A24-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 21,1985
Timonium hosts 12th Mid-Atlantic No-Till Conference
BY JACK HURLEY
TIMONIUM, Md. - In the midst of
a floundering farm economy,
Farm Journal’s staff economist,
John Marten, delivered an upbeat
address at the Mid-Atlantic No-Till
Conference in Timonium on
Wednesday.
Marten named five economic
indicators that bode well for
agriculture during the coming
year. “The massive economic
trends that have battdred
agriculture for the last five years
are shifting,” he said, pointing out
that downward trends in farm
production costs, interest rates,
the dollar, the deficit and inflation
should provide some light at the
end of what has become a dark
rural American tunnel. “This is
the first time this has been true in
10 years or longer,” he said.
Turning to Farm Bill ’B5, which
has received the blessing of both
the House and the Senate this
week. Marten labelled the bill a
“handle with no bucket.” “It’s not
a bill that’s going to bale us out,”
he said.
If signed by the President, the
bill contains a dairy title that
would maintain the milk support
price at $11.60 through 1986. This
price would include a 40-cent
The list of sponsors for this year's Mid-Atlantic No-Till Conference included more than
50 ag-related companies.
t
assessment to finance a whole
herd buy-out program. The sup
port price would drop to $11.35 in
1987, and again to $ll.lO on Oct. 1,
of the same year. The buy-out
assessment would likewise be
dropped to 25 cents for 1987.
Farmers interested in
liquidating their dairy herds would
submit a bid to the government.
The Secretary of Agriculture
would reserve the right to deter
mine if participating farmers
would be prohibited from being in
the dairy production business for a
period of three, four or five years.
No more than seven percent of the
nation’s dairy herd could be culled
in any one year, and USDA would
be required to buy a pre
determined amount of red meat to
minimize the program’s impact on
the beef cattle industry.
Will the buy-out program be
effective? Yes, said the economist,
labeling it a “golden parachute”
program for farmers close to
retirement and those in serious
financial difficulties.
Marten predicted a three to five
percent increase in general cattle
slaughter due to the buy-out
program, cautioning beef
producers that the buy-out, along
with cheap grain and a swine in-
dustry “in reasonable shape”
would combine to dampen beef
prices.
On the subject of grain, Marten
noted that prices for all the major
grains are currently being
maintained at artificially high
levels by government loan
programs. “If I were you, I’d start
selling some of my corn away,”
Marten advised growers. With the
new wheat loan rate set at $2.70 a
bushel or less, those storing wheat
would do well to get rid of it, he
said.
Marten’s address capped a
morning of presentations by
university and government
specialists who discussed manure
management, weed and insect
control with respect to no-till
systems.
Unlike phosphorous and potash,
nitrogen is a much more difficult
nutrient to manage, said Cornell
University’s Stuart Klausner.
Nitrogen is available on a 50-50
basis from both urine and manure
solids, Klausner said.
But while the organic nitrogen
present in manure is relatively
stable, the ammonia nitrogen
present in urine is far more
volatile. Studies show that 90
percent of the ammonia nitrogen
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V Roaring Spring Pa 16673
Livestock Nutritional Services
Farm Journal's John Marten points out reasons to be
optimistic about farming’s future.
applied to soil and not in
corporated, dissipates within two
weeks, he said.
Penn State’s Douglas Beegle
underscored the importance of
quick manure incorporation when
utilizing the nitrogen present in
urea by stating that up to a
dollar’s-worth of nitrogen per ton
of manure will be lost by allowing
the manure to remain on the soil’s
surface for more than a week.
“Injection is probably,
agronomically, the right way to
go(to preserve nitrogen),” said
Beegle, “but it’s tough to justify
economically. It takes an awful lot
of time to get out there and inject
that manure.”
Beegle said that choosing bet
ween no-till’s soil savings and
conventional tillage’s nitrogen
savings can be a difficult decision
for the farmer. One compromise,
he pointed out, would be to go with
some type of reduced tillage using
a chisel plow or heavy disk.
Pat Lietman, of the U.S.
Geological Survey, discussed the
manure problem with respect to
ground water quality. Leitman,
who is currently monitoring water
quality in Lancaster County’s
Conestoga River basin, noted that
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It
OUR BES
1N1986
45 percent of the rural area within
her Conestoga Rural Clean Water
Project area contained ground
water with nitrate levels in excess
of drinking water standards. By
contrast, excess nitrate levels
were found in only 18 percent of the
ground water in nonagricultural
areas.
Following Lietman were Scott
Hagood of the Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and Lee Heilman of the
University of Maryland. Hagood
looked at weed control in com and
soybeans, while Heilman
discussed trends in insecticides for
the next decade.
The conference’s afternoon
session included a “Quiz the Ex
perts” panel moderated by Penn
State agronomist Lynn Hoffman.
wL VS
BREAKING MIIK RECORDS!
Lancaster farming Carrlas
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