AlB-Lanc«ster Farming, Saturday, July 13,1985 _ w A rn ~W W • ~t
For Ephrata s lom High,
BY JACK HUBLEY
EPHRATA It was August of
1984 when Tom High’s world
turned upside-down. As a par
ticipant in the FFA’s Work Ex
perience Abroad program, the son
of Floyd and Dorothy High of
Ephrata left the U.S. for Australia
on Aug. 21.
The plan called for six months of
farming experience and a return
trip in February. But the Ephrata
High School graduate enjoyed life
in the southern hemisphere so
much that he never got home until
the end of May.
And from the beginning of his
Tom High reviews a few of his Australian souvenirs with parents Dorothy and Floyd
High of Ephrata. Sponsored by local businesses, High spent nine months in Australia
through the FFA’s Work Experience Abroad program.
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sojourn, Tom’s nine months away
from home were highlighted by a
long list of first-time experiences.
Accustomed to having his feet
planted firmly on the ground, the
young farmer hopped a plane, for
the first time in his life, enroute to
three days of orientation in
California.
And 14 hours after leaving late
summer in California, he found
himself on the other side of the
equator...in late winter. Although
residents of southeastern Australia
don’t have to worry about sub
freezing temperatures, Tom
recalls that “it was still pretty cold
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when we got there. ’ ’
High’s first tour of duty was on
the farm of Dave and Lola Pietsch
who, along with their 24-year-old
son Chris, farm 2,300 acres of
barley, wheat and peas and run a
farrow-to-finish hog operation.
“It was pretty dry in that area,”
says Tom, noting that only 2Vz
inches of rain had fallen during the
first six months of 1984. To con
serve precious soil moisture, the
family cultivates only one-half of
their acreage each year, allowing
the other half to lie fallow. One
third of the cropland is devoted to
peas, which are then sold as cattle
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building, are relatively new to Australia.
feed. The climate is simply too dry
for com or soybeans, Tom says.
A couple of months after har
vest, the wheat and barley fields
are burned off to break down the
residue. “If you leave wheat straw
on top of the ground it wouldn’t rot
from one year to the next,” says
Tom, noting that Australian soil
seems to lack the acids necessary
to break down crop material.
The Pietchs grind their own feed
for their swine herd. Their 30 sows
are bred and kept outdoors, and
the only confinement unit on the
farm is a 200-pig finishing bam.
Although the emphasis is on
producing lean pork, Tom says
that Australian hogs seem to be a
lot fattier, a factor he attributes to
the country’s lack of quality
breeding stock.
But Australian swine producers
are making a concerted effort to
upgrade their herds, Tom points
out. Modern management
techniques such as artificial in
semination and confinement
housing are on the increase, and,
though Tom had worked with
swine through his FFA projects
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back home, his first hands-on Al
experience came in Australia.
After three months of work at the
Pietsch operation, Tom found
himself in cattle country on the
farm of John and Betty Landis
located northeast of Victoria in the
state of New South Wales.
The Landis operation consists of
7,000 acres of grassland and
forests, home to the Landis’ 800
head of Hereford cattle. Housing
costs are minimal on the Landis
spread, where the cattle roam
freely across extensive
grasslands. The range is fenced
into 12 separate areas and the
cattle tend to cluster into small
herds called “mobs”. Cows are
serviced by the farm’s 12 bulls, and
the calving rate averages about 85
percent.
The Landis’ calving season is
spread over an eight-month period,
and cows and calves are sold on a
monthly basis. How do Australian
farmers go about rounding up their
merchandise on such extensive
rangeland? Tom took his first
lesson in cowpunching to find out.
“It was the first time I ever rode a
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