Diverse Farm Maintains Quality With Help From CLAAS
Steve and Todd Olander own and operate Olander Farms near Loveland, Colorado. It’s a diverse operation, where the father and son farm their own 1,500 acres of alfalfa, corn, barley, wheat and rye. They also do custom harvesting and run their own malting company called Root Shoot Malting.
The Olanders depend heavily on the reliability of their farm machinery and the quality of the product it delivers. That’s why they have been using CLAAS machinery since 1996.
“We really started looking into CLAAS because we were just starting to kernel process,” says Steve. “No one around here had a good kernel processor, so I started researching CLAAS. We were the first one in Colorado to get a CLAAS machine, and we’ve been running CLAAS ever since.”
Today, Olander Farms has a veritable fleet of CLAAS machines on their farm, including a DISCO 3100 FRC front mower, a DISCO 9200 triple mower, a JAGUAR 980 forage harvester with ORBIS 900 head, and LEXION 560 and 740 combines. Last year, they also added a XERION 5000 VC tractor.
“It’s a versatile machine,” says Steve. “It has a reversible cab on it, so we can swath hay with it. We bought a dozer that we can put on the three-point hitch. You dual it all up and do field work with it. It’s real quality. So now we have choppers and the combines and the tractor and we’re familiar with everything as far as the cab layout goes, so it’s lots easier to operate.”
Olander Farms depends on their CLAAS dealer, Taylor Implement, to ensure their machines are maintained to work hard during the short season.
“I’m really impressed with their crew we’ve got in Greeley now,” says Steve. “They’re top notch. We have everything in to do maintenance before we start the season, and everything’s taken care of before we begin. It’s not uncommon for us to run 30 days straight and not break down on anything. I think that’s a testament to Taylor’s and to CLAAS.”
Quality From Start To Finish
The Olanders diversified their operation because Northern Colorado’s farmland is quickly diminishing, and they wanted to add value to their grains so they could continue farm in the area.
“That was a big part of why we started our (Root Shoot) malting business in 2016,” says Todd, “just to add value to our commodity grain. It’s been very successful. We started producing 10 tons of malt per week three years ago, and just recently in February we added another drum so we can now produce 20 tons per week.”
About 30 years before they started Root Shoot Malting, the Olanders produced barley for Coors Brewing. It wasn't until recently that they decided to take things a step further and take more control over their operation – harvesting their own barley and using some of the grain they harvest for neighbors to supply Root Shoot Malting.
“We’ve always strived to make the best product, even with custom harvesting,” says Todd. “That’s why we run CLAAS combines in our grain harvesting, just being able to thresh in a timely manner makes a huge difference. Also, it does a really good job – it doesn’t damage the grain, and that’s something that’s important in the malting side of things, too. You want that grain to be in tact as you go through the malting process, because it can really affect everything. We’re trying to make the best product possible in every step we do.”
That attention to quality recently paid off for Root Shoot Malting, as they won the inaugural Malt Cup – a competition sponsored by the Craft Maltsters Guild. Twenty-one maltsters from around the world entered the competition, and the Montana State University Barley Breed Program ran a Malt Quality Analysis before judging by an expert panel.
“Small and large malt houses throughout the world entered into this, and we won first place,” says Todd. “We got a little bit of validation that we’re actually producing a really good product and CLAAS is part of that success.”
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