BEAR CREEK, Wis. — Farming is what Payton Griepentrog has known his whole life.
It’s also a career and way of life the 22-year-old is pursuing at Clinton Farms in Waupaca County.
“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been fully about farming. I always loved it,” Griepentrog said. “I always loved coming out with my grandpa here on the farm and riding with him in the tractor. I’ve always loved the cows.”
Technology plays a large role on the family farm, from how the 800 cows are milked in a rotary parlor to how they are cared for in barns.
“With the parlor, that’s very much into technology. It measures your milk conductivity. It knows your pounds. It sorts the cows out for herd check and hoof trimming automatically in a sort gate,” Griepentrog said. “With our advanced barns here, the automatic scrapers, the feed pushers and all the tunnel vents for the fans to keep the toes comfortable, it does drive me back to the farm here with the technology.”
(Spectrum News 1/Nathan Phelps)
Clinton Farms is the host of this year’s Wisconsin Farm Technology Days. The three-day event highlights advancements in farm equipment, research and production practices.
American Drone is one of the vendors that will be onsite.
“They can dispense anything liquid or dry, like dry granular material. It could be dried urea, cover crop seeding over standing corn,” said owner Jeramy Williams. “On the liquid side, it could be a foliar feed, some sort of pesticide or something like that. Whatever they need to dispense onto the field in a liquid or a dry form, these drones can do it and they can do it in a hurry.”
He said the drone market is rapidly changing.
“The manufacturers of these drones are coming out every six months with one that has a much larger capacity. It’s much faster,” Williams said. “It’s just nonstop.”
(Spectrum News 1/Nathan Phelps)
While farmers have new tools and technologies to assist with the job, it’s still very much a hands-on occupation.
“The scale we’re at, and a lot of other farms, it might not be quite as hard of work but it’s a lot of work,” Griepentrog said. “A lot of work yet.”
(Spectrum News 1/Nathan Phelps)