Get ready for an exciting Season 2 of Ruminate This, the podcast that delivers cutting-edge insights in dairy nutrition. Tune in for a sneak peek at the groundbreaking lineup, featuring top researchers and renowned speakers from leading scientific and producer conferences. From developmental programming in calves, strategies to maximize cow health, and performance-enhancing nutrition – Season 2 promises to be your ultimate resource for innovative dairy solutions. Whether you’re a producer, nutritionist, or industry professional, you don’t want to miss this preview of what’s ahead!
🎧 Listen now to set your herd up for lifelong success!
Scott Zehr
All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Ruminate This with Agrarian solutions. I’m your host Scott Zehr. And today, if you’re listening to this episode, it is the first week of January in the year 2025. And we are doing a couple of things differently in this next year here on Ruminate This. In the sense that we are kicking off season two effective in two weeks from today.
And so today’s episode, we’re going to be giving you a little sneak peek. I think in the movie world, they call it a trailer. We don’t really have the, the voiceover guy to create a lot of hype today, but I’ll do my best. I do have Dr. Roth with me to share some insights on some of our guests that have committed to come on on the podcast here in 2025. So we’ll be running that by him.
But Dr. Roth, as I look at the speaker lists for 2025, these are people that have agreed to come on our podcast and visit with us and our audience. And I’d like your take on this overall at first. So.
One I’ll just read off some of the names here. Dr. Tom Overton, Cornell university. Dr. Mike van Amburg, Cornell university, Dr. Julio Giordano from Cornell university. Not from university, but Mike Overton from Zoetis, Kai Fuller, Texas A&M. Paul Fricke up there at UW Madison. Dr. Billy Brown out at Kansas State.
You know, I think to the listeners, maybe what are you most excited about with that list of guests coming up this year from the academia space?
Dr. Larry Roth
God, I think it really broadens our subject matter that is covered in this podcast. And you’re bringing in some of the foremost researchers, some of the people who speak most frequently at different producer and scientific conferences. So, you’re really bringing in some heavy hitters, people who are on the cutting edge of research in the dairy nutrition world.
Scott Zehr
Yeah, so, you know, Dr. Billy Brown, down there in Kansas State, one of the topics that we’re going to talk with him about is this developmental programming in calves. Share a little insight on that, Larry.
Dr. Larry Roth
You bet. With fewer dairy replacements being raised, each one has to count. Each one has to be functioning at their highest level. Scott, that goes back to my common phrase, day one, week one, month one. We have to know how to keep these calves alive, how to help keep them as healthy as possible.
And I’m sure that Dr. Brown will talk about some of the comment of development programming. In other words, there are certain genes that seem to get turned on by the way that we feed these calves. Some of this actually takes place before the calf is even born, and I’m sure he’ll make some references to that.
So with fewer heifers being raised, and those that are raised, are worth a whole lot more money than what they were 10 years ago, each heifer has to count. And that comes back to nutrition and management. And understanding that there’s things that we could do that help these genes, shall we say, be turned on and help the genes express themselves. So that should be a very interesting and timely topic.
Scott Zehr
Absolutely. And I’m going to throw another one at you. Hypocalcemia in dairy cows is something we’ve talked about on this platform before. There’s studies that suggest somewhere between 40 and 60 percent of the cows in this country could be suffering from subclinical hypocalcemia. Dr. Tom Overton out of Cornell has done a lot of work in this area. What are some thoughts you might have about that kind of conversation with Dr. Overton?
Dr. Larry Roth
You bet. You know, we use that term hypocalcemia. I mean, people say, “well, I don’t have milk fever.” Well, they don’t have clinical milk fever. They don’t know if they have subclinical because they’re not testing enough cows or testing any cows at all.
So we know that the cow has a tremendous increase in her calcium demand. And let’s face it, if you want to get an argument going among dairy nutritionists, let’s talk about dry cow diets and what we should be doing.
And I think Tom Overton can bring in some good perspective in both dry cow diets and post fresh diets in regards to calcium status. So how about let’s, term it that way, calcium status of these cows. And he’s no stranger to some of the controversy in this area. But he always uses research to back up his views.
And he and his coworkers there at Cornell have probably done as much research in this area as anybody other than perhaps Jesse Goff. And I’m sure that Dr. Overton will make some references to Dr. Goff.
Scott Zehr
Yeah. Dr. Roth with my background in having spent some time in the genetic side and specifically reproductive consulting, one of the guys that I looked up to and I honestly, I was a little bit starstruck when he said he’d join us on the podcast, is a guy named Julio, Dr. Julio Giordano from Cornell University.
He’s done a ton of work in reproduction synchronization and developing certain protocols and, really taking the work that Dr. Paul Fricke out there at UW Madison had started and carried that torch a lot. So I’m definitely excited about that.
I mean, we talk about reproductive success enough a lot in this podcast. But Larry, I you and I like to use sports references sometimes,
Dr. Larry Roth
Yeah.
Scott Zehr
And just for the contemporary listener, I’m going to use the Bill Belichick coaching tree. I think anybody that’s an NFL fan knows what we mean when we talk about the Bill Belichick coaching tree. I’m going to say Dr. Paul Fricke is the Bill Belichick of repro research in the U.S.
Dr. Larry Roth
Yeah.
Scott Zehr
Your thoughts. Your thoughts there.
Dr. Larry Roth
I think Dr. Fricke has a tremendous research program, but he’s also had a very good researcher development program. And that’s two different things. It’s one thing to do the research and no question, Dr. Fricke has done that. But he’s also developed a number of high quality researchers. That’s the researcher tree that you were making reference to.
So yeah, having Dr. Fricke on here will be fantastic. And then to see how he has developed his proteges that are continuing on the research into reproductive success. I mean, let’s face it, as much as the dairy producer thinks they’re in the business of making milk, they’re in the business of getting cows pregnant and staying pregnant.
So Dr. Fricke and his students, now researchers, have been as much in the forefront of that as anybody else. So it’ll be really neat to see how they are developing this important topic, an important topic for any dairy producer. How do we get cows pregnant and keep them that way?
Scott Zehr
I recently had a chance to go to the DCRC conference and, back in November down in Arlington. And I think sometimes Larry, when you spend your career closer to the front lines in production agriculture we might go to these conferences and you see the suit and tie of the speakers, the presenters, the researchers that are coming up with the new data and they’re talking to us about it.
And I will say I appreciated the new perspective. I’m never one to question somebody’s work ethic or how they got there, whatever. But it certainly gave me a new perspective when I heard in exchange, it was Dr. Fricke’s presentation, Julio is sitting in the back of the audience, sitting in on the presentation, the room is packed.
And the exchange between those two individuals reminiscing about the thousands and thousands of cows that Dr. Giordano had palpated with ultrasound to look at, developing CLs and all this stuff in the recent. It really reminded me that these individuals that are pumping this information out of universities, they’re not afraid to get their hands dirty to help us out.
Dr. Larry Roth
Yeah.
Scott Zehr
So definitely appreciated that. And I’m sure you experienced that in your career too…
Dr. Larry Roth
Yep.
Scott Zehr
Feeding cows. Yeah.
Dr. Larry Roth
Yeah. We got our hands, shall we say, dirty and we can put that in quotation marks because it was more than just dirt on the hands.
Scott Zehr
Yes. Yes, exactly So Larry from an internal perspective, some of the stuff that we’re going to be talking about this year, share with us the mycotoxin reports.
Dr. Larry Roth
You bet.
Scott Zehr
When can we expect those?
Dr. Larry Roth
Yeah, when can we expect those? Well, Scott, we’re looking at doing those two times a year, so about six months apart. So it’ll probably be April and October. And we’re really trying to make an emphasis on our October mycotoxin report covering the new crop corn silage coming in.
So the April, we’ll talk about what we have been seeing for the 24 harvested corn silage and by extension, the corn by products that show up into the TMR. And then in October, we’re really wanting to break out what is the old crop versus the new crop? Because what are we going to have to work with for this next year going forward?
So we’ve really taken our forage sampling, TMR sampling program to another level. And now we’re starting to develop it even further to be more specific crop versus crop. Or crop year versus crop year.
Scott Zehr
I’m glad you bring that up that way because, you know, as oftentimes, and I go back to my days when I would be in repro consulting, a lot of farm meetings happen in post crop, right? November, December, January, February. Especially the last two months of the year, where we’re strategizing for what we’re going to do the following year. Things we want to improve or goal setting. But we’re developing strategies, it might be nutritionally, it might be reproductively, it might be financially.
Sampling that corn silage as it’s being harvested I think as a strategic step that has been overlooked a lot. And I’m proud to carry that, that orch with you, Larry, is, is encouraging people to safely take some samples as you’re ensiling that forage. Don’t be afraid to call on us to help out with it. Absolutely. And let’s develop a strategy moving forward.
Dr. Larry Roth
Yeah, I absolutely believe in sampling the corn forage. Let’s call it corn forage. It’s really not silage. It hasn’t gone through the fermentation, but it’s easy to call it silage. Let’s sample that silage, that corn material, as it’s going into storage. Number one, we got to be safe. Man, you get on some of these big farms and we’ve got how many tractors on the pile or the bunker, and we’ve got trucks, wagons coming in left and right when we don’t want anybody to get run over?
But we really need to know what kind of inventory we’re dealing with. What’s the starch level? What’s the fiber digestibility and let’s the dairy producer and nutritionists do so much for planning what are their needs?
Maybe we got to go out. We got to buy some corn and we got to get some by products. Because our starch content, starch digestibility will improve over time. But we’re going to have a good idea of what our fiber digestibility is. So…
Plus, we’re going to know something about mycotoxins going in. Are we going to have a good year feeding wise? Or when we get into this new crop corn, we got some issues that we need to deal with? And the best way to deal with an issue is to know it’s there and have a plan going into it.
So, Scott, we can sit down November, December, we can say here’s what we’ve got going on. But, if we have samples nutrition wise and mycotoxin wise from August and September when we were putting the crop into storage, we could do a whole lot better at coming up with a strategy to successfully deal with this crop. So that’s a big emphasis in our testing program. Know what the crop is going into storage.
Scott Zehr
Absolutely. Absolutely. So Larry, in the way of research, I view you as kind of the lead guy, kind of leading that charge. We’ve talked about our DTX research on this platform before. You can go back to episode two and three. I believe it is, of season one. But Larry can we expect any updates on research coming out of Agrarian in 2025?
Dr. Larry Roth
Yeah, Scott, we’re wanting to stay on the forefront of what we’re doing for mycotoxin protection, as well as other developments that are coming along.
Scott Zehr
Awesome. Awesome. I think that’s great. I think that’s important. And as you’ve said many times on this platform, have the data to back it up.
Dr. Larry Roth
Yep.
Scott Zehr
Yep. I love it. So as well, things to look forward to, we’re going to be talking with some dairy farmers in season two kicking off right here in January with a dairy farmer up in Ontario, Canada named Dylan Stewartson, who is a platinum repro award winner at DCRC this year.
So we’re going to ask Dylan, how the heck he did it? And how he’s going to continue to improve and not go backwards and repro. I also want to give a shout out to one of our listeners that was kind enough to send us some fan mail. Devon Ouellette, and she’s up in Maine with her husband and family on a multi generational dairy farm. And so Devon, thanks for reaching out and thanks for having a conversation with me.
Since then, I look forward to talking to you more. And as always, folks, if you enjoy this podcast, definitely drop us some fan mail. Drop us an email [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you if you have ideas for topics. So one of the things that Devin had emailed us about Larry was multi generational farming, older style management versus newer ideas. I think there could be some generational transitioning things to talk about.
And so, we do want to make this podcast for the listener. If you guys have ideas for topics, feel free [email protected], reach out to me and I’ll see what I can do to come up with resources for you. Larry, go ahead.
Dr. Larry Roth
Yeah, I think that’ll be great having Devin come on. Scott, you’ve put up a tremendous line up top notch, cutting edge researchers, and that’s all fine and well to have the research. But let’s talk to those who are taking that research and applying it out there in the field.
So that will be exciting to have Devin come on, you know, talk about transition from one generation to the next. How do we take the research and apply it? Well, that works well they’re at that college. But how does it work out here on the farm where we’re trying to make money?
Scott Zehr
Exactly. I haven’t talked to her yet, but I’m going to work on it, Larry. So maybe mentioning that she should come on, we’ll convince her to come on and have a conversation with us. So with that, everybody, I’m going to let you go for this week.
Next week, we’re going to continue our meet the team series and dive right back into our regular battle rhythm of serving you guys once a week here on Ruminate This with Agrarian solutions. And again, if you enjoy our podcast, hit that subscribe button, share it with a friend. And we look forward to talking to everybody in 2025. Thank you, Dr. Roth.
Dr. Larry Roth
All right. Thank you, Scott.
