Home TV tells farmer when to buy and sell
Quality Service has ben
providing home economics
and nutrition information
since May.
LANCASTER - After
working his farm a|l day,
Howard Martin turned on his
home television to get the
latest prices and trading
figures for grams. Within
minutes, he phoned his
broker to cancel an order he
had made that morning.
“Market conditions had
changed enough so that I
really would have regretted
not cancelling that large
order to sell,” he said. “For
the first tune, I realized how
important it is to have timely
market information and
quick access to it.”
Howard Martin is a cash
gram farmer who has 2000
acres in Kentucky. Like 199
other farmers from Todd
and Shelby counties, he is
getting commodity, weather
and other information about
agriculture every day from a
special computer system
hook-up ,to his home
television set.
The system is called
“Green Thumb” after a
portable Green Thumb box
(a memory unit) that
retrieves data from a
computer hook-up to home
telephone and TV sets.
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The pilot project is
sponsored by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s
Science and Education
Administration, the Ken
tucky Cooperative Extension
Service, and the U S
Department of Commerce
National Weather Service.
In the system, a farmer
using a selected code for the
type of information he
wants, calls the county
extension office and is
connected to a micro
computer there that receives
information from a com
puter at the University of
Kentucky College of
Agriculture
“The system is the first
project of its kind anywhere
in the country and is a
unique and valuable
decision-making tool for
agriculture,’’ said Howard
Lehnert of the Science and
Education Administration -
Extension. He helped con
ceive the idea and nurtured
its development.
“Day. or night, farmers
can get information at home
from data sources
throughout the country,” he
said.
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According to Lehnert this
is more than just a computer
dissemination system for the
farm.
“It is a demonstration of
new technology, of elec
tronics that has worked like
a charm. It has limitless
possibilities for busuiess and
commercial use because it is
portable and less expensive
than other view data
systems,” he said
John Ragland, associate
director of the Kentucky
Cooperative Extension
Service, said farmers
-already are putting the
system to many uses.
William Giltner, for one,
has learned to apply the new
technology in complex ways
In combination with Ex
tension’s Green Thumb, he
uses a micro-computer to
handle field records and
accounting, and to balance
the feed ratio for each cow in
his dairy herd operation.
GUtner has a 1200 acre
diversified farm in Shelby
County and has profited
$2,800 by making corn future
transaction decisions with
the system. He frequently
uses it for weather m-
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tormation This spring he
was able to plant corn 20
days earlier than usual
because the system told him
that soil temperatures were
warm enough.
“Green Thumb’s memory
unit has been very helpful in
telling me how many good
working days I have for
planting, how many acres I
can get planted, and it helps
me in planning my field
scheduling. I can watch the
possibility of rain coming.
I’ll know I’m likely to get
rained out in the middle of
growing, ’ ’ Giltner said.
Ray Moss Tucker has used
the system to keep track of
the path of the alfalfa weevil
and rainfall in different
parts of the country. _ ___ -
- Tucker, who grows com, ST¥i/Ul/
hay and tobacco on his 600-
acre farm in Shelby county,
also has gotten extended
weather forecasts when he
has missed news from other
sources
David Kerr, who raises
hogs on a 200-acre farm in
Todd County, said his wife
has profited from valuable
nutrition tips, menus and
other items commumcaU ,
to homemakers through the
system.
The Kentucky project
began operating m March
with $300,000 in grant funds
from the Science and
Education Administration
and the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Ad
ministration.
Lehnert, who worked two
years to set it up, envisions
the project as the beginning
of a nationwide system He
said that a number of state
extension offices currently
are investigating ways of
implementing the system
with the cooperation of the
private sector.
The first commodity in
formation in the system was
the regional market report
from the Chicago Board of
Trade and the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange.
Smce early September,
market reports have in
cluded local and other in
formation that they did not
previously have on auctions
and on supply, demand,
movement and volume of
commodities.
-The new information is
being supplied by the
USDA’s Agricultural
Marketing Service. Drawing
on its nationwide commodity
network system, the
marketing agency even
tually will provide farmers
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using the system with
national reports from many
other markets.
The National Weather
Service primarily provides
short-term and extended
forecasts and weather radar
maps.
Extension specialists at
the University of Kentucky
now are providing reports on
agricultural economics and
occurrence of pests. Local
extension offices are
preparing information on 4-
H and other community
activities.
TV.O FonH Safety and
How to
LITITZ Each year
hundreds of unsuspecting
farmers across the country
lose part of their small gnan
crop to smut And, un
fortunately, by the tune
those insidious fungal spores
have started to do their
damage, it’s already too late
to stop them.
But smut problems on
crops like wheat, oats and
barley can be avoided by
simply treating the seed
before the disease gets a
chance to start, according to
a number of experts.
Although smut on small
grains is caused by a variety
of fungi and is usually not
apparent to growers until
late in the growing season,
the problem is a relatively
simple one to understand.
The two basic types are loose
smut and covered smut
Loose smut Is a seed borne
disease whose spores
eventually replace the seed
of the plant. During
flowering tune, the smut
spore is floating in the air It
will land on the flower of a
plant, then germinate and
grow mto the developing
seed.”
Following harvest, the
loose smut fungus will
overwinter in the seed as
mycelium
After planting, it invades
the young seedlings,
replacing the kernels with
fungal spores. Instead of
producing gram, the kernels
will then become a mass of
fungal spores
Later, when the kernel
membrane breaks, the smut
spores will be released into
the air, eventually landing
on healthy plants and
starting the cycle again
ST/HL
.
“Extension’s Green Thumb
project is the real wave of
technology of the future,”
Ragland said. "For
agriculture, it will mean
more productivity. For
farmers, it is the first logical
step toward more com
prehensive use of other
computers that will help
farmers and other con
_ sinners in their decision-
making.”
control
in small grain
For covered smut, also
known as bunt or stinking
smut in wheat, the process is
slightly different. Once
again, the smut spores will
infect the developing kernel
and displace all tissue within
the membrane, but instead
of rupturing during
flowering time, the mem
brane may remain intact
until harvest.
At that time, the mem
brane will usually break,
releasing black, powdery
spores and a strong fishy
odor. These spores begin to
infect the plants as the
seedlings emerge, even
tually displacing kernel
tissues and forming new
bunt balls which will again
break at harvest to renew
the cycle.
Smut damage all depends
on the level of infection of the
seed
In the case of loose smut, if
30 percent of the seeds are
infected, you’ll probably lose
almost 30 percent of your
crop.
But with stinking smut
farmers have two kinds of
losses; the loss from the
destruction of the head by
the disease organism the
same as you would with
loose smut. But on top of
that, they get a dockage
when you take your crop to
market.
Covered smut can be a
major problem, especially
because of the smell.
Some elevators won’t even
take gram infected with
covered smut. Those who
will take it give a dockage on
the order of 10 to 20 cents per
bushel and they also charge
a grower to wash the gram to
get rid of the smut.
There really aren’t any
good reasons for not treating
seed There have been in
stances when 50 percent of
the plants in a field are in
fected, completely ruining
the crop. When seed treat
ments can control the
problem almost 100 percent,
it doesn't make sense not to
treat
Until recent years, many
growers had success m
controlling smut with methyl
and phenol mercurial
fungicides But with th*
banning of mercun. seed
treatments in 1978, f&-
and researchers hav,
turning increasing!} to ot*vr
compounds
Carboxm is a sten
that wdl go inside t- cer
minatmg seed an control
sm>!, he CVoumwill
woiK 'xternallj oi wore
plants to control s „ decav
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