A26—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, May 10,1980
LITITZ - The con
servation of productive sod,
water, and related resources
on the privately-owned lands
of the United States, which
was never an easy un
dertaking, is becoming more
critical.
In the 45 years since the
nationwide conservation
program was launched, a
great deal has been ac
complished. But steady
changes in land use and
management, the in
troduction of bigger farm
machinery, and the
evolution of new attitudes
toward the land have now
compounded the difficulties
of the task.
Soil stewardship, the spirit
of responsible man at work
i the land, is going to be
i ,sted as never before.
Northern Lebanon tops
soil, land judging
JONESTOWN - Close to
120 students competed in
Lebanon County’s vocational
agriculture land judging
contest on Tuesday.
Rained out the previous
week, the students had a
beautiful day to be outside,
enjoying the sun and land,
this week. The contest was
held at the Paul Maulfair
farm, near Jonestown.
The favorable weather
must have had a good effect
on the concentration of three
young men in the contest.
Mike Bare and Todd Propt of
Northern Lebanon High
School, and Jeff Riegel of
Annville-Cleona High School
tied for first place. They
each scored 229 out of a
possible 300 points.
Joe Harvatine, another
Little Dutchman, had a
score that ranked fourth in
the contest. And there was a
three way tie for fifth place
between Ed Ditzler and Dale
Zimmerman of Northern
COMIN
Soil Stewardship week begins
available for agricultural
use, help farmers survive
economically and en
vironmentally so they can
profitably produce from
them, and insist that they be
used in such manner that soil
depletion is minimized.”
“The new ethic,” Sampson
adds, “must be a product of
education and social
evolution. It can’t be written,
legislated, or imposed on
people. It must change, first,
the way we Americans think
about land. Only then will it
successfully alter the ways
we use this vital resource.”
There is more here than a
The dollar costs of ap
plying conservation
measures, as well as
maintaining conservation
systems of farming, are
- rising. The size of farms is
increasing while the number
of farmers is shrinking.
As one result, the
traditional intimacy bet
ween the farmer and his land
is diminishing in too many
places. Increasingly, far
mland is being regarded as a
commodity to be bought and
sold rather than as a very
special and vulnerable
resource tied to the land
scape a resource with a
productive capability on
which all life depends for all
generations to come
During the 10 years prior
to 1978, an average of nearly
Lebanon, and Donald Baer
of Annville-Cleona.
David Bomgardner, the
Little Dutchman that topped
last year’s contest, had a
score that fell m at eighth
place, followed by Ronald
Rembold and Mike Gingrich
of Northern Lebanon, for
ninth and tenth place
respectively.
The top ten placmgs
received a monetary award
from the Lebanon County
FFA Agricultural Society.
In the judging contest, the
students looked at three
different test pits, dug to
about four feet in depth.
They looked at the slope of
the land, the stomness of the
soil, the soil texture, the
depth of the topsoil, and
whether the soil was well
drained or wet.
They were also judging
whether the land had erosion
occuring and whether it war
subject to flooding.
Then the students had to
Uuec million acres of rural
land were converted each
year to urban uses. A third of
this was “prune” farmland
the very best we had.
The demand for maximum
"yields to offset accelerated
production costs and ever
rising land valuations has
led to more intensified
farming which in turn has
depleted attention to con
servation and in some places
increased the rates of soil
erosion beyond all ac
ceptable levels.
On thousands of acres, for
example, annual . f
soil from cropland now
exceed 25 tons per acre or
five times what some ex
perts regard as a “safe”
loss.
Such losses are triply
damaging. Not only do they
evaluate whether the land
needed conservation
practices, such as strip
cropping systems, sod
waterways, and the like.
They also determined if
there would be any special
limits on building a home on
the land, installing a septic
field, or building a lagoon.
Schools participating in
the contest included Nor
thern Lebanon, the host,
Cedar Crest, ELCO, and
Annville-Cleona.—SM
UNE7
reduce productive capacity
and add enormously to the
pollution of lakes and rivers;
they cut seriously into the
opportunities for oncoming
farm families to earn a
respectable livelihood in
agriculture.
What we need is a new
land ethic, “forged of our
twin concerns for the land’s
proper use and its proper
care,” says Executive Vice
President Neil Sampson of
the National Association of
Conservation Districts.
“We must begin to
treasure the prune far
mlands...keep them
Treating your grass or alfalfa silage this year with SILO GUARD® can
substantially increase the feeding value of your silage. Since the goal of
making silage is to preserve the ensiled forage as near to the crop har
vested, any loss is undesirable. If protein is lost or becomes heat damaged
during fermentation, the ensiling process was unsuccessful Also, the
development of high temperature during fermentation means the process
was wasteful of energy. Heat developed during fermentation is energy that
is lost for feeding.
ENSILING TEMPERATURES
90
•f
Treated Untreated Trested Untreated
ALFALFA SILAGE SORGHUM SILAGE
Research at the University of New Hampshire on wilted orchard grass
silage showed a 3% increase in available crude protein with SILO
GUARD versus untreated silage.
SILO GUARD reduces dry matter
loss. Kansas State data on
sorghum silage treated with SILO
GUARD reduced total dry matter
loss during fermentation
This means there was 8.5% more
dry matter in the treated silage.
PROPRiONICACID
i so
I.oo—
.05—
Green Chop Silo Guard
Treated
Test data: In 2,000 lb of 45% dry matter alfalfa silage, 13 lb of propnomc acid was
produced by the addition of SILO GUARD
This "extra” level or propnomc acid also increases the “bunk life” of silage and inhibits the
growth of yeasts and molds in silage after it is removed from the silo All these benefits and
more can be realized when you treat your silage this year with SILO GUARD
SILO GUARD works on all types of silages, including corn silage and high moisture corn
Save more of the valuable nutrients in your silage with Silo Guard
Richard E. Houser
Lebanon, PA
Serving Lancaster, Lebanon,
Dauphin & Berks Co.
Silo Guard*
An Aid to Fermentation
INTERNATIONAL STOCK FOOD CORF
Untreated
Silage
If we missed calling you, call collect today!
Roy L. Coover
Carlisle, PA
717-766-1053
Serving E. Cumberland, York & Adams Co,
Waverly, N Y 14892
plea for a fresh point of view
about the land. It is a call to
break from traditional
habits of social
procrastination of
delaying what is hard but
necessary until costly crisis
is upon us.
If we value nature we will
do these things and start the
process soon, but if we are
callous about life and
measure it only by the day at
hand we will be acting the
coward and the fool. In the
judgment of nature, this is a
crowning test of our
maturity and resource
stewardship.
SILO GUARD reduces heating
research at Kansas State
University on both alfalfa and
sorghum silage showed how ef
fective SILO GUARD can be in
reducing heat.
DRY MATTER LOSS
15
8 9
Treated
Silage
SILO GUARD increases acid
production. Alfalfa silage test
results at the Cargill Research
Farm showed how SILO GUARD
influences the production of
beneficial Propnomc Acid
Lester D. Burkholder
Shippensburg, PA
717-532-4203
Serving Franklin,
W. Cumberland & Perry Co.
Untreated
Silage
M7TH