Real Science Exchange-Dairy

Rob and Adrian share their family’s journey, from Dutch immigrant roots to managing large-scale dairy operations in California and Colorado, and discuss how communication, leadership structure and disciplined decision-making have helped them successfully scale their operation. The conversation also dives into lessons learned from facility design, sustainability initiatives and the launch of a cons...

In the Real Science Exchange Legacy Series, we celebrate the pioneers who have shaped the dairy industry. In this episode, we honor Dr. Don Beitz, a distinguished professor at Iowa State University. At the 2025 ADSA Annual Meeting, a symposium was held titled “Donald C. Beitz Recognition Symposium: 50-Plus Years of Dairy Science Research.” The guests on this episode, all former graduate students o...

This episode features Dr. Glen Broderick and Dr. May Beth Hall, speakers at the 2025 ADSA Ruminant Nutrition Symposium: Anomalies in Analyzed Nutrient Composition of Feedstuffs. Dr. Broderick’s presentation was titled “Protein analysis methodology.” The high points of his talk include recommendations for nitrogen analysis in feeds, potential improvements in determining protein degradability and un...

This episode features Dr. Jocelyn Johnson with STgenetics, a speaker at the 2025 ADSA Breeding and Genetics Symposium: Creating Carbon-Friendly Cows and Leveraging Omics to Improve the Sustainability of Dairy Production. Dr. Johnson’s presentation was titled “Advancing dairy sustainability through feed-efficient genetics and genomics: Research insights and applications.” She gives an overview of h...

Eve gives an overview of current and future consumer trends where dairy can play a role. Functional foods, health and wellness, high protein foods, fermented and cultured foods, women’s health, brain health, and aging are all part of the mix. (7:26) The panelists discuss the healthfulness of saturated fats, the resurgence of butter, milk’s bioactive compounds, and how best to reach the public abou...

Dr. Lock presented a Real Science Lecture Series webinar on June 3, 2025. This episode takes a deep dive into the current science and applications of feeding high-oleic soybeans in dairy diets. You can find the original webinar at balchem.com/realscience .  Dr. Lock gives an overview of the evolution of our knowledge of biologically important fatty acids in dairy cows. Much like we think more abou...

In this episode, we showcase student research at the 2025 ADSA Annual Meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. Abstracts can be found here: ADSA 2025 Annual Meeting Abstract 2186: Effects of feeding alternative forage silages on early lactation performance and gas production in multiparous Holstein cows. (00:15) Guests: Barbara Dittrich and Dr. Heather White, University of Wisconsin-Madison Co-Host: Dr. C...

This episode features speakers from the 2025 ADSA Opening Session Panel: Designing Dairy 2045—Envisioning the Future of Cows, Dairy Products, and Farms, which explored the long-term future of dairy. Dr. VandeHaar explains the idea behind creating the panel discussion for the opening session and his selection of the other three podcast guests as panel members. (2:02) Dr. Baes was the genomics exper...

In the Real Science Exchange Legacy Series, we celebrate the pioneers who have shaped the dairy industry. In this episode, we honor Dr. Bill Weiss, professor emeritus at The Ohio State University. This episode was recorded at the 2025 ADSA annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, where Dr. Weiss received the 2025 ADSA Award of Honor.  Dr. Weiss shares about his early life, schooling, and academic c...

This episode features speakers from the 2025 ADSA Applied Nutrition Symposium, “Milk Pricing Dynamics and Strategies for Enhancing Milk Fat Production.”  Dr. Lock gave the highlights of his presentation on dietary opportunities for promoting milk fat.  (2:18) Dr. St. Pierre’s presentation focused on the change we've had in the way milk and its components are priced. (5:25) Dr. Van Amburgh’s sympos...

In this episode, we feature some of the winners of poster and oral presentation competitions at the 2025 ADSA Annual Meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. Abstracts can be found here: ADSA 2025 Annual Meeting MS Oral Presentation, Production Guests: Trinidad Fernandez-Wallace and Dr. Lautaro Rostoll-Cangiano, University of Wisconsin-Madison Co-host: Dr. Laura Niehues, Balchem Abstract 1218: Immunity at...

Dr. Dahl presented a Real Science webinar on heat stress on April 1, 2025. You can find the webinar at balchem.com/realscience . This episode of Real Science Exchange further explores the key elements of Dr. Dahl’s webinar. Dr. Dahl talks about geographical differences in whether farms provide cooling for dry or lactating cows. Cows get heat stressed long before humans. Some farms are concerned th...

This episode was recorded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, during the 2025 Tri-State Dairy Conference. Dr. Fessenden gives an overview of his presentation which covered both research and field information on automated milking systems. He recommends going back to basics and formulating a rumen-friendly PMR with a complementary palatable feed that encourages the cows into the robot system. (5:57) The panel d...

This episode was recorded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, during the 2025 Tri-State Dairy Conference. Dr. Schwanke begins by describing how we can shape cattle personalities through handling and management and adapting our strategies to accommodate different personality traits so as to not cause undue stress. Personality traits are consistent across time and context, which is nuanced by the other animals...

This episode was recorded in Reno, Nevada, during the 2025 Western Dairy Management Conference. Dr. Hutjens’ presentation focused on herds producing seven pounds of milk fat and milk protein per cow per day, and the genetics, on-farm management and nutrition to make that happen. The panel discusses where components could top out, how added dietary fat has influenced components and the importance o...

This episode was recorded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, during the 2025 Tri-State Dairy Conference. Dr. Firkins’ presentation covers key aspects of how to improve digestibility of different diet components: fiber, starch, fat and total diet. (4:31) The negative relationship between starch in the diet and fiber digestion has been well known for more than 50 years. A recent meta-analysis showed the depres...

This episode was recorded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, during the 2025 Tri-State Dairy Conference. Dr. Boerman notes we know cows experience a negative metabolizable protein balance in early lactation, which means they’re mobilizing skeletal muscle to make up for that. Dr. Boerman and her group have been interested in strategies to measure how much muscle they’re mobilizing, when they’re losing it and...

Balchem’s Bourbon & Brainiacs event took place at the Frazier History Museum during the 2025 ADSA annual meetings in Louisville, Kentucky.  After introductions, Dr. Lucy shares about the ADSA monthly podcast, Dairy Digressions , which he hosts. He discusses listener demographics, the diverse paths to becoming a dairy scientist and inspiring young people to pursue a career in dairy science. The pan...

This episode was recorded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, during the 2025 Tri-State Dairy Conference. Dr. Carpenter gives an overview of her presentation. She summarizes an Extension risk management project regarding heifer development, assisting dairies in benchmarking their heifer growth and development. Key focus points include reducing morbidity and mortality and timely breeding to achieve goals for a...

Guests: Dr. José Santos, University of Florida; Dr. Jeff Firkins, The Ohio State University; Dr. Bill Weiss, Professor Emeritus, The Ohio State University; Dr. Jimena Laporta, University of Wisconsin; Dr. Jim Aldrich, CSA Animal Nutrition; Dr. Tom Overton, Cornell University; Dr. Mark Hanigan, Virginia Tech University; Martin Bengtsson, Balchem; Dr. Barry Bradford, Michigan State University; Dr. T...

This episode was recorded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, during the 2025 Tri-State Dairy Conference. Dr. Jaborek gives an overview of his presentation including sire selection, how beef on dairy crosses compare, feedlot performance, liver abscesses and red meat yield. (6:21) Beef sire availability and quality have changed over time with the development of selection indexes and selection criteria. Calving...

Balchem’s Bourbon & Brainiacs event took place at the Frazier History Museum during the 2025 ADSA annual meetings in Louisville, Kentucky. This bonus episode takes a deep dive into bourbon tasting! After introductions, Steve leads off in his role as the bourbon steward and describes the two bourbons and a rye whiskey for the tasting. (2:14) Steve gives some instructions on the best way to taste bo...

In the Real Science Exchange Legacy Series, we celebrate the pioneers who have shaped the dairy industry. In this episode, we honor Dr. Charlie Staples, a distinguished professor at the University of Florida, whose groundbreaking work in dairy nutrition and mentorship touched countless lives. From his 35 years of research mentoring 23 graduate students to earning the American Dairy Science Associa...

Dr. Hristov gave a webinar titled “Histidine: a limiting amino acid for dairy cows” on March 4, 2025, and joins the podcast in this episode for a deeper dive into the topic.  Panelists introduce themselves and give some background on their interest in histidine (00:52) Dr. Hristov gives an overview of his webinar presentation, touching on some of the first research projects that showed lower prote...

This episode was recorded at the 2025 Western Dairy Management Conference in Reno, Nevada. Dr. Cantor gives an overview of her presentation at the conference, focusing on data from accelerometers and robotic feeders to predict calf sickness. While the correlations are there and we know calves change activity, behavior and feeding behavior before they get sick, there is more work to be done before...