Cornell Cooperative Extension of Delaware County will hold its 92nd annual drive-yourself dairy tour on Aug. 24 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. This year’s tour will feature two farm families farming in the Delhi-Fraser part of Delaware County, Mushkoday Farm (the Burgin family) and Sher-Brook Farm (the Sherwood family), and will feature discussions about robotic milking, cow comfort, organic milk production, no-till corn production and advanced cover crop and nitrogen management in in field corn.
The tour will commence at Birdsong Community gardens at 38718 state Highway 10, Hamden, at 11 a.m. with a panel discussion with the Burgin family about their experience using robotic milking over the last eight years. To be discussed: how they learned to manage cows and feeding with robotic milking. Following the discussion, visit the farm and learn about their aggressive adoption of no-till planting, including how they have adapted equipment and weed control. View their innovative adoption of winter cereal cover cropping for soil health and weed management and visit a corn field near Birdsong Gardens where this year they rolled winter rye cover crop with a roller-crimper and planted into the rolled rye mulch. The roller-crimper they used will be on site for viewing. At this cornfield, adaptive nitrogen management strategies for corn production will be discussed
A bring-your-own lunch will be held at Birdsong Gardens at 12:30 p.m. Local milk and ice cream will be provided and attendees will hear from Delaware County Dairy Ambassador Jessica Coleman about the dairy promotion activities her team is undertaking this summer. Extension educator Carla Crim will be giving tours of the Birdsong Community gardens, and discuss unique programming going on there.
The tour will continue from there to visit another Burgin corn field to see corn planted into standing green winter rye cover crop as well as a stop at the Burgin freestall dairy barn on county Route 16 inDelhi where recently installed large ceiling circulation fans for cow cooling cnan be viewed and attendees will learn what the effects have been on the cows, as well as see the robotic feed pusher in action.
The tour will be at Sher-Brook farm at 2 p.m. 2472 county Highway 16, Delhi, a certified organic dairy farm owned and operated by Tim and Lauren Sherwood and family. There, learn about how the Sherwood’s manage their farm, including grazing and crop production practices. Biosecurity protocols will be discussed. See a biosecurity boot wash station.
For more information, contact Cornell Cooperative Extension of Delaware County at 607-865-6531 or delaware@cornell.edu.
