While their humans are in the fields chopping corn for the silage harvest, the heifers at Brey Cycle Farm in Sturgeon Bay are enjoying the sunshine and fresh air before the seasons turn. In 2022, Brey Cycle Farm turned more than 140 acres of row crops into pasture for its heifers to roam freely while enjoying a mixture of cover crops and grasses. The switch allowed the farm to reduce soil erosion and phosphorus runoff while saving money on feed costs and other inputs.
When Brey Cycle Farm hosts Tuesday’s Peninsula Pride Farms Conservation event at 5 p.m., owner Jacob Brey hopes farmers can see a great way to do right by their cows, their land and their bottom line.
Do not be mistaken: Brey and other farmers are working hard to make sure their herds have plenty to munch on during the winter months when delicious winter rye and summer cocktail mixes could be under snow. According to the USDA Crop Progress and Condition Report, Wisconsin farmers are 14% complete with their corn silage harvest, 6 percentage points ahead of the five-year average.
Corn in the dough stage, at 93%, and soybeans dropping leaves, at 12%, were also several percentage points ahead of their five-year averages, while winter wheat planting, at 7%, was slightly behind.
