Bragger Family Dairy Finds Profitability in Grass

 

The Bragger Family Dairy is a dairy and row crop farm with a mix of cattle, cropland, pasture and woodlands. The farm is located near the Buffalo and Trempealeau county line in the heart of Wisconsin’s Driftless Region. Joe Bragger runs the farm with his brother (Dan), mother (Hildegard), and wife (Noel). Joe’s parents settled in Wisconsin in the 1960s and liked the area because it reminded them of their homeland Switzerland.

Joe was one of the original founding members of the Buffalo Trempealeau County Farmer Network in 2016. This farmer group is part of a statewide network of producer‐led watershed groups supported by grants from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. “This group has tremendous momentum and opportunity to share ideas, brain‐ storm and use discussion to come up with new ideas and hammer out the details on current practices,” explained Joe.

Historically, the group has partnered with UW Discovery Farms to conduct on‐farm research related to nitrogen use efficiency and cover crop establishment. In 2020, the group partnered with Precision Ag and Conservation Specialist, Scott Stipetich, a position in partnership with Pheasants Forever Inc and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service to collect data on the farms and create precision ag farm business plans. These plans provide farmers like Joe, sub‐ field profitability analytics. “What’s great about the profitability maps is that all the data input comes directly from the farm. We are able to use Joe’s yield data, variable rate inputs and budget information to create very specific maps for his operation,” said Stipetich. “The maps allow us to identify specific areas within a field that might be dragging whole field yield down or areas that are difficult to farm.”

Joe already had an idea that some areas of his fields were not as profitable as others. In 2019, he planted 30 feet of grass on the edges of crop fields that were adjacent to woodlots. These crop areas were competing for sunlight and moisture with the adjacent trees and the crop was losing yield. Stipetich was able to analyze these fields to support Joe’s assumption with the actual numbers. Thirty feet around the one 30‐acre field was about five acres total. By not planting this area to traditional grain crops in 2020, the whole field was 5 acres less and net profit was $200 more than the prior year.

Joe stated that he is still farming that outer 30 ft. “Every acre on the farm has its purpose and we are still farming that strip, just not in the traditional way you might think,” explained Joe. Joe has plans to cut the strip for hay in some years and let it grow in others.

After the 2020 harvest, Joe is working with Stipetich to analyze the remainder of the farm and discuss additional areas that might benefit from alternative management plans. “We are currently discussing management ideas and fields to look at this year,” added Joe.