On a busy family farm, Harre is a jack of all trades

NASHVILLE, Ill. — Nick Harre is a doctor, having earned his Ph.D. from Purdue University in 2017. But he’s also a carpenter, electrician, dairy cow breeder and heifer barn herdsman.

But when it’s time to plant or harvest the crops that go to feed the farm’s dairy herd, his job description expands.

“We all have certain things that are our specialty, but when it’s go time, all bets are off and anybody can do anything,” he said.

Harre farms with his family in Washington County, in rural Nashville. Wilra Farms is a combination 400-cow dairy and grain farm that currently is operated by two generations of Harres.

Nick and his brother, Clint; their cousins, Lucas and Matt; Nick and Clint’s father, Doug; and Doug’s brother, Curt; and their three farm employees operate the farm.

Nick, Clint, Lucas and Matt are the fifth generation of the family to farm. The farm raises corn, soybeans, wheat, alfalfa and other silage crops and they currently milk 460 Holstein cows, sending the milk to Prairie Farms for processing.

Harre said each member of the team has their own specialty area of focus.

“Each person has kind of their own niche. When you get a lot of family involved, I think that’s probably the best way to make it work. It’s a delicate balance, especially as the family gets extended. My generation is me, my brother and cousins. We’re all having kids, too, so you start looking at what the next generation is going to be like,” he said.

Harre and his wife, Andrea, who teaches seventh grade math at Franklin Park Middle School in Salem, have a son, Declan, 2, and they are expecting their second child in November.

Like many farmers throughout Illinois, Harre and his family have faced weather challenges in getting corn and full-season soybeans planted. They were further delayed by mechanical issues that made them turn to a new planting style.

“We have one planter, so convention has typically been to get the corn in the ground first, especially with having the cows. We need to make sure we get the corn silage planted early. Our main tillage tractor went down and it was more than we could repair. It looked like we weren’t going to have that tractor at all this spring, so after about half of the corn was in, we decided to switch to beans and no-till beans this year, which we don’t normally do. But we decided to try to no-till the beans in and use the other tractor to put on anhydrous, then, when it was done with anhydrous, make it the tillage tractor,” Harre said.

Having a lot of hungry Holstein mouths to feed right on the farm means that putting up feed to keep the cows fed throughout the year is the priority.

To that end, Harre and his family have tried out different kinds of crops to chop for silage. This year, triticale and pearl millet are in the mix.

“First cutting hay was done a couple of weeks ago. We got that off in a pretty timely fashion and that was in good shape, not much weevil damage. We also then put up triticale and got that chopped two weeks ago,” Harre said.

Pearl millet is a drought-resistant silage crop that also is highly digestible.

“We are able to get three cuttings throughout the summer. It’s highly digestible and it’s more water efficient than corn or even hay is. It’s a bit of an insurance feed throughout the summer. You know you are going to get something should a drought hit,” Harre said.