First of all, a turkey joke:
Q: Why didn’t the turkey want any lunch?
A: He was already stuffed!
Now that we have that out of our system…
Minnesota is ranked number one in the country for turkey production. Nice work, Minnesota! The state is home to about 250 turkey farmers who operate about 600 different turkey farms. Minnesota is home to the world’s largest turkey hatchery company, Willmar Poultry, and the second largest turkey processing company in the US, Jennie-O Turkey. A majority of turkey production in Minnesota takes place in the central part of the state.
Lighting is a major energy use of the poultry industry. LED technology is an alternative to traditional incandescent lamps, but the cost of converting to an LED lighting system can be relatively high. As such, producers have been reluctant to make such a substantial investment to their production system until it has been demonstrated that LED technology is dependable, cost-effective, and commercially replicable.
Shedding Light on LEDs: In 2011, The Minnesota Project received a grant from the Minnesota Department of Commerce, Division of Energy Resources for a project to look at the energy savings, performance, and durability of using LEDs in Minnesota poultry facilities.
To date, The Minnesota Project and team partner Once Innovations (http://www.onceinnovations.com/) have installed and monitored over 900 lamps at the facilities of five producers, spanning nine barns. In addition, the team is in the process of finalizing lighting plans with two additional producers and is attempting to identify three other producers for inclusion in the project. Throughout this time, The Minnesota Project has been talking with producers about how the lamps have been performing, and working with utilities regarding the potential for designing future CIP programs for the technologies. See a WCCO story about their work.
Learn more: The Minnesota Project’s Mid-Point Report, LEDs: Energy Savings and Replicability in MN Livestock Facilities, which provides an introduction to the poultry industry, a rundown of the early project participants and associated energy savings, and initial insights from the first half of the project, is available now available from the Division of Energy Resources. Click here to download it now >>
