Fertilizer dealers discuss quality, READING Over 70 representatives of the fer tilizer industry from all parts of the Pennsylvania met here December 13 to get the latest technical data in quality control for dry fontrol p t it’s in your hands . . . control of your crop - control of the price you receive for that crop - control all the way from harvest to market - when you have your own, on-the-farm gram drying and stor age equipment Now is the time - your mfs dealer is the place - he can tell you all the advantages of on-the-farm drying and storage equipment and the many reasons why mfs "Stor-age" is the equipment for you. Get control - keep control - with the “world's most wanted gram bm"- mfs "Stor-age". effect] I BUY NOW AND SAVE $ ) .-t. DONALD L LIGHTENWALNER >|S> &SON R.D. 2, Macungie, Pa. Phone 215/965-5214 7-74-2 would like to extend to you an your families best wishes for a “Merry Christmas” and a “Happy new Year”. blends, currently the most popular and' inexpensive method of providing plant nutrients. The workshop was the second such event sponsored jointly by PennAg Industries BEACON York, PA Association, the Inland Fertilizer Association, The Fertilizer Institute and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. Apparently Penn sylvania’s two-year old fertilizer law, admittedly the toughest in the United States, has had little effect on end-product quality as Luke Burkholder, a tester for the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, demonstrated his sampling techniques for a group of fertilizer in dustrymen at Pennsylvania's second annual fer tilizer quality control seminar and workshop held on Thursday in Reading. Beacon We're employee owned. That's why we Shine. measured by the official Pennsylvania inspection agency. John Longenecker, acting chief of Pennsylvania’s feed and fertilizer control reports that test results of 386 fer tilizer samples found that 40% were sufficiently deficient to incur a penalty which amounts to ten times Feeds of York and your Beacon Dealers Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 22,1979 state law, the dollar value of the deficiency. The period covered by the report spanned six months from July 1 to November 23. The Department’s in spection program is customarily reduced during the off-season period. In spite of the relatively low tonnage of fertilizer used m Pennsylvania compared to major farm states, Ford West, director of member services for The Fertilizer Institute told the group that Pennsylvania’s high-penalty law still generates enough revenue to place it third among all the states m dollar volume. Longenecker told those present of the willingness of the Department to sit down with a representative group from industry m an attempt to solve impact problems, a statement which promptly challenged by a number of representatives and later speaker. “In spite of numerous pledges by this and prior Administrations, there has been absolutely no overtures made by Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture officials toward discussing these problems,” according to George Williams of Codorus Fertilizer Service and Secretary of the Inland Fertilizer Association. This was typical of similar remarks by others. As the program progressed, some of the reasons for quality control problems unfolded. Ed Huber, Chief chemist for Agrico Chemical fines Company’s Baltimore plant said. “There is no way that suppliers of basic fertilize*’ ingredients can justify the enormous increase in cost which would be required to provide the precisely uniform particle size needed to insure a perfectly homogeneous mix, especially since this perfect distribution is of no im portance to farmers in an agronomic sense.” However, Huber and other speakers including John Dantinne, general manager of Lancaster Bone Fertilize! Co., Quarry ville; and William Angstadt, vice president of Reading Bone Fertilizer Co., Reading, mentioned specific ways that segregation and other quality control problems could be minimized. During the afternoon the entire group toured the Reading Bone Company’s fertilizer plant where trouble-shooting procedures were described. Samples of actual blended product were taken by official state in spectors beginning with the individual ingredients and then progressively through the process until the final fertilizer form was either in the bag or the spreader vehicle. Test results will be announced when laboratory analyses are completed. Chairman for the program was Donald W. Parke, executive vice-president of PennAg Industries Association, the Ephrata based organization representing agribusinesses. (Turn to Page 24) 23
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