26 Nebraska Cattleman August 2023 Klosterman Feedlot Innovation Center Update By Galen Erickson, Ph.D., Nebraska Cattle Industry Professor of Animal Science, University of Nebraska-Lincoln It is exciting and daunting to see the construction of the new Klosterman Feedlot Innovation Center moving along very well. Dry conditions are bad for producers due to poor grass and feed production, but these conditions have been good for construction. Following the March thaw, construction began in earnest with our construction partner, Settje Agri-Services & Engineering, Inc., along with their partners helping us build the 36-pen center, cattle handling/processing building and the Klopfenstein Feeding Technology Center. The facility will have 18 confinement barn pens that house 60 head per pen, but in two building designs. The outdoor pens will consist of nine traditional open-lot pens and nine open-lot pens with a roller-compacted concrete (RCC) surface. The Klopfenstein Feeding Technology Center will house 240 head that will track individual intakes and will be used to test new innovations for individual animal management. I want to thank those who have graciously donated to this project. We have not raised all the funds yet but are getting closer. As of now, we have both barns almost completed, and construction is beginning on the handling/ processing building and the Klopfenstein Feeding Technology Center. The runoff retention pond for the open lots, settling basins and dirt work are essentially complete. The clay liner for the pond and concrete for the aprons/ bunks and roller-compacted concrete will be some of the next steps. We look forward to having another get together once construction is complete. With favorable weather, project completion is still on track for late 2023 or early 2024. We are pursuing funding for future research projects and hope to have the first-year grant funding in place soon. We are seeking partnerships and grants from allied industries to evaluate the latest and best innovations around the areas of cattle management, nutrition, housing systems and sustainability. We also have been engaged in government grants targeting sustainable feedlot production systems to bring dollars into Nebraska. As many of you know, faculty, staff and students are stewards of the university’s resources, and we will do our part to raise grant funding for research. But sourcing funding from traditional granting agencies for facilities to build our infrastructure is difficult, so philanthropic donations to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Foundation are critical to help us continue to be a leader in the state’s beef cattle teaching and research. We believe this innovation center will be an asset relative to evaluating producer questions on a commercial scale. For example, research could address questions about optimized housCONTINUED ON PAGE 29 Progress is steady on the Klosterman Feedlot Innovation Center construction as well as that of the Klopfenstein Feeding Technology Center. Project completion is anticipated for late 2023 or early 2024.
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