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4 CapitalPress.com June 2, 2017 Dairy family adds innovation to operation Roger Bajema • 350-1600 Cubic Ft. • Low Horse Power • Vertical Mix • Many Discharge & Wheel Options EQUIPMENT INC. Lynden, WA 360-354-4546 Cell 360-815-1383 By HEATHER SMITH THOMAS For the Capital Press ROYAL CITY, Wash. — This large dairy the Columbia D17-2/#8 BUYING or SELLING Dairy Property? Your best pick is FarmSeller.com More than 1080 rural property listings from 70 rural property professionals. • Ag Businesses • Hobby Farms • Berries • Large & Small Acreage • Livestock • Nursery/Greenhouse • Crops • Dairies • Farm Properties • Orchards & Vineyards • Ranch Properties • Recreational / Resort • Rural Residential • Timber Buyers can search by type, price, location, acreage, bedrooms, baths, crops, livestock, water, irrigation and more. BROKERS: for more information contact your FarmSeller sales rep today 800-882-6789 farmseller@capitalpress.com D17-1/#13 Basin 30 miles southwest of Moses Lake, Wash., is owned and operated by Austin Allred and family, who farm nearby. The facility was original- ly built in 2000 by the Smith Brothers, who also ran a bot- tling plant. “They sold it to Nelson Faria, who ran it a few years then started farming in Texas in 2008. That’s when my dad and I got involved. In 2016 I bought Nelson’s portion so now it’s just our family. We are potato farmers and grow row crops and apples, but I branched out into dairying,” Allred said. “I was fortunate to be able to work with him for several years before he moved to Tex- as,” Allred said. Most of the cows are Hol- stein-Jersey crosses. Faria uti- lized the best of both breeds. “I have 1,000 purebred Holsteins and some purebred Jerseys but most of our cows are crossbred. We are going toward Jerseys; that’s what the market dictates,” he said. “I spend all my days milk- ing cows and loving it,” he said. On average of 20 calves are born each day. “We use sexed semen to ensure plenty of heifer calves,” he said. At this point they don’t sell surplus heifers because they are still expand- ing cow numbers. The family farm grows most of the feed. Rotation crops such as alfalfa and si- lage work well with potatoes. Austin and his wife, Ca- mille, have a 3-year-old boy named Porter and a 1-year-old girl named Adaline. “Their favorite thing every morning is go check the cows. Porter just got his first bat- tery-powered 4-wheeler and loves to drive back and forth between home and the office. My favorite thing is to have my kids at work with me,” he said. “I am new in the dairy world. I grew up growing potatoes and apples with my Courtesy of the Allred family Austin Allred, his wife, Camille, and their kids, Porter and Adaline. Royal Dairy in Washington state raises mostly Holstein-Jersey crosses and uses a unique bio-filter that cleans its waste water. dad. This is a new adventure, but I have an advantage re- garding regulations and chal- lenges that dairies are facing right now because I don’t know much about the past,” he said. The dairy is up to date and doesn’t have to try to change traditional ways of doing things, he added. One innovation Allred has installed is a bio-filter. “The dairy industry has a challenge with manure, and liquid manure management is the biggest challenge. We al- ready process our green water through a centrifuge and are now taking it one step farther and processing it through a bio-flow-through system in- stalled by BioFiltro,” Allred said. It utilizes large, concrete structures that hold layers of rocks, wood chips and shav- ings and a top layer of earth- worms and bacteria. “We apply the green water on top of that with sprinklers and within four hours it per- colates through and comes out significantly cleaner. This natural filter removes most of the nitrogen and phosphorus, and much of the potassium,” he said. The water can be put back onto the land via pivot irriga- tion. They also have a valuable by-product in worm cast- ings. The worms consume a lot of the wood chips along with the nitrogen and some of the other nutrients, he said. “We harvest the worm castings, which are used as a nutrient-dense fertilizer by greenhouses, orchards and gardeners,” Allred said. “The goal is to manage our water in a system that is environmentally helpful rath- er than harmful. If we have clean water to utilize on the dairy and farm, we use less to- tal water, plus have the benefit of fertilizers from solids in the manure.”
