Page 4—Com Talk, Lancaster Farming, Saturday, April 17,1993
(DdDIN m MIWO
Mike Glenn with a few of the calves he raises In the
old stanchion barn.
Brothers Pay Attention
(Continued from Pag* 2)
hay, help to milk, and feed the
cows com silage.
“They’re good workers,”
Richard said. “I don’t know
what I’d do without them.”
They have been with the glenn
brothers for eight years.
The high-producing cows
arc fed 8 - 12 pounds of top
dress in the milking parlor. The
herd is fed haylage and high
moisture com on the, bunk.
The farm is on a conserva
tion plan and a manure plan
with the ASCS office. Water
from the parlor goes to a hold
ing tank, then is spread on the
fields with a vacuum tank.
Employees BIN, left and Jason Harmon bed the
freestalls.
They are careful to protect the
winding trout stream that runs
below the bam from any
runoff.
Richard and his wife, Pame
la. live in the large stone house
on the farm. They have two
sons, Jeff, 14, and Thomas, 11,
who help on the farm
weekends and summers.
Mike’s wife, Sharon, works for
the Forestry Department in
McConnellsburg, and Dave’s
wife, Sheila, works at Letterk
enny Army Depot in
Chambersburg.
Their mother, Maijorie, is a
director of Pennsylvania Farm
Women.
(Contfnuwl from Pag* 1)
competition. If you’re not
doing this soon, you find your
self left behind by the crowd.
How can we continue to
improve various aspects of our
operation? There are no easy
answers anymore and its
becoming increasingly difficult
to rely on outside experts to
provide us with answers that
are appropriate for our own
situations. As a result, I think
we will need to place more
emphasis on evaluating pro
ducts and practices under local
conditions.
Management experts tell us
that we should be relying more
on data to make decisions
rather than opinions. What does
all this have to do with our com
crop this year?
Well, I think you should
spend a little time or money on
evaluating something in your
production system this year.
This doesn’t necessarily mean
you have to do a strip trial or
some other type of on-farm
research, but it does mean
you’ll have to take some time
and scrutinize some aspect of
your program.
Basic items to evaluate are
things like weed escapes, plant
populations, yields, soil test
levels rootworm beetle counts
or disease levels. More
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YLVANIA MASTER
•RN GROWERS
ASSOCIATION
ween The Rows
advanced items to be looking at
would include stand uniformi
ty, soil compaction potential,
hybrid performance, herbicide
and insecticide cost effective
ness, nutrient deficiency symp
toms, and soil nutrient trends
over time. Still more advanced
things to evaluate would be
items such as hybrid adaptation
to different soils, the need for
starter fertilizer, and the cost
effectiveness of equipment
adaptations that speed planting
and harvesting.
By collecting a little of your
own information on these
items, you’ll be in a better posi
tion to make better decisions
next year. Better decisions
mean a more efficient operation
that is moving ahead, not fall
ing behind.
A little bit of good evaluation
can go a long way. A few hours
invested in planning a little
comparison this year and next
may prevent a decade of conti
nuing an unprofitable practice.
A good example of the need
for evaluation I’ve encountered
recently is in the issue of zone
tillage attachments for no-till
com planters. While they seem
to be appealing, there really is
little data available to justify
their use in areas where no-till
has worked well.
If I were making an invest
ment in this technology, I’d be
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doing a few side-by-side com
parisons to see if they really do
improve populations and yields
under my conditions.
A word of caution is neces
sary in doing side-by-side or
any other types of on-farm
research. Our soils are quite
variable and you want to be
sure to repeat your comparison
several times to minimize the
potential for yield differences
caused by soil type.
More than once I’ve been
surprised by yield differences
caused just by the position in
the field. If you’re not careful,
these kind of differences can
lead you astray. This is espe
cially true if your favorite treat
ment comes out on top.
One of the challenges in
planning evaluations is decid
ing what to evaluate and how
many resources to devote to
this activity. Realistically,
focusing on one to three key
items is probably enough for
anyone provided you have a
handle on some of the basic
scouting information.
If you don’t think you have
time for some type of evalua
tion this year, consider hiring
someone to do it. There are a
growing number of crop con
sultants and scouts that are
available and willing to help
out in this area.
If you’re like me, you’ve
found out by now that there are
a lot more good questions than
good answers. Let’s take some
time this year and work on get
ting some more good answers
by doing a little better job of
evaluating and finding out
what’s going on in our own
com production system.
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Bloomsburg, PA
717-437-3440
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New Berlinville, PA
215-367-2169