Invisible Enemy Rural Areas Vulnerable to Crop Damaging Ozone WASHINGTON - Ozone and other air pollutants are costing farmers at least $1 billion in agricultural crop losses each year, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers. “Farmers don’t see ozone damage happening to their field crops, but it is,” said Walter W. Heck, a plant physiologist who heads air pollution research at Raleigh, N.C., for USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, in cooperation with the En vironmental Protection Agency. Damaging ozone is caused by a photochemical reaction of sunlight with automobile and industrial exhausts containing nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons. It is different from the ozone layer in the earth’s stratosphere that filters out ultraviolet sunlight but does not harm crops. “Ozone is carried by prevailing winds, often for hundreds or thousands of miles,” Heck said. BEST BUY of the • 6” Steel Main Beam • 2” Vertical Tubing Drilled so that the I" Horizontal tubing extends Full Length of Wagon • Front-Side and Rear Loading and Unloading • 2xB Pressure Treated Lumber Floor , • 2x6 Oak Cross Beams • Beds are 8’ wide, available in 16,18 or 21' lengths. Racks are 90” high. • NEW FEATURE: 6” Channel across back for pushing wagon without damaging bed. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CALL YOUR LOCAL DEALER: LOST CREEK IMPLEMENT Oakland Mill, PA 717-463-2161 MELROSE FARM SERVICE Greencastle, PA 717-597-3138 KELLER BROS. Lebanon, PA 717-949-6501 DUNKLE & GREIB Mill Hall, PA 717-726-3115 WALTER G. COALE, INC. Churchville, MD 301-734-7722 CLW MANUFACTURING, INC. “That’s why rural areas, despite having fewer automobiles and industrial plants, often equal the ozone polllution levels for urban areas.” As a result, he said, crops far away from pollution sources are not necessarily safe from ozone. “We see in field test chambers and in greenhouses that ozone is causing leaves of soybean, wheat, cotton, peanut and other agricultural crops to die prematurely, reducing yields and costing the.farmer money,” he said. “And the $1 billion figure doesn’t include damage to hor ticultural crops and to forests. ’ ’ Yield losses are based on crop studies done at sites across the country from 1980-82. Findings from 1983-85 are being compiled and analyzed, Heck said, and final results are expected in 1987. Hecks’s laboratory has been studying the problem since 1980 as part of the National Crop Loss TOBIAS EQUIPMENT CO., INC. Halifax, PA 717-362-3132 NORTHEAST DISTRIBUTING West Clifford, Pa. 717-222-9020 VALLEY IMPLEMENT SALES Harrisonburg, VA 703-434-9961 CHAMBERSBUR6 FARM SUPPLY Chambersburg, PA 717-264-3533 Manufactured By R.D. #2, Box 8 Newburg, Pa. 17240 717-423-6794 Assessment Network, set up by EPA to get estimates of agricultural crop losses from ozone and other air pollutants. A typical long-term con centration, or level, of surface ozone is .05 parts per million. Beck said. In test areas, ozone levels varied from about .04 to .06 parts per million during a seven-hour day, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Over a growing season from April to September, he said, ozone levels fluctuated but averaged about .05 ppm. That level can significantly damage crops when plants absorb it over an entire growing season, he said. Among the yield losses assessed to date in the NCLAN studies: * Soybean yields also decreased 12 percent when exposed to .05 ppm of ozone in 1980-82 field tests at Argonne, HI., Beltsville, Md., Ithaca, N.Y., and Raleigh. • Winter wheat yields at YEAR OXFORD GREENLINE, INC. Oxford, PA 215-932-2753 PAUL SHOVER’S, INC. Loysville, PA 717-789-3117 A.B.C. GROFF New Holland. PA 717-354-4731 CARLISLE FARM SERVICE Carlisle, PA 77-243-4419 CLARK'S FARM SUPPLY Williamsport, PA 717-494-0060 Argonne were reduced 7 percent. • The lowest reductiort at .05 ppm was 1.5 percent in corn tests at Argonne in 1981 and for sorghum there in 1982. • As ozone increased, yields declined for all the crops tested. At .06 ppm, for example, ■ soybean yields were cut by 17 percent, and at .09 the percent. Rabies Control Bill HARRISBURG - With a growing threat of rabies spreading through parts of central Penn sylvania, the State House of Representatives has passed a measure co-sponsored by Rep. Samuel Morris, D-Pottstown, to establish a statewide system for prevention and control of the disease. The legislation, written with the aid of rabies researchers at Philadelphia’s Wistar Institute, would combine the resources of the state Health and Agriculture Departments and the Penn sylvania Game Commission in efforts to curb the spread of the disease among domestic and wild mammals. “The number of confirmed rabies cases went from 16 in 1979 to 450 last year, and appears to be more than doubling in 1986,” Morris said. “This bill represents an all-out state effort to arrest the movement of rabies toward more populated areas and bring the disease back to normal, less threatening, levels.” Morris said the current outbreak of rabies originated in Maryland. It was initially confined to nine counties near the Maryland bor der, he said, but has spread to 30 or more counties this year. PERKA BUILDINGS A size to suit your needs with or without Self-supporting Lean to. 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Get Your FREE Perka book L to: perka buildings systems ji Box 166, RD #2 New Holland, PA 17557 Name I Address I Town/City County j Telephone No. _Postal Code • lam interested in the following type of building; ( Width Length Size of Door I Implement Shed □ Dairy □ HogD Other □ I Workshop □ Loose Housing □ Stable n I Industrial □ Commercial □ Riding Arena □ j Date of Planning To Build or Call Now (717) 354-4740 Lancaster Fanning Saturday, June 14,1986*011 Ozone enters a plant as its leaves absorb carbon dioxide necessary for photosynthesis, in which plants use sunlight to form car bohydrates. When damaged by ozone, a plant’s leaves will age prematurely and discolor, leaf cells will die, and photosynthesis and growth will decrease. House Okays Under the bill approved by the House, the Department of Health, in cooperation with other state agencies, would monitor cases of rabies in domestic and wild animals and declare designated risk areas of the state. Within those areas, all dogs and cats over three months of age would be required by law to receive rabies vaccinations either through private veterinarians or through low-cost rabies clinics to be set up in affected counties. Individuals, such as fanners and kennel owners, who had ad ministered their own rabies shots to pets and livestock prior to passage of the bill would be allowed to continue doing so as long as they kept accurate records. The bill (H.B. 2164), approved by a vote of 193 to 0, also includes strict reporting requirements covering animals which have bitten or otherwise exposed humans to possible rabies in fection. These cases, and those involving animals suspected of having rabies, would have to be reported immediately to local county health agencies. 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