Keynote Speaker: Richard E. Muck

Biography

Richard E. Muck was educated at Cornell University and Purdue University in agricultural engineering and environmental engineering, respectively. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell in agricultural waste management. He worked for the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), U.S. Department of Agriculture, as a research agricultural engineer his whole career. He initially worked on dairy cattle waste management at Cornell. Five years into his job, an opportunity arose to work on a project modeling processes in the silo. When ARS transferred him to the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center in Madison, Wisconsin in 1983, silage became the sole focus of his research until his retirement in September 2014. His research has spanned a wide range of issues: documenting silo losses, improving silage density, comparing silo covers, enhancing protein preservation during ensiling and studying the effects of silage additives. He is currently a professor emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and has continued to write, speak and consult on silage research. Together with Prof. Wilkinson, Dr. Muck will give a presentation on the future of ensiling: Challenges and opportunities.