Exploring The California Delta Region

Nearly 130 people toured the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region, starting with Lima Ranch outside Lodi. Participants put on booties for security reasons.

Jack and Pati Hamm, with their children, Mike and Jennifer, are the third and fourth generations to run Lima Ranch, located in the delta region. They milk 1,600 cows, feed a total of 3,500 animals and grow much of their feed.

Jack Hamm holds a thick book he says represents an average of $50,000 that a dairy must spend in regulations in California in one year. "The dairy business over the last two generations has been very good for most of our families. But for the past five years it has been very, very difficult," Hamm says. "A lot of people have had to exit the business because they maybe made the wrong move at the wrong time or they are in the wrong spot in their generation transition. It has become very difficult to continue in the business right now. If you don't have production and a solid feed source, you are going to be in very difficult times. As of Sept. 27, we lost 60 dairies this year out of 1,600."

Pati Hamm and her daughter, Jennifer, right, showed tour guests the milking parlor where 60 cows are milked in 15-20 minutes and all 1,600 within an eight-hour period two times a day. All the milk is sold to Hilmar Cheese Company.

Jack feeds his herd for high production. He graphically shows the TMR fed his herd, including alfalfa hay, rolled corn, wheat hay, a rice bran-mineral pellet, wet corn gluten, canola meal, wet and dry distillers grains, alfalfa silage, whole cottonseed, corn silage and almond hulls.

Mike Hamm says an average of eight calves are born at Lima Ranch each day. Bull calves are sold the day they are born.

Next stop on the tour - A.C.X. Pacific Northwest, a forage and roughage export company, Stockton. A.C.X. exports alfalfa, timothy, sudan, oats, rye and other grasses to countries including Japan, Korea, China and the Middle East. This is a 450-kilogram bale.

John E. Gumbos, with A.C.X., cuts open the compacted bale to show the high quality of the product.

The company packages double-compressed half-cut, full and single-compressed bales in addition to the 450-kg bale.

Nearly 22 tons of hay can be shipped in each container.

Manual Magana shows how alfalfa, even after being shaken, retains leaves - a test some export customers use before buying.

At the third tour stop, participants meet Mike Robinson of Robinson Farms Feed Company, Stockton. His farm and mill have been in the family since 1888. The business is on Roberts Island, the largest and first island on the San Joaquin side of the delta.

Robinson Farms Feed Company harvests six to seven cuttings of at least 350 acres of alfalfa per year, yielding 8-9 tons/acre. Dairies get early and late cuttings and mid-cuttings are ground and sold through the family mill. The family business handles hay including alfalfa-grass, retail-grade alfalfa, teff, beardless wheat and oat hay.

M & T Staten Ranch, Walnut Grove, a 9,200-acre island farm operated by Conservation Farms and Ranches, Inc., a non-profit affiliated with The Nature Conservancy, focuses on wildlife-friendly farming. Cropland is flooded intentionally. Water is siphoned in after harvest onto 3,500-4,000 acres to provide wildlife habitat. Water also helps crops decompose and keep peat soils from oxidizing.

A flooded Staten Ranch field. Some of the land is 11' below sea level. Corn, triticale, small grains, wheat and potatoes are grown as well as irrigated pasture for grazing livestock. The ranch puts in about $500,000 a year to maintain 26.5 miles of levees.

The Nature Conservancy's major goal for the ranch is to continue wildlife friendly farming for the preservation of habitat for the California Greater Sandhill Crane. It also supports other wildlife.