To save taxpayer money, UF/IFAS management decided to clear cut and sell “virgin” timber to pay for the pivots and allow additional area for growing forage crops for the cows.Ī neighbor whose house is next door to the irrigated UF/IFAS dairy has recently found that his private well is sucking air. But, when I asked why those gigantic sprinklers are necessary now and were not needed in the previous 40-plus years of active milk production, the answer was that the research farm’s water use permit from the Suwannee River Water Management District was not being fully utilized. According to the courteous farm manager, this is a startup issue that will be corrected. Recently I watched as one of those center pivots sprayed groundwater onto the paved road. Recently, the UF dairy installed two large Floridan Aquifer center pivot systems along NW 156th Avenue to irrigate silage for their hungry Holsteins. UF’s Institute for Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) has a 500-cow Holstein dairy that provides innovative research in animal husbandry and milk production.
One of my closest neighbors is the University of Florida’s Hague Dairy Research Institute. For 38 years, I have lived in rural Alachua County, enjoying the minimal traffic and homespun goodness of my agricultural community.
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