Sirrina Martinez
Multimedia reporter
smartinez@pipestonestar.com

With harvest coming to a close for many producers across the southwest corner of the state, the time has come to begin planning for the next season.
For producers preparing for spring planting, Ken Franzky, the Agronomy Services Manager with Marshall-based Centrol Crop Consulting and his team of 52 crop consultants across the state of Minnesota and South Dakota have some advice for making sure their operation is prepared.

Frankzy, who grew up as a farm kid in western Minnesota and has worked in agriculture his entire career, said that the first step for producers to take is to assess prior years.

“Review what has been consistently working for your operation and provided proven results year-over-year,” he said. “As well as things that may have not paid as good or consistent of a return on investment or new things you have tried on a limited basis and have seen mixed results with. Be willing to try new things but on a scaled approach to control risks of unpredictable results.”

Producers should start planning right away while the last season is fresh in their mind so that they can draw proper conclusions and outcomes from the weather related issues that are beyond a producer’s control, Franzky said. Outcomes that their management decisions influenced positively or negatively should also be evaluated.

“This includes things like tillage systems, seed selection choices, planting dates, crop protection product decisions, timing of field applications, grain marketing, etc.,” he said.

Common mistakes that Frankzy has seen made by produces during preplanning have been jumping too quickly on decisions or prepaying for the next year rather than investing enough time in analyzing their data to make the most informed decision possible. Also, worrying too much about what their neighbors are doing, and not meeting with their ag lenders on a quarterly basis to keep communication open to continuously review budgets and cash flows.

Something else producers should consider when preplanning for the spring season is the ever-evolving technology in the agricultural industry, Frankzy said. However, some more traditional methods of operation assessment still provide the best results.

“Various technologies can provide ways to protect yields, gain in-field efficiency, reduce some risk levels, etc.,” he said. “But nothing is currently available to replace the fundamentals of quality soil sampling, proper recommendations for crop nutrition, utilization of best management practices for crop inputs, and keeping a mindset of environmental stewardship like farmers commonly do to protect their livelihoods and assets of soil, water, and air.”

For those looking for an outside opinion to assist in planning, the number one advantage of working with an independent crop consultant is the unbiased service and recommendations producers will receive, Frankzy said.

“We do not sell products like other input suppliers,” he said. “Rather, our goal is to assist farmers in finding and extracting the higher rate of return with all their input and agronomic decisions.”
Some final advice that Frankzy offers to producers is to be smart with their planning and decision making.

“Do not get talked into or pressured into things that ‘sound too good to be true’ or are mostly based on testimonials or limited scientific research and data,” he said. “‘Trust but verify’ as the old phrase goes! I would like to remind our MN and SD farmers to act with a little Missouri attitude, ‘show me’ first and let me see, believe, and understand the value of a product or production practice before I jump in 100%.”

Sirrina Martinez
Multimedia reporter
smartinez@pipestonestar.com


Caring for livestock is a practice that has evolved over the years especially with vast changes in technology over the past few decades.
Nick Enfield, is a production consultant with FarmPro, a service offering from Pipestone Business, a company that helps farmers by providing resources and expertise in swine management. One of those services, Enfield said, includes consultation and management of swine barn ventilation systems.

On a recent episode of the SwineTime podcast, Enfield was a guest alongside Dr. Jeff Blythe, also with PIPESTONE, to discuss the challenges of proper ventilation in swine facilities. The knowledge and information that has been gained over the years is vast, Enfield said, but we are just scratching the surface of the science behind proper ventilation and its impact on swine health.

“That may be the understatement of the discussion,” Enfield said.  “And the reason I say that is we get to see a lot of different styles of barns and differences in how pigs are raised. Obviously there are some preferences and new technologies out there, but what we want to share with producers is the base level ventilation that needs to be executed for success.”

For Enfield, the number one and first thing a producer should do to maximize the potential of their ventilation system, is to ensure all of their equipment is working properly.

“For me, the number one thing prior to utilizing the experience or mathematics you have to get into is that the barn has to be functional,” he said. “The equipment has to be functional. Fans have to be working, curtain machines have to be working. Inlets need to be working. Because if you don’t have that, it really doesn’t matter the settings any expert would put in, say, the controller to operate the ventilation, or what temperature you set as a set point, if the fans are not functioning.”

Much like a car or home, downed equipment and repairs are to be expected, Enfield said. However, keeping up with maintenance and repairs is essential.

The second most important thing to consider, Enfield said, is probe placement. The probe detects air temperature, and if it is placed improperly, for example near a heat or cooling source, it can skew the entire system and lead to under or over ventilation, as temperature will dictate how much air moves in the barn.

“It’s pretty simple, just like in a house,” he said. “You would set your thermostat at 72 and really, you just need to make the decision of ‘do I need to have my AC on or do I need to have my furnace on?’ It’s no different except we don’t have to tell the thermostats to kick on the furnace or AC, we set the parameters to begin with and then temperature will dictate what turns on and when. I say that because even if you have everything set up perfectly in the controller, if your probes are reading odd, like they are in front of a heater and catching that line of air, it is going to greatly skew the temperature reading.”’

After you confirm the equipment is working and probe placement has been addressed, producers can dive into the nuances of the math involved in creating the ideal ventilation and humidity in the barn, Enfield said.

The math, he said, is the third most important thing to consider in creating proper ventilation. With a variety of barn styles and setups, the math can be something that is very nuanced.
“You could have different experts argue over some settings, or how far apart or close you set things in terms of temperatures but you have to have a base level of what that has to be for CFMs, we’re talking volume of air.”

A lot of research is available that can demonstrate at what rate your fans need to be running in order to achieve the necessary volume of air, Enfield said. Some factors that will influence the rate include the size and number of fans available in the barn.
Poor ventilation can include under or over-ventilation, Enfield said, which can lead to a variety of issues. In terms of swine health, it can lead to bacteria and pathogens that thrive in high-humidity environments. Under-ventilation can also lead to more air containments, and breathing difficulties for livestock.

“With higher humidity, it’s just harder to breathe,” he said. “Think about Iowa in August with all the corn and you walk outside and it’s 85 degrees at 7 a.m., and it just feels like the air is thick. So in an under-ventilation scenario, it can challenge respiration, which ultimately can hurt the growth and efficiency of the pigs. There is some science behind this, in terms of metabolic rate, or the minimum amount of calories they need to function.”

Essentially, in terms of the pigs’ body temperature, if their body temperatures are higher, it may be signaling the animal to eat less as their bodies think they do not need to take in as many calories for their base level of sustenance. Consuming less feed in turn causes a slowed growth rate.
Although rare, over-ventilation is a possibility, Enfield said.

“It does happen way less than under-ventilation,” he said, “but it does happen. The reason under ventilation tends to happen more often is because people are just very aware of the utility cost of those facilities.”

Enfield stressed that producers have learned so much over the years about stewardship of livestock, and have worked to improve their processes for the betterment of the animal and their operation. FarmPro, he said, can help them to figure out how to achieve ventilation efficiency, which in turn will impact the efficiency of their herd.

“It is wildly amazing all of the, what I call, lessons we have learned that make our lives easier as caretakers, and ultimately way easier and better for the pigs,” he said. “I tell everyone we are constantly working to improve animal welfare, from advancements in computer technology in these hog facilities, to better design of pens and alley ways, and so much more. It’s mind blowing how far we have come.”

Sirrina Martinez
Multimedia reporter
smartinez@pipestonestar.com

On Feb. 29 of this year, rural Pipestone County resident Bill VanHoecke experienced first-hand the importance of farm safety, when he suffered and survived through an accident on his farm seven miles north of Pipestone.

While working in a grain silo with his father, VanHoecke was preparing to open up one of the silos on his property to feed cattle.

“We run a 160 head of cattle and when we wean the calves, they all come here and get fed out from these silos,” VanHoecke said. “The south one was empty and we were trying to get the north one open so we could feed for the next day.”

VanHoecke climbed up the silo. He had been up to the top a couple of days prior and had removed the silo cap so that the silage could air out and dry up a bit. He took along with him the electrical cord needed to run the silo unloader, and when he went to hook the cord on a higher door on the silo, the latch on the door near his feet gave way and the silo door kicked-in on him. He was able to hold on for a second, VanHoecke said, before his hand that he was holding onto the silo with slipped out of his glove. Within a split second, he said, he fell 50-feet down the chute, landing in a feed wagon with the slide-chute landing on top of him.

Fortunately, VanHoecke said, his father was present when the accident occurred, and saw him fall into the feed wagon. After the accident, his father told him that he wasn’t sure what he was going to find when he looked into the feed wagon. Thankfully, although in extreme pain, his father found his him alive and conscious.

“He jumped in the feed wagon right away and he pulled the slide chute off,” he said. “We knew right away that my leg was broken because the ankle was basically looking me in the face. Dad actually got into the tractor and pulled the feed wagon and tractor out because the EMTs were going to need to be able to get in there. We didn’t know anything about the knee until the EMTs got here.”

His father had called his mother, who in turn called 911, VanHoecke said. While his address is served by the Holland Fire Department, his mother called from his parents’ farm, which prompted the Lake Benton Fire Department to respond. In the end, Holland, Lake Benton and Pipestone emergency responders arrived to help get VanHoecke out of the feed wagon and into the ambulance. While preparing to move him to the ambulance, EMTs gave him a dose of Fentynal for the pain, and began cutting away at his clothing to assess the full extent of his injuries. A helicopter from North Memorial was in the area, preparing to return to the Twin Cities, when they were asked to reroute and pick VanHoecke up on the gravel road that went by his farm.

VanHoecke ended up breaking both bones in his lower right leg and his right ankle, and he ended up blowing out his knee from the sheer force and pressure from the sudden impact. The pain, he said, was excruciating.

“I had never felt pain like that,” he said.”
Despite the tremendous pain and being conscious for the entire experience, VanHoecke said the first thing he felt when he landed in the feed wagon was relief that he was alive, because he knew he was going to be okay.

“It was just a broken leg,” he said. “It could have been a lot worse. So much worse. I had my little blue tooth headset on, it stayed on my head the whole time. My glasses never came off. My hood was up the whole time. The only thing that was missing was my glove which was up on the silo. My left boot, when I hit the chute and flipped over, the boot slipped off and flung off my foot and hit the wall. I actually called my wife laying in the bottom of the feed wagon.”

His wife, Emily, who works as a kindergarten teacher in Pipestone, was in her classroom when the accident occurred, VanHoecke said. They had just spoken on the phone 15 minutes prior, so when he initially called she thought she could call back. VanHoecke called the office at her school and was patched through to her classroom. As she picked up the phone, VanHoecke’s nephew walked into her classroom to tell her what had happened. It was then, he said, that she knew something was wrong. Emily was able to get to the farm to be with him before he was air lifted to Sanford Hospital in Sioux Falls.

After the accident, VanHoecke underwent surgery the following morning that left him with two screws in the left side of his leg, a plate and seven screws on the right, and a string in his ankle that acts as a ligament. For his knee, doctors cleaned everything out and found that there were severed nerves and a quad muscle. Everything was sewed and stapled back together, and then the incision was stapled together.  He was not allowed to put any weight on his leg for two months after the accident, and the remaining recovery time was spent attending physical therapy two to three times a week in Pipestone. In terms of long-term issues after his accident, VanHoecke may expect to lose the inside quad muscle in his right leg that was severed to deterioration.

Looking back, the one thing he would have done differently was listen to his father, VanHoecke said.
“Maybe listen to dad’s words once in awhile,” he chuckled. “That’s the cardinal rule with silos. You never stand on the door that doesn’t have silage on the other side.”

Now, climbing the silo after the accident gives him a strange feeling that serves as a reminder to slow down when working around the farm.

“I just climbed the silo this afternoon,” he said.

“That was the first time I’ve climbed a silo since the accident. That was strange. I used to  scoot right up, no big deal. I think I took each door one rung at a time and every time something jiggled I froze and caught myself, but I got up there.”

His perspective has shifted since the accident, VanHoecke said. From that perspective, his advice to others would be to slow down and take your time when working, regardless of how familiar you are with the task.

“I used to be 100 miles an hour,” he said. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. I joke with dad now all the time that him and I walk and work at the same speed now. Slow down, take your time, be cautious. All the things people preach all the time and every farmer goes ‘Yeah, that’s for the other guy.’ One day it might be you, like it was me.”

VanHoecke said he’s thankful for all the people who helped him during and after the accident, including his parents, the first responders, the physical therapy staff at PCMC and the doctors who cared for him. He is especially grateful to his wife, Emily, who was by his side during his recovery, while continuing to care for their two sons, Carson, 14, and Trevin, 11.

“I couldn’t have done it without her,” he said.