A2o—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 16,1983
Forage spokesman Joe Hartle on production
BY TRISH WILLIAMS
BELLEFONTE To most
dairymen forage crop production
provides a means to feed their
cattle. To Joe Hartle, Centre
County dairyman, forage
production is more than a means to
an end, it is a vocation he pursues
with a yearning for perfection.
Hartle’s desire for constant
improvement in the quality of
forage he feeds his cattle led to
his involvement in crop and
grassland organizations. Skillful
application of the knowledge he
has gleaned through such
organizational work has earned
him high yields in the field and in
the milk tank.
His croppping practices and high
yields earned him the title of
Grasslander of the Decade in 1980,
an award presented by the Penn
sylvania Forage and Grassland
Council. Hartle is a member of the
Council as well as the Centre
County Crop Association, and he is
a strong advocate of both. Hartle’s
personal efforts to advance forage
production practices among his
fellow farmers through these
technical trade organizations, won
him recognition as the Grasslands
Council’s ‘Outstanding Forage
Spokesman’, an annual award that
was presented to him last
November.
Hartle is a Centre County native,
who grew up on a farm just three
miles from his present day ‘Lonely
Spot Farm’. After graduating from
high school he took a short course
at Penn State to become a DHIA
supervisor, a job that he worked at
for one year. Then his father
bought a jug milk operation in
Bellefonte, and Joe went to work
with his father in the retail milk
business for a period of five years.
This new heifer facility makes feeding forage easy and
allows segregation by ?ge group as well as daily observation.'
Converting the 22 percent protein haylage into 3.7 test
milk is the job of Hartle's herd of 72 Holsteins.
' In 1956 Joe and his wife Gladys
purchased their Lonely Spot Farm,
a gracious farm nestled in the
valley between State College and
Bellefonte along Buffalo Run. They
began fanning the next year,
working hard to learn the
productive characteristics of the
farm and improve on them.
Since that time the farm has
flourished. The Hartle’s five
children, Linda, Janet, Debbie,
Betsy, and Tom, all shared the
responsibility of caring for the
dairy herd while growing up. All
five were active in the local 4-H
dairy club, a club that Hartle has
served as a leader for the last 29
years. The four girls have all
moved away from the farm, in
career pursuits. Tom is working on
the farm with his parents, but not
today. Today Tom is being
married to Lorie Schali. The newly
weds are working to renovate a
farmhouse on the adjoining farm,
purchased by Hartle in 1969.
Tom works primarily with the
dairy herd, and is in charge of the
breeding program. The herd
consists of 145 registered
Holsteins, with 72 cows in the
milking string, and the rest in
replacement heifers. The Lonely
Spot herd has a rolling herd
average of 2 1,700 pounds of milk
with a 3.7 percent test, and 810
pounds of fat. Good breeding and
feeding has maintained the fat
average for the herd over 800
pounds for the last three years.
Lonely Spot Cavalier Fluke, a
home bred six-month-old heifer
calf, topped the 1982 Pennsylvania
state calf sale, selling for $5,700.
Tom selects high PD bulls and uses
only proven bulls in the Lonely
Spot breeding program. Mer
chandising breeding stock is a
Establishing a stand
The Hartles enjoy hosting visitors to their scenic Lonely Spot Farm, last year more
than 1500 visitors signed Hartle’s guest book. Like a clean restaurant, Hartle believes a
well maintained farm and clean dairy is good milk promotion.
source of farm income. Each year
some of the better bull calves are
raised to sell later as pasture bulls,
and according td the replacement
needs of the milking herd heifer
calves are sold. Two heifers have
been consigned to sell in the Ag
Progress Sale. The sale is put on by
the Centre and Mifflin County
Holstein Club and will be held
August 23 at the Centre County
fairgrounds in Centre Hall./
“Forage is the backbone of our
feeding program,” says Hartle.
“We don't feed grain heavily, I
have found that the most
economical way to get protein into
the cows is to feed them high
quality home grown forage.”
Since Tom has grown into the
partnership, a division of labor and
expertise allows Hartle to con
centrate on crop production. In
cluding some rented ground, the
Hartle’s farm 310 acres. This year
115 acres are in com, 112 acres of
established alfalfa stands, 22 acres
are new spring seedings of alfalfa,
20 acres are a grass mix of brome
and timothy for dry cows and
heifers, 22 acres of oats, 8 acres of
wheat and the remainder is in
pastureland.
Hartle, a very personable man,
enjoys visiting with other fanners,
and for the last nine years has
worked part-time as a Dekalb Seed
dealer. Looking toward his
retirement, Hartle plans to con
tinue to , sell seed after he
relinquishes his fanning duties. So
naturally he plants only Dekalb
seed.
“We establish our new alfalfa
seedings by direct seeding 15
pounds of alfalfa seed, along with
two to four pounds of a
bromegrass-timothy mix, on a per
acre basis. After the stand is
established, depending on the field
it will result in a stand that runs
about 90 percent alfalfa and 10
percent grass,” explains Hartle.
“About one-third of our alfalfa
seedings are put in during August
following oats. The other two
thirds is seeded in the spring on
ground that was in corn the year
before.”
“From a new spring seeding we
will generally take two cuttings off
the first year," Hartle continued.
“Average production the first year
is three to four tons of dry hay per
acre. An established stand with
good rainfall will yield us four
cuttings and an average of six to
seven tons of dry hay per acre. But
we generally put the first cutting of
hay in the Harvestore as haylage.
We try to fill our two 20 X 80
Harvestores according to the
weather and then we bale the rest
*i 4 i
Jg jy -jy >e jxing. As well as
his own stands of alfalfa, there are two Penn State research
plots on the farm.
in conventional bales. ”
When it comes to questions about
forage production facts, and
figures, Hartle has all the answers,
and they are all arranged neatly in
a crop production notebook. As
treasurer of the Centre County
Crop Improvement Association
since its inception in 1979, Hartle
has enjoyed a mutually beneficial
working relationship with the
Association.
Hartle likens the Crop
Association to the DHIA, in that it
is financed totally by its members
with a $3 per acre charge, and it
calls on the technical expertise of
Extension and Penn State
agronomy specialists. The first of
its kind in the state, member
enrollment has grown to 60. There
are now eight other similar
organizations throughout Penn
sylvania.
Two full time technicians work
year round to serve the members.
Their responsibilities to the
members include, taking soil
samples, making periodic checks
for weed and insect infestations,
and reporting data back.
Presently, alfalfa fields are being
swept every 10 days for leafhopper
by the technicians.
On individual field record sheets ,
Hartle records data on: seeding
dates, rates and costs; crop
variety; fertilizer and lime ap
plication rates and costs; pesticide
application rates and costs;
population; and yield, as well a
noting any comments on weather
or problems. The association takes
this data and returns a computer
printout to him with all the cost
factors and returns. This provides
Hartle and other members with a
production profile for each field.
Forage analysis data used in
conjunction with this forage
production data takes the guess
work out of Hartie’s cropping
operation. Wise use of this in
formation allows him to keep
production costs iow and efficiency
high. Hartle, a Master Fanner in
1979, has through the years
cultivated- superior management
abilities and altruistic qualities
that now enable him to assist other
farmers and to be an Outstanding
Forage Spokesman.