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DAIRY ST R
February 11, 2023
“All dairy, all the time”™
Volume 24, No. 24
Putting their puzzle together Martis named Wisconsin Outstanding Young Farmers By Danielle Nauman danielle.n@dairystar.com
VESPER, Wis. – Taking over his family’s dairy farm was not the career path Travis Marti planned to take when he graduated from high school; eventually, though, it turned out to be the piece of the puzzle he felt he was missing. Travis and Melissa Marti have worked at putting the pieces of their puzzle together as the third generation at Marti Farms with their children Allison, Chloe, Jacob and Ryan.
Their diligence paid off when the couple was named Wisconsin’s 2023 Outstanding Young Farmers Jan. 28 in Manitowoc. The title has special meaning for the young couple because of a family legacy: Travis’ parents, Mick and Kitty, were the Wood County OYF winners in 1988, and his grandparents, Ron and Arlene, were also named Wood County OYF winners in 1966. The farm is home to 500 cows that are milked in a double-10 parlor. The cows are housed in a 4-row tunnelventilated barn that is sandbedded and cleaned with alley scrapers. The herd currently averages 96 pounds of milk per cow per day with 4.25% butterfat and 3.3% protein
PHOTO SUBMITTED
Travis and Melissa MarƟ were named Wisconsin’s 2023 Outstanding Young Farmers Jan. 28 in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The MarƟs milk 500 cows near Vesper, Wisconsin.
Turn to MARTIS | Page 6
CreaƟng clean energy
Three Iowa dairy farms partner to make renewable natural gas By Jerry Nelson
jerry.n@dairystar.com
MAURICE, Iowa – A trio of northwestern Iowa dairy operations are teaming up to install a pair of anaerobic digesters that will make methane from their cows’ manure. In a unique twist, the renewable natural gas produced by the dairies will be sold directly to the nearby town of Sioux Center. The three dairy farms include Maassen Dairy, which is milking about 2,000 head; Brian Roorda Dairy, which is home to about 1,500 head; and Hoogland Dairy, an operation that has about 3,000 head.
JERRY NELSON/DAIRY STAR
Aaron Maassen and his family milk 2,000 cows on their farm near Maurice, Iowa. The Maassens are installing a manure digester that will provide renewable natural gas to the nearby town of Sioux Center, Iowa.
Construction of the two digesters will begin this spring. It is hoped they will start producing renewable natural gas by mid-2024. “One digester will be built north of our manure lagoon and will handle the ma-
nure from our dairy and the manure from Brian Roorda Dairy, which is located a mile away,” said Aaron Maassen, a fth-generation farmer who, with his family, operates Maassen Dairy. A pair of 6-inch pipes will
be installed between Maassen Dairy and Brian Roorda Dairy. One pipeline will carry manure from Brian Roorda Dairy to the Maassens’ digester, while the other will carry the appropriate amount of digestate back to Brian Roorda Dairy. The second manure digester will be built at Hoogland Dairy. The Hoogland Dairy digester facility will also feature a renery that will remove impurities from the raw methane. The resulting product will be no different than the natural gas that is obtained from traditional sources. “The renery is the most expensive part of producing renewable natural gas from manure, so it makes economic sense to have just one renery to serve all three farms,” Maassen said. “A pipeline will carry raw biogas from our farm to Hoogland Dairy, which is located about 3 miles away. The puried renewable
natural gas will then be piped to Sioux Center.” Ypsilanti, Michiganbased Novilla RNG will build the manure digesters at Maassen Dairy and at Hoogland Dairy. Novilla RNG has formed a separate entity called West Branch LLC that will manage the operation of the digesters and market the dairies’ natural gas. “We were referred to Hoogland, Maassen and Brian Roorda dairies as great dairies that did not have an RNG project,” said Jared Williams, co-CEO of Novilla RNG. “When we were looking for a natural gas pipeline to inject the gas into, we saw that Sioux Center was nearby and had the capacity to handle the gas injection. Once we started working with Sioux Center, we were impressed by their speed and forward thinking and decided Turn to DIGESTERS | Page 7