviewed and condensed the Membership Application due to feedback that it was too long and complicated. If you know someone who should be a WAPAC Member, have them go to the website to download the fillable .pdf of the application
HERE
!
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WAPAC Legislative Committee Update
A big thank you to Jordan Lamb for attending the 2018 Annual Meeting and giving us an update on how your financial contributions are helping shape this industry. Click
HERE
to view the handout that was given to those in attendance.
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BMR options in Corn Silage
As dairymen look for ways to improve forage NDF digestion in dairy cattle, BMR corn silage seems to be getting increasing interest. Until recently, the only BMR option in corn silage was the BMR 3 gene. Now there are BMR hybrids on the market using the BMR 1 gene. Unfortunately BMR hybrids have not been part of the University of Wisconsin corn silage variety trials since 2012. There has been very little published data on BMR 1 compared to BMR 3. Recently, a report from the Miner Institute in New York compared the two against a conventional corn hybrid. No variety names were listed and no statistics given. The corn silage yield in tons/ac at 35% DM were 21, 20.9, and 20.5 for conventional, BMR 1, and BMR 3, respectively. 30 hour NDFD % were 54, 58.7, and 62.3, respectively. Early feedback from some agronomists indicate they may differ in agronomic traits, but it does offer another tool in trying to improve NDF digestion in corn silage.
Steve Woodford
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The Discovery Farms programs of Wisconsin and Minnesota have launched an education module titled Locating and maintaining tile drainage systems and blowouts. Upon successful completion of the module, Certified Crop Advisers will be eligible to receive one Soil and Water Management Continuing Education Unit.
Click
HERE
for an overview and
HERE
to begin the module.
This is something new for Discovery Farms and as such, they would like any and all feedback from WAPAC members regarding this format. After completion, contact Matt Ruark at
mdruark@wisc.edu
with your thoughts!
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2018-19 WAPAC Board of Directors
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Haily Sand - President
Chuck Bolte
Nathan Casper
Robert Mickelson
Tom Novak
Nathen Nysse
Tom Prosser
Andrew Skwor
Bill Stangel
Remaining Officers will be appointed at our April 6th meeting.
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Board of Directors - Member Spotlight
Tom Novak
Tom is an independent crop consultant who started in 1990, and has been operating his own business since 1997. He works with 20+ clients, scouts about 15,000 acres of agronomic crops and does NMPs on more acres than that exclusively for his full service consulting clients.
When not consulting, he farms corn, soybeans, winter squash, pumpkins and gourds on 330 acres. He does minor amounts of custom planting, N side dressing and combining for close neighbors.
He has a history of running replicated on-farm research plots in conjunction with UWEX and other researchers, as well as simply for his own curiosity.
He's been married for nearly 26 years to Tracey, has two daughters, Katherine, 18 and going to UW-Platteville in the fall to pursue an Ag degree, and Kirstin,16, looking at UW-Madison, planning a career in Ag.
He also has a dog, Macy, and a couple house cats plus the kids have fair goats as a 4-H project. They all downhill ski for a family hobby in winter and kayak as much as possible here and there all summer enjoying our plentiful rivers.
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If you'd like to see something specific in our newsletter, please submit comments and suggestions to Melisa at
wapac1987@gmail.com.
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Melisa Skwor | WAPAC| (608)963-6213| wapac1987@gmail.com| www.wapac.info
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