GAR-LIN AGRONOMY & Dairy

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In 1981, the north farm location, with 206 acres was purchased by Gar-Lin Dairy and became what is known today as Gar-Lin Agronomy.  Dean began managing the agronomy center after many years of the farm being owned by another family relative. The operation continued to slowly expand, supplying 100% of the crops for the original 40 milking cows to the now over 1,850 milking cows, and 1740 replacement young stock.

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Our full-time Certified Agronomist, Jay Miller, works closely with our dairy nutritionist to find out what varieties will be needed to get the right feed profiles to maximize milk production. He works with our 6-8 people in the cropping enterprise and 3-4 part-time people on the agronomy side. 

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The Dairy Feed Center works to develop methods in agricultural science dealing with the study of the farms' crops and the soils in which they grow that will continually improve the use of the 1,632 acres  Gar-Lin owns, 2,358 acres rented, and the 480 acres that are custom farmed for Garlin. The 4,470 total acres of soil are carefully managed to increase the production of the food and fiber crops to all the dairy animals making the farm sustainable.

 

Our crop rotations for the dairy feed and cash crop recently included 550 acres of soybeans, 205 acres of peas, 980 acres of alfalfa, 35 acres of sweet corn, 110 acres of winter rye, 1150 corn for grain, and 960 corn for silage.

 

We maximize the nutrients from our 14 million gallon liquid manure facility by applying it to our cropland to allow it to reclaim the nutrients. This is done after the peas are harvested, to establish alfalfa planted in August, allowing for harvest of the first crop of hay the following May. We use the latest technology with GPS mapping and auto-steer in the cropping.

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GAR-LIN Agronomy is centrally located to all the acreage managed, being the hub of the dairy’s eco-friendly community of farm cropping and management.