44 —Lancaster Farming, Saturday, September 8,1979 Agricultural mid-west com belt tours conducted UNIVERSITY PARK - Several graduate students and staff members in soil chemistry and agronomy at Penn State took part in recent tours of the nation’s mid-west corn belt in con junction with national meetings of the American Society of Agronomy and Soil Science Society of America held recently in Fort Collins, Colorado. The tours were conducted by Dr. Dale E. Baker, professor of soil Chemistry at Penn State, and covered 16 states in 15 days. Funds for the trip came from a teaching and research in dustrial grant. “The tours were designed to relate soil chemistry and soil management problems to the use of agricultural land,” Dr. Baker said, ad ding that “the findings made it very clear that crop production practices are governed by the land resources m various areas.” The touring group con cluded that some soil con servation practices are inadequate for sustained agricultural production on valuable com belt soils, according to Dr. Baker. Observations in areas with deep, wind-blown soils ranged from gulley erosion in parts of lowa to areas m Missouri with complete control of erosion by terracing. At a meeting m Illinois two years ago, Dr. Baker had reported that 30 pounds of sod was lost from the Mississippi River Basin for every dollar received from exports of cereal grains and soybeans. At that time he questioned whether the U. S. could afford such a trade-off. “Results of research conducted cooperatively by engineers, microbiologists, agronomists, and other scientists on no-tdl com in Nebraska, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and other states offer the only ap proach to erosion control without terracing,” he commented. During the Colorado meetings, before and after the tours, Dr. Baker organized three half-day symposia on “Chemistry in the Sod Environment.” The Penn Stater is national chairman of the soil chemistry division of the Sod Science Society of America. Papers presented in these sessions stressed tne need to relate fundamentals of chemistry, physics, and mineralogy to solve sod management problems. Papers on research at Penn State were presented by Dr. Baker and Douglas Beegle of Roaring Spring and Jeffrey Risser of Leola. Beegle is a graduate student m Chemistry whde Risser is a doctor of philosophy candidate in agronomy. 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On the other hand, newly established and large pivot irrigation systems on the semi-arid sand hills of Nebraska showed the need to study and define the trade-offs in using land and water resources. In the lowland delta of the 16 - USED SELF PROPELLED COMBINES Mississippi River, in the boot-heel section of Missouri, the group studied the intensive crop produc tion for com, cotton, and soybeans where 10-row equipment and 1600 acres per farm are now the typical operation. “These operations are 100 tunes the acreage operated by sharecropper families farming here with mules as late as the 1940’5,” Dr. Baker pointed out. At the Henderson Mine of Climax Molybdenum in Colorado, the group ob served the successful program of establishing vegetation on old refuse or tailing ponds and slopes of the abandoned Urad mine. Expiration date, September 28, 1979 About 1.5 million tons of rock from the Henderson mine were transported to the Urad site to stabilize the Urad tailings and provide parent material for soil develop ment. By adding wood chips and sewage sludge from Denver on the surface of the development rock, more than 60 vegetative and tree species were established to prevent erosion. While the cost of reclamation seemed tremendous, it was evident that scars of industry can be healed even at an elevation of 10,000 feet where the growing season is very short. The tour impressed on the (Turn to Page 45) MF= Massey Ferguson Ph: (717)656-2321
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