A36—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, August 27,1983
Mike Pfautz to be ‘Future Farmer’ in Japan
BY DICK ANGLESTEIN course, there’s the normal
STEVENS It’s been a hectic, duties around home associated
jam-packed week for Mike Pfautz, wito the family's farm market
member of the Cloister FFA at f ° r fmal
Ephrata and past Eastern county 4-H hog roundup, too.
Regional Vice President of the Pa. there s one more thing. On
FFA Association Tuesday, he takes off and heads for
He wound up his job as a Ja P«n for a three and onehalf
salesman for Gehman Feed. monol sta y *»th Japanese farm
Denver families.
He found out he finished as Mike, one of the best-traveled of
Eastern Regional proficiency the 1962-83 state officers on the
runnerup in ag sales and service. banquet circuit, thus becomes one
Penn State profs applying know-how to round bales
BY HUSH WILLIAMS phase for application into round
STRASBURG - Two Penn State bales.
agricultural engineering The purpose of applying
professors have developed and are anhydrous ammonia is to increase
now testing an applicator for in- the protein content of the bale and
fusing anhydrous ammonia into to reduce spoilage during storage,
round bales. Associate professors, said Kjelgaard. The two professors
William L. Kjelgaard and Paul M. have gotten a patent on the con-
Anderson worked together to verier portion of the applicator,
develop a cold flow converter that Kjelgaard explains, "Anhydrous
facilitates the conversion of liquid ammonia has been used for
anhydrous ammonia into a vapor several years now as preservative
The applicator mounted on the bed of a half ton pick-up is
backed into a round bale for applying the anhydrous am
monia, used as a preservative and to increase the amount of
protein contained in the bale.
Studying map of Japan.
of 11 FFA’ers in a Work Ex
perience Abroad program funded
under a grant from the President’s
Youth Exchange Initiative of the
U.S. Information Agency.
Actually, Pennsylvania has two
participants in the program and
both are from last year’s state
officer roster - one from the east
and one from the west.
While Mike was the Eastern
Regional Vice President, his
counterpart in the west, Amy
Winklosky, of the Derry Chapter in
Westmoreland County, has also
been selected for the program.
As Mike poured over maps, tour
guides, instructions and other
material for the trip, his en
thusiasm about the visit bubbled
through.
"It’s been pretty hectic getting
ready, but 1 can’t wait to get
started,” he said.
He’s been making such a
detailed study of the material that
he’s already found a restaurant in
Tokyo that specializes in Penn
sylvania-Dutch pies. A slice of
Japanese shoo-fly should do
wonders for any hunger pangs for
home.
On Tuesday, he Dies to San
Francisco on the first leg of the trip
to Japan.
He’s bound for Kanagawa,
located along the coast southwest
of Tokyo. The first 12 days will be
spent in a language familiarization
course.
During his stay one day a week
will be spent in classrooms at the
Hiratsuka Agricultural High
School in Kanagawa. He’ll live and
work with host Japanese farm
families.
There’ll be a midpoint
evaluation of the program with the
embassy attache at the National
FFA Center in Japan. And, he’ll
also attend the National Con
vention of the Future Farmers of
Japan.
After additional stay with a
Japanese farm family, Mike will
wind up the trip with a few days in
Hong Kong from Dec. 10 to 13.
and to increase the protein content
of silage. We are applying the
same principles to round bales
with this new system.”
At present Kjelgaard and An
derson are conducting research at
Penn State and in the field to
substantiate the effects of varying
amounts of anhydrous ammonia
applied to round bales.
Three farms, one in the western
part of the state, one in the central
section, and the Ken Groff farm in
Strasburg, Lancaster County are
cooperating with the Penn State ag
engineers. The three farmers who
use round bales in their feeding
programs, agreed to have some
bales treated with anhyrous
ammonia, and will make ob
servations as the forage is fed out,
on the quality of hay, its
palatabiltiy, and refusal rate, to
assist Kjelgaard and Anderson in
their field tests.
In research conducted at Penn
State the forage, is analyzed by
infrared analysis to evaluate the
nutrient quality of the forage.
At file farm of Ken Groff,
Kjelgaard, treated round bales of
hay, haylage, and com fodder with
two levels of anhydrous ammonia.
The 800 to 1000 pound bales were
broken down into three treatment
groups. One treatment received 9
pounds of anhydrous ammonia per
bale, another 4.5 pounds per bale,
and a control group of the same
forage received no treatment.
The bales were tagged with the
type of treatment applied to it.
When Ken Groff feeds the bale to
his dairy herd he will make visual
observations and record them for
(Turn to Page A3B)
In front of family's farm market.
During his Japanese stay, Mike ~![ e ,|[ nai fl in *L. a 8
will be taking a lot of slides and ££A er ‘ Ai>d.he 11 be attending the
will be putting together a program. J convention.
So. area FFA chapters and other And. then there’s the 1064
groups looking for an ac- National Convention in Kansas
complished speaker can call on ,y .
him beginning next year. M* 6 P 1 ®" 8 a ran at state en'
‘Til be missing the Ephrata Fair Jorsement to try for national of
and the National Convention this
year,” Mike lamented a bit. Us not only a busy week for
‘.‘But this is a real unique op- , ...
portunity.” It looks like a busy year or more
But Mike has a couple more eomin^up-
Prof. Kjelgaard trips the valve on the cold flow applicator,
demonstrating how the liquid and vapor phase of the
anhydrous ammonia flows by gravity into the round bale.
Cooperating dairyman, Ken Groff, in the back, looks on as
Professor Kjelgaard and his research assistant, seal a plastic
bag around this bale after application of anhydrous ammonia.