Student and faculty member inspecting wheat at Musgrave Farm

CAST Farms

An Ecosystem of Integrated Farms

The Cornell Agricultural Systems Test Bed and Demonstration Site for the Farm of the Future includes three farms:

  • Cornell University Ruminant Center
  • Cornell Teaching Dairy Barn
  • Musgrave Research Farm

The farms comprise a large, diverse land base in New York State. CAST’s multi-site nature is a major strength: more can be learned about technologies, practices, and intelligent systems if they are applied across operations of varying size, type and management.

The three farm units also employ coordinated technology testing and demonstration, and the exchange of physical materials, such as equipment, feedstuffs and manure. Their two crop-production units (~2,550 acres available) and two dairy herds (~825 adult cows, 500 youngstock) generate enough data to realistically model key challenges of integration and analytics.

Cornell University Ruminant Center (CURC)

overview of the CURC dairy barn

Consisting of some 2,600 acres, CURC is located about 15 miles southeast of Cornell’s Ithaca campus. The headquarters building  contains offices, a conference room, livestock arena, research laboratory and housing for eight students. 

The Dairy Research Center Unit, which is part of CURC, holds about 600 dairy cows (milking and dry) plus an additional 500 head of youngstock. The milking parlor is a double-16 parallel parlor with a basement for milk sampling. 

Cows are housed in a number of different situations:

  • A freestall barn with 486 stalls has capability to house cows in both large and small groups for the conduct of replicated pen studies. 

  • A smaller freestall barn is designed specifically for dry cows and cows needing additional attention for health needs. It has a a freestall pen with 28 Calan gates for individual feed intakes.

  • A tiestall/metabolism barn has 80 individual tiestalls for more intensive data collection, including individual feed intakes, plus an additional 12 metabolism stalls for conduct of digestion and physiology studies.

The dairy has state-of-the-art cow comfort, including sand-bedded stalls, ample ventilation through curtained sidewalls, and evaporative cooling with sprinklers and fans for relief during summertime heat.

cows eat from food trough in dairy barn

Teaching Dairy Barn

a woman walks down a row of cows in a dairy barn

The Teaching Dairy Barn is situated on Cornell's Ithaca campus near the veterinary college. The barn houses around 175 dairy cows, the average size of a New York dairy farm. They live in a freestall pen, with constant access to nutritionally-balanced food. The milking parlor is a double-ten parallel parlor.

Built in 2012, the barn and grounds are noteworthy for a number of sustainable features, including:

  • A state-of-the-art system that separates manure from sand bedding material, providing clean bedding for the cows and creating muck used to generate electricity and heat.
  • Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification by the U.S. Green Building Council in recognition of the barn’s energy efficiency.
  • Building orientation that promotes natural ventilation.
  • Fans and sprinklers for the cows’ comfort. 
  • Constructed wetlands in the area surrounding the building to control stormwater collection and filtration.

Musgrave Farm

two men talk in a farm field with farm buildings behind them

The 450-acre Musgrave Research Farm is located 27 miles north of Cornell's Ithaca campus in Cayuga County. This county has the most corn, hay and soybean acres in New York. The farm’s soils are high-pH glacial tills, which are representative of the highly productive soils in the state. 

Thirty acres at the farm are certified organic by NOFA-NY Certified Organic, LLC, with another eight acres in transition. The farm has an RTK satellite navigation system that broadcasts highly accurate GPS information (< 1 inch) to any farm vehicle set up to utilize the signal.