Day 1 - December 29, 2012

We finally landed in Buenos Aires at 11:00 AM local time. It was a long flight and we had a little hiccup in Houston as Argentina hadn't informed us that we would need to pay our entry fee before landing in country. Then we were off to immigration and into the bus for a nice long drive across the country.  

Our first farm visit was the dairy operation known as Estancia San Miguel. We met with Raul Lockey and he served as our guide to explain their operation. They milk 1,000 head of holstein cross cattle. Most of their land is used for pasture land, including grazing the cows on soybeans! 

As we jumped into the backs of trucks for our tour to see the cows they explained that the cattle are continually grazed and do not use a complete ration as we would use in the US. The most surprising thing to most of us was to see the cows grazing in soybean fields. As Chris Opdahl "I just can't wrap my head around grazing cattle soybeans, that is some expensive milk". These cows are milked twice a day (4:00 AM & 2:00 PM), however the interesting part is because of their grazing they end up walking ~5 km (~3.1 miles for  the rest of us) everyday and are rounded up by one person on foot. 

It was a great visit and we are all getting an appreciation for Argentinian agriculture. As Shane Runge put it "It is just a whole different way of life". 

We then spent the rest of the day and into the evening on a long bus ride to our final destination of the day, Catrilo. Our amazing hosts had dinner arranged at a pizza restaurant and it was great to unwind after a long day and a half of travel. Tomorrow we will be visiting the Fossati farm and moving onto Santa Rosa.

Day 2 - December 30, 2012

       Today, the 30th of december we traveled from Catrilo to the Fossati brothers headquarters, a 13,626 hectares or 31,186 acre operation. Of the 13,626 ha, 6265 ha of it is cropland, 1200 ha of mixed pasture and crop land, 5161 ha of pasture. The brothers discussed some business of how the operation works and how they changed there practices based on total rainfall. No-till farming is their main farming practice. Topography of the land depends on what is cropland and pasture, and also helps them determine when and what to plant in the cropland. They plant later and early corn varieties due to topography which consisted of a Monsanto (Dekalb) variety.  The pasture ground is mostly west of Catrilo due to the lack of rainfall and the farther to the east towards Buenos Aires more rainfall occurs which equals more cropland.
The Fossati also operate a feedyard. The feedyard was similar to American feedyards. They want to be feeding 10,000 head of cattle in the next year or so. The cattle ate out of cement bunks with rations very similar to the U.S. The rations consisted of silage, cracked corn, mineral and barley. The starting rations consisted of more roughages and while the diets stepped up the roughages decreased while the concentrates increased. A windmill is used to pump water and stored in a holding tank and transferred to the troughs in the pens. The cattle are fed twice a day at 8 am and 5pm. The finishing weights of the cattle are 400 kg or 880 lbs. The weaning weights of the cattle are 180 kg or about 400lbs. The calving season is from September to October. The weaning percentages of the cattle is 95%. The average in Argentina is 65%
The Fossati are changing from small tracts of cropland to larger tracts by removing the dividing fences. Each tract of land was owned by certain family members but now its incorporated. With the removing of fences and joining the tracts the new farming practices can be implied to the land. The high and low areas are farmed differently. Different crops are planted to the certain areas of the fields. The population of seeds also depends on the area of the field.
The meal the Fossati`s served us was absolutely amazing. The meal consisted of  sausage and beef burgers. The ladies were always asking us if we wanted more food. Everyone at the Fossati`s were generous. The meal was prepared over a barbecue pit. The buns used for the burgers were soft and delicious. And to top everything off they served us an amazing ice cream.       
        After our visit to the Fossatti's place we then loaded the bus to head to Santa Rosa were we will be staying for 4 nights.  Once we were settled in we got ready to go to the gaucho show.  The gaucho show was entertaining and they allowed us to get on their horses and try the different events that are apart of the show.  They then cooked us a great meal of lamb and beef.  After that we were entertained by a live band along with dancing.  The gaucho show was very fun and entertaining.

-Alex Hohertz & Andy Reis

Getting Ready!!!

The countdown to an amazing trip is coming to an end! The SDSU crew will be leaving for Argentina in less than 24 hours now!

Spectators - look here and follow us on SDSU Argetina Ag Course on Facebook for updates and photos of our trip

Students - Hope everyone allows for plenty of time to get to the airport and double check your packing list. See you soon!