A24—Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, May 5,1984
Elmer
(Continued from Page A 22)
had a foul every year since I
bought her at age four with a foul
at her side. She placed third in the
aged mare class at the ’B2 Farm
Show, and the only thing that looks
20 on her is her teeth.”
Though one of Lapp’s purebreds
will cost its new owner as much as
|5,000, Elmer emphasizes that a
working team of geldings can be
bought for $BOO to $l,OOO each.
Lapp also points out that he
avoids the soil compaction
problems associated with heavy
machinery.
“Farmers buy these big tractors
and spreaders, and then they
wonder why their ground gets so
hard,” he observes. “With horses
you don’t have that problem. ”
Nevertheless, Elmer’s Belgian
pulling machines are no light
weights. Adults weigh between
1,800 and 2,000 pounds, with little
difference between mares and
stallions. Lapp prefers mares not
only for their reproductive
capabilities, but also because of
their tractable nature. Geldings,
according to Elmer, tend to
become lazy, and stallions oc
casionally prove to be quite a
handful.
But Lapp has found the majority
of his Belgians to be quick to learn
and easygoing. Their docile
nature, Lapp maintains, is the
reason that these giants consume
about the same amount of food as a
more high-strung saddle or buggy
horse.
The only exception to this comes
when mares are pregnant or
feeding fouls.
“Some of my mares milk almost
like cows,” Elmer says. Only half
joking, he adds that horse milk,
with its one to two percent but
terfat content, could be a valued
dairy product for calorie-conscious
Americans.
An active spokesman for his
breed’s virtues, Lapp is secretary
treasurer for the 150-member Pa.
Draft Horse and Mule Association,
and acts as secretary-treasurer
Easy-on, easy-off
for 35 to KO-hp
e
Lapp
and manager for the Pa. Draft
Horse Sale at the Farm Show in
February.
This year Elmer will be
assembling a picturesque 20-head
team for Bird-in-Hand’s 250th
anniversary parade, on June 28, as
well as providing the hor
sepower for threshing demon
strations at Chestertown,
Maryland, in July, at the Rough
and Tumble Museum in Kinzer, in
August, and again in September at
the Historic Schaefferstown
Museum.
Though mules are popular draft
animals among his Amish
neighbors, Lapp remains a faithful
fan of his powerful Belgians. The
veteran horseman asserts that
four of his big mares can pull his
tractor disc, where a team of the
lighter horse-donkey hybrids
would likely require a fifth
member.
Lapp does concede that mules
generally seem to “have more
sense”.
“A mule won’t eat himself sick,
or run over anything,” Elmer
acknowledges, “and they do seem
to take the heat better. But you see
a lot more ornery mules than
horses, and a mule will kick much
quicker,” Lapp adds.
Elmer Lapp’s admiration for his
brawny workhorses seems to be
mutual. With a gentle, “get up”,
and a slap of the reins, nearly four
tons of equine brawn lean willingly
into the harness, and the quartet of
massive sorrel horses, their blond
manes and tails flagging in the
spring breeze, is off with Elmer
and Ms disc in tow.
After a few passes across the
field, Lapp rests the animals and
reminisces about teams from the
past.
“We don’t have teams like we
used to, because we don’t work
them like we did then. But I’ll
never forget the team I was using
in the early ‘6o’s. One day I was out
discing when the feed man got
here. I came in to help him unload,
compaction
(Continued from Page Al)
the pressure at much deeper
levels,” Reeder maintains.
The engineer also points out that
going to duel wheels will do little to
alleviate the problem.
“We’ve shown that the first pass
of a tire over the soil does about 80
percent of the compaction
damage, so spreading the pressure
side-to-side won’t help. And at
depths of a foot or two, there is
little difference between the
pressure exerted by single versus
duel wheels. The only way to
alleviate the problem is to
distribute the weight lengthwise
through the use of multiple axles
and four-wheel-drive.”
Reeder adds that plowing may
actually intensify the problem in
two ways. First, the weight of the
plow itself tends to compact the
and it took us about half-an-hour.
“When I walked back out, I
noticed my horses were gone, but
when I looked out across the field I
could see them pulling all alone.
Those horses made a complete
sweep around the field all by
themselves. Made every turn. And
no skippers, either! Sometimes
when I think of the work those
horses did for me, it brings a tear.”
Visitors traveling the backroads
of the Pennsylvania Dutch country
south of Route 340, may come upon
a streamside stone house and barn
with a field full'of husky chestnut
colored horses cropping grass in
the summer sun.
Chances are they’ve happened
upon Elmer Lapp’s place, where
horsepower is exceeded only by
one man’s devotion to his team.
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plow pan layer. And second,
plowing is usually done with the
most powerful-and heaviest
tractors.
Other major offenders include
combines, the larger grain wagons
and manure spreaders. Reeder
cautions that large spreaders and
liquid manure tanks can do ex
treme damage because of their use
during the wet spring months.
Though plowing is the generally
accepted cure for compaction,
John Yocum, senior research
associate with Penn State’s
Department of Agronomy, points
out that nature’s cycles of freezing
and thawing do a much more
thorough job.
“You can never mechanically
get soil back to the texture that it
was at the end of winter,” Yocum
asserts. Other scientists agree
that, as with most maladies, the
best medicine is an ounce of
prevention.
The most important combative
measure is to avoid working in wet
fields, says Dr. Fritton. If you’re in
doubt about whether or not to begin
field work, Fritton recommends
the squeeze test.
“Take a handful of soil from the
bottom of your tillage depth and
squeeze it,” Fritton instructs. “If it
molds to your hand and stays
together, you’re tilling before you
should be.”
Since surface compaction is
directly related to tire pressure,
Fritton recommends operating
tractor and implement tires at
their lowest usable pressures.
With deep compaction being a
function of overall equipment
weight, Ohio State’s Reeder ad
vises farmers to consider the use of
multiple axles and four-wheel-
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drive to distribute the weight
lengthwise. Authorities agree that,
when weights are equal, a four
wheel-drive tractor will have less
impact on the soil than a two
wheel-drive unit.
Experts also agree that no-till
and minimum tillage practices do
help to alleviate the problem. In
fact, Dr. Fritton notes that
avoidance of deep compaction is
one of the best arguments for no
till farming. Though farmers must
still be concerned with tire
pressure and width, adequate
aeration and water filtration are
more easily maintained when soil
is not manipulated as deeply.
This lack of deep tillage also
allows farmers to work the soil on
their no-till fields earlier in the
spring.
A farmer suspecting compaction
problems should pick up a shovel
and see just what his crops are
doing, says Dr. Fritton.
"Dig down to the plow’s depth
and then go six to eight inches
more,” Fritton advises. “A depth
of about two feet should do it. Take
a look at where your roots are
going. If they’re staying right in
the furrow, you’re going to have
problems in dry weather. ”
Compacted layers will not only
be visible in your field’s profile,
but may also offer considerable
resistance to the shovel.
With soil compaction capable of
reducing yields by 50 percent,
farmers would do well to stay one
step ahead of the problem. When
no obvious explanations for ap
parent nutrient deficiencies,
herbicide or drought damage,
seem to solve the riddle, it may be
time to take shovel in hand and dig
deeper for an explanation.