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VOL 36 No. 17
The old saying that if March comes in like a lamb it will go out like a lion, may be
true —we don’t know. But we certainly have had lamb-like weather this week.
Many farmers get “itchy” to get in the field at this time of year, and our Amish neigh
bor in his field along Horseshoe Road north of the Conestoga Valley High School took
advantage of the open thaw on Thursday afternoon to work the horses and plow. It
was windy, but the gulls took advantage of an opportunity too. They seemed to enjoy
the juicy morsels of food they picked up from the newly opened furrow.
Aggressive Care, Marketing, Urged For Poultry
LOU ANN GOOD
Lancaster Farming Staff
LANCASTER (Lancaster Co.J"
—“Nutritionally and biologically,
the egg is the safest food money
can buy. You have a wonderful
product, but you have been letting
it fall down,” Mario Yepez told
poultry producers at the Poultry
CMAs Save Farmers Money ,
Increase Farm Profits
ANDY ANDREWS
Lancaster Fanning Staff
FREEMANSBURG (North
ampton Co.) For the annual fee
of about $5 an acre, farmers can
obtain better profits from their
crops and give the work of soil
testing, scouting, and managing
the fertilizer and pesticide use to
Penn State specialists.
How can farmers sign up?
Simply by becoming a member of
one of the 10 crop management
associations (CMAs) throughout
Pennsylvania.
As of now, no crop management
National Milk, Others Seek
New Government Dairy Policy
KARL BERGER
Special Correspondent
WASHINGTON, D.C. With
farm milk prices at their lowest
level since the late 19705, there is
once more talk in the nation’s cap
ital of the need for a different
approach to dairy policy.
The U.S. Department of Agri
culture has received 48 proposals
as part of review process designed
to lead later this year to congres
sional consideration of an inven
tory management program,
according to a spokesman for the
USDA’s Agricultural Stabiliza-
Five Sections
Progress Day on Thursday.
mmMMsolc at the supplier like the
"customer looks at us,” said Yepez
who is the quality assurance field
inspector for Palhmark.
He urged producers to launch a
strong advertising campaign to
combat the adverse and unfair
publicity the egg has received.
associations (local, nonprofit orga
nizations run by member farmers),
exist in southeastern Pennsylvani
a. But if enough farmers become
interested and can meet collective
ly, one could be started.
“By helping members use such
crop-production inputs as fertilizer
and pesticides efficiently, CMAs
work to increase farm profits,”
said Jan Pruss, manager of the crop
management program at Penn
State. The association has been
helping farmers manage their field
crops since 1979.
tion and Conservation Service.
The ASCS will spearhead the
department’s review efforts.
John Mengel, a USDA econom
ist, said the department plans to
issue a preliminary recommenda
tion by June 1 and then allow one
month for comments. Any final
recommendations are due before
Congress by Aug. 1, Mengel said.
The entire process was man
dated by the 1990 farm bill, in
which Congress could not decide
what form, if any, supply manage
ment should take. Rather, the farm
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Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 9, 1991
To build consumer confidence,
speakers at the annual all da v event
stressed the importance n< < kan
poultry houses and healthy birds.
Rusty Barnes, sales representa
tive for Biomune, Inc., in julis
bury, Md., stressed the importance
of proper ventilation in poultry
houses. “It’s worth taking the time
Variety of services
Right now, according to Pruss,
there are 500 farms with 85,000
acres under the watchful c- -'s of
professional crop managment
technicians and consultants, cov
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Pseudorabies How Does It Spread?
Editor’s note: The spread and control of
pseudorabies, a disease affecting many swine
herds in the northern part of Lancaster County,
will be featured in a series of Pseudorabies
Update articles in this and future issues of Lan
caster Fanning. In addition, an educational meet
ing about pseudorabies will be held on Monday
at the Bergstrasse Elementary School (Rt. 322
exit of Rt. 222, across from the church) at 7:30
p.m. Those who need transportation from the
New Holland/Terre Hill area may contact Floyd
Huber, of the Lancaster Chester Pork Produc
ers, at (717) 656-4318.
DR. WILLIAM SISCHO
Extension Veterinarian
Penn State University
UNIVERSITY PARK (Centre Co.) Nearly
everyone who works with livestock, especially
swine, has heard of pseudorabies, and maybe knows
somebody in Lancaster County who has had prob
lems with the disease.
It may come as no surprise when you hear of
some hog operations that are having problems with
“We have a lot of different opin
ions, but DHIA could be the force
to bring dairy farmers together,”
Waybright said. “Some people say
we have a national milk market.
to figure what’s going on inside
those poultry houses,” Bametraid.
He explained the necessity of
static pressure and relative humidi
ty that is needed to keep dust and
ammonia levels under control.
He warned that fans should
sycronizc to pull static pressure
throughout the building rather than
just move air in the building.
Fans should be kept at the opti
mum speed and that means knock
ing the dust off the shutters week
ly, he said. If fan belts aren’t light
ened, the ability to move air can be
cut in half.
“Never unplug the fans,” Barnes
warned. No matter how much you
are convinced you will remember,
eventually something will happen.
He told the story of a farmer who
was called to the hospital when his
First of a series
500 Per Copy
State DHIA Reports
At Annual Meeting
EVERETT NEWSWANGER
Managing Editor
STATE COLLEGE (Centre
Co.) “Not only can DHIA help
dairymen to keep records and do a
better job of management, but also,
DHIA can be a cohesive force
across the nation to bring the fac
tions of the dairy industry
together,” said Doyle Waybright,
Mason-Dixon Farm, Gettysburg.
Waybright was one of the pre
senters at the Wednesday after
noon general session of the third
annual meeting of the new state
corporation of the Pennsylvania
Dairy Herd Improvement
Association.
pseudorabies. But what about that place where you
know the owner and they do a good job, or someone
that has cleaned up from a previous problem and
they become reinfected despite what appears to be
good practices?
Another question is: Why, after two years of
efforts to eradicate pseudorabies from Lancaster,
does the disease still persist?
If there were one easy answer to these questions,
the problem would have been solved, but a good
part of the answer is in the biology of the pseudora
bies virus and the way that it spreads.
Pseudorabies is unlike other members of its
but wc do have regional aspects to
the market. But we need to work
together to stabilize the forces so
wc can always get a good return on
our investment. The American
dairy farmer is in a unique position
to supply other nations with dairy
products. Wc just have not had the
leadership. I sec DHIA having a
roll in that leadership.”
In the report from the general
manager, Richard Barth reported a
long list of accomplishments for
DHIA in the last year. The associa
tion had a positive margin of
$13,000, up from a $22,000 deficit
last year. The state added 113 new
herds to bring their total to 6,102;
had 40 new ARIS users; and
reduced the turnaround time for
testing samples to 3.3 days.
Twenty counties merged into
the state association and the heifer
Industry
son was involved in a serious acci
dent. The next day, the fanner had
two houses of dead birds because
the fans were not turned on and the
doors were closed.
Dr. John Schwartz, multi
county poultry agent, told particip
ants at the seminar how to control
flies in cage layer operations.
“How clean is clean enough
when you clean and disinfect poul
try houses?” asked Dr. Ed Mallm
son, extension poultry veterinarian
from the University of Maryland.
He alerted producers that often
the houses aren’t clean enough. He
related studies that show it is
almost impossible to rid wood ol
salmonella.
Poultry producers qucsUon why
the poultry industry has a problem
with viruses. Dr. David Kradel,
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PSEUDORABIES
UPDATE
A scries In update hug producers on the
Penns\h;mi,i I’scudornhies Krudk.ilicin I’rugr.ini
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$15.00 Per Year
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