Better Pay Attention
Or You’ll Miss Something
If you have ever heard a Jerry Brunetti presentation then you know the title of this piece is true. Brunetti’s vast knowledge of soil, forages, livestock nutrition, human nutrition and nutri-ceuticals stems from his many mentors and teachers including Carey Reems, Neal Kinsey (William A. Albrecht Methods), veterinarian John Whitaker, Mac McCullough (international dairy consultant and writer for Hoard’s Dairyman, and teacher, lecturer, writer Don Schriefer Jerry was an Animal Science major at North Carolina State, operated his own cow/calf operation, supervised milk quality for the National Farmer’s Organization (NFO); and created his own company, Agri-Dynamics, in 1979.
“I was impressed with the message early on, long before I even understood it, that biological farming methods were already proven and had been forsaken for the sake of industry,” says Jerry. “Steadily, I became more aware of the many secrets linking agriculture with nutrition and human health. Working with the ecological principles of nature are the least expensive, most profitable and non-destructive ways to keep a farm sustainably operating into the future,” he adds.
During his tenure with NFO, in an effort to help dairy producers come into compliance with new FDA quality standards and avoid repeated tanks of “hot” milk, Jerry Brunetti began formulating recipes of natural remedies they could use. The farmers were willing to use them (there would be no residues in the milk creating an unsellable product) but had little interest in actually putting them together, hence the origin of some of Agri-Dynamic’s natural and holistic product line of tinctures, fusions, and capsules.
Working with Earthworks led Brunetti to the challenges of dealing with conventional golf course management. He gained valuable knowledge about grass productivity, the importance of oxygen (air) management in the soil, and foliar feeding. Golf courses are various monocultures of turf grasses where the philosophy is use high amounts of NPK and spray away. The trouble with that method is the chemical rescue spraying never ends.
The reason diseases, insects and other problems are a constant battle is because the application of too much nitrogen and too much fungicide create an environment that in reality is favorable for their survival. Pesticides not only kill off the beneficial predators and create pests that become resistant, they actually interrupt the plant’s physiology to make complete carbohydrates and complete proteins which of themselves are not digestible by organisms like insects and fungal and bacterial diseases.
Such organisms are relatively primitive in nature and produce primitive digestive secretions that can only break down simple sugars and simple amino acids. Higher life forms like grazing animals have more complex digestive systems enabling them to break down and utilize those more complex carbohydrates and proteins. So when all you have is free amino acids and nitrates, undesirable pests dominate the ecosystem. But when plants are restored to their normal function you now have the soluble fibers and complex carbohydrates and those pests who don’t have the sophisticated enough enzymatic systems to digest them don’t do well. When using synthetic/chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides, instead of correcting one problem, you create a multitude of other problems.
Soil is the raw material for the plant which is the raw material for cattle. You can’t disassociate livestock nutrition from soils. And you cannot disassociate their nutrition with their health. In many regards animal health and medicine is ahead of human health/medicine. Animals have an economic value so it is critical to keep them healthy and prevent them from getting sick. With humans the economic incentive is to treat them when they’re sick. It is an annual 2 trillion dollar medical system that is all about hospitals and pharmaceutical and insurance companies. With animals it’s all about looking at nutrition as much as possible even in the industrial model.
When it comes to marketing beef, the number one factor is flavor. Number two is the health properties; the miracle compounds such as the omega fatty acids and CLA. The raw materials that create the flavor in beef and produce the life promoting nutrients are the grasses. Hedgerows are very valuable as well and can actually be cheap medicine. Animals that eat a wide variety of plants, especially native or primitive plants don’t get parasites. They just don’t have problems.
Flavor has a lot to do with the completion of the tissue (first plant and then muscle) being created by the raw materials. It’s a matter of the various species of grasses, legumes and other forage plants being able to harness the sun’s energy, the air, the water, and the nutrients from the earth to assemble together and create complete, true proteins and carbohydrates. It is still a soils issue but you have to have the plant and animal genetics that can maximize the uptake of what you already have and what you will be adding ($) as far as a fertility program. Remember that most of the flavor is in the fat.
Different plants have different pigments and these pigments are associated with beneficial health properties. Fertility is the driving force creating these pigments. Biology moves the fertility into the plants and it is biology that drives the fertility. Again, It all comes down to the soil that nature so graciously supplies.
There has been work done in Australia with restoring and remineralizing the soils, on a poor Hereford beef farm. By getting the mineral levels up they lowered the amount of time to put 600 lbs on steers from 15 months down to 10 months. The dress out weights went from 57% to 61%. That is a tremendous economic return even though the initial investment can be expensive.
To understand or quantify all the biological systems of the soils, the plants, and the ruminant is virtually impossible. But that’s okay – you don’t have to. According to Jerry Brunetti, what you need to do is identify the trends that are occurring on your land resulting from your management. Samples that are sent to a lab for a soil or forage analysis are not absolutes. They are basically a snapshot of what is happening at that moment. As you continue to take additional snapshots you start to see trends and the manifestation of these trends in the quality of the feed. The ultimate proof shows in the animals that are eating it; how they are performing and reproducing.
You really want to teach yourself the lessons of observation by recording the things that are happening with the weather, your management practices, animal behaviors and appearances, etc. Make sure to document things that are unusual such as a severe drought. Make your notes, look at the forage tests, correlate them with the soil tests, and then correlate all of that with what you are seeing in your barn and/or pasture.
All this is the proverbial tip of the iceberg of what Jerry Brunetti knows and has to share. He will be a featured speaker at the North American Devon Association meeting. To find out more, click here.
See you there!
