Jeff Endres
Jeff Endres, who leads YPF, was also the driving force behind its creation. Launched in 2014, the YPF model has since been followed by 50 producer-led watershed protection groups in Wisconsin.
First a little history – in December 2005, the Dane County Board of Supervisors approved an amended version of the Dane County Manure Storage and Utilization Ordinance. The new regulations required agricultural producers to obtain a county permit before applying stored, pumpable liquid manure on frozen or snow-covered cropland.
The reason given for the new ordinance was that liquid manure applied during winter could pose runoff threats to surface waters. The county said, “snow-covered or frozen land may not allow for manure to be properly incorporated into the soil, resulting in manure runoff during thaws.” Two incidents had occurred earlier that year – a fish kill and nutrient loading to area water bodies.
The Dane County Manure Spreading Task Force was created as a result. Jeff and other farmers appointed to the task force by then County Executive Kathleen Falk explained that not all winter applications were bad if procedures were properly managed.
“That led to the ordinance we have today,” Jeff says.
He was later approached by the Clean Lakes Alliance, which was focused on a holistic approach to water quality in the county’s lakes. He discussed what agriculture could do to help address the issue. He saw that as an opportunity for farmers to be involved in the decision-making process rather than having decisions made for them by people who weren’t involved in agriculture.
“I realized we should start an organization of our own,” he says.
He and his fellow farmers also wanted an advisor. The timing was right in 2014 when they learned that Dennis Frame had just retired from Discovery Farms. With Frame’s guidance, they established a certification program to assess the farmers’ conservation practices, nutrient management and facilities.
“It was a good way to create a baseline for the (member) farms,” Jeff says.
Frame also developed a process for tabulating phosphorus reduction that documented and showed how conservation practices adopted by farmers were beneficial to the watershed.
YPF members have continued to experiment with various practices, such as no-till, cover crops, low-disturbance manure injection and composting manure. They’re doing so while weighing the costs and benefits of the practices on their own farms.
“We need to keep trying new things in agriculture,” Jeff says. “You don’t have to commit a lot of acreage to experiment. But try something.”
He and his two brothers, Randy and Steve, have implemented various conservation practices on their Berryridge Farms near Waunakee. Along with Steve’s son, Zach Endres, and the farm team, they milk 550 cows and farm 1,600 acres, 1,000 acres of which they rent.
In addition to growing corn and alfalfa, they’ve devoted 170 acres to grasses on highly erodible land. The grass mix includes fescues, orchardgrass, festulolium and clover.
After years of trial and error with cover crops, they’ve found that planting alfalfa into winter rye works well. They also can use the rye to feed their heifers. And by seeding that way, they’re harvesting more tons of dry matter than by direct seeding.
“There’s no erosion and it cuts herbicide applications,” Jeff says. “But there are tricks to it. We need to cut the rye before the alfalfa gets too tall.”
The Endres family also began using low-disturbance manure injection more than a decade ago and have done it ever since.
“We learned we could establish cover crops before injecting manure without thinning them,” he says.
Jeff also began experimenting with composting bedding pack manure in 2015. He’s perfected the process where he can now convert the manure to clean, dry bedding in a matter of weeks. Bacteria are killed when the compost piles reach a temperature of 135 degrees Fahrenheit. But to prevent the possibility of mastitis, the bedding is regularly tested for bacteria count. The herd’s last somatic cell count was just 65,000, Jeff says.
He developed his own compost turner in 2017, which the farm continues to use. In addition to using the compost for bedding, he has learned he can mix soil amendments such as gypsum and lime into the compost for field applications.
The process isn’t for everyone, he says. It requires extra steps and is time consuming. Not all producers would want to devote that amount of time or acres to compost piles. While it was a monumental change for Berryridge Farm to switch from sand bedding to bedding with compost, it has worked for his family’s farm, he says.
These technologies are helping the Endres family and other farmers in the YPF to create win-win-wins for the environment, the public and the farmers.
“When we put win-wins together we have success,” he says. “And if farmers bring these wins, more people will appreciate agriculture. That’s good for the sustainability of agriculture and society.”