![]() The business has about a half dozen core farms that they harvest for every year, and then they will pick up additional farms as time allows.īeing in the Driftless Region, Liska said that you have to work harder to get feed harvested, as many fields are small with significant slope. He likes to stay within a 25-mile radius but will go farther for the right job. Liska services both dairy and beef operations. “There’s definitely evidence that the large-footprint tires make a difference even though they cost more and wear faster,” Ray asserted. His fleet includes four straight trucks two forage boxes, which are used when conditions are excessively wet and one semitractor-trailer. All of the hauling units are equipped with flotation tires to minimize compaction and plant damage. Liska also prioritizes taking care of his clients’ fields. ![]() Overall, though, our philosophy is to make a piece of machinery last by taking care of it,” he added. “I’ve never been married to new iron, but I do like to invest in the latest technology, which is sometimes only available on newer machines. It’s about 40 miles to our nearest dealer, so we do all of our maintenance and repairs in-house and try to keep parts in stock. ![]() “I have rarely needed to call on someone else, but it’s good to know they’re available. “If the chopper goes down for some reason, I have a pretty good gentlemen’s agreement with other harvesters in the area, and we will cover for each other,” the former president of the Wisconsin Custom Operators said. With only one chopper, Liska can’t afford too many breakdowns. The downside is that the hay doesn’t always dry as fast in less than ideal conditions.” He also mentioned that the cut hay lays out in the same direction without conditioning rolls, so he typically will merge at a slight angle to the way it was cut, which aids in picking the crop up off the ground. “My mower doesn’t have conditioning rolls, which saves fuel, offers less maintenance, and maneuvers easier. “It’s definitely worth having two mergers on days when the hay is drying fast,” Ray explained. Swaths are brought together with two Oxbo mergers and chopped with a Claas Jaguar 970, which is equipped with a shredlage processor for corn silage. When it’s time to hit the fields, alfalfa is mowed with a Claas triple mower. All of his employees receive routine safety education, He is heavily involved in the Wisconsin Custom Operators organization and their safety training program. Safety education has been one of Liska’s top priorities. “Labor has been a massive issue industry-wide, but we’ve been lucky and have always been able to find good employees locally,” Ray said. The business employs two full-time and three or four part-time workers, but additional help is also available during busy times such as corn silage harvest. Harvesting alfalfa and corn silage comprise the large bulk of their business. These days, Apollo-Vale Enterprizes is a full-service custom harvesting business that offers forage cutting, merging, chopping, trucking, and packing services. He will want to go and see where the action is taking place. We can be in the middle of a deep conversation, and if Ray sees a silage truck on the road, I know the conversation is over. “Ray is jealous when someone else is out in the field and he isn’t. “Ray is passionate about chopping,” asserted Holly, a fourth-generation farmer who was also raised on a dairy farm. He purchased a Miller Pro hay merger one year later and bought his first self-propelled chopper in 2010, which eventually caught on fire but not before logging 6,500 hours. In 2006, Liska bought his first truck and began hauling silage. ![]() One day while driving a dump truck during the summer, he noticed a self-propelled chopper in the field and decided that was what he wanted to do. “I started doing the harvesting with our pull-type chopper when I was about 12 years old because it was easier for me to look back at the header.”įollowing high school, Liska attended technical college to study diesel and heavy equipment mechanics. “When I was still young, my father suffered a stroke that resulted in right-side sight damage,” Ray recalled. Liska grew up on a small Wisconsin dairy farm, also near Hillsboro, but he was more interested in machinery than his father’s show cows. Between planting and harvesting their own crops, producing broiler chickens, and raising a family, Ray and his wife, Holly, own and operate a successful custom forage harvesting business called Apollo-Vale Enterprizes. Chopping forage runs in the sixth-generation farmer’s blood. On this particular afternoon, 38-year-old Ray Liska was chopping alfalfa for Ocooch Dairy near Hillsboro, Wis. Even so, by late morning, Ray called and said it was a “go.” The hills of Wisconsin’s Driftless Region were masked in a smoky haze from wildfires burning much farther north.
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