Quality Seedlings, Shearing, Fresh Cut Trees Hallmarks Of Schuylkill Forest Farm (Continued from Pago A 92) the business for the long haul.” He said that, as a small family form, it is hard to survive with fluctuating prices and uncertain markets. Bruce said that one quality prac tice is to hold off cutting the trees if the weather is too warm around Thanksgiving. If the weather warms up too much, the tree nee dles can turn brown and foil off. “If it’s warm, we hold off on cutting,’ ’ he said. “We try to keep the people happy with fresh, qual ity cut trees. ‘ ‘Quality and freshness are what we try to strive for,” he indicated. The key is to buy from a reputable dealer that will stand behind his trees. “I always stand behind my trees,” said Bachert. “If there’s a problem with my trees to the con- Gov. Casey Signs Ag Bills HARRISBURG (Dauphin Co.) Gov. Robert P. Casey recently signed a series of bills designed to improve farm and food safety, control animal diseases, and help farmers reduce nitrogen pollution. "Agriculture is an important economic engine in Pennsylvania, and it has been given the highest priority under my administration.” Casey said. “The very first legislation I signed when I became governor back in 1987 was a law that gave agricultural producers control of their own marketing programs,” he said t - nr Bills signed by the governor will transfer restaurant inspections from the Department of Environ mental Resources (DER) to the agriculture'department and estab lish a food employee certification program for people who supervise workers who prepare food. The Governor signed the fol lowing bills: Senate Bill 729—provides a training program for people who supervise food service workers, consolidates food inspections under one agency by transferring restaurant inspections from DER to the Department of Agriculture and broadens the Department of Agriculture’s authority to oversee organic food certification and reg ulation of maple syrup production. The bill also amends agricul tural-related statutes relating to the Commercial Feed Law and pro vides for registration of apiaries. The food certification portions go into effect in 90 days, maple products and restaurant inspection portions July 1 and the remainder in 60 days. House Bill 2505—provides a grant and loan program to support safety education programs and encourage farmers to install safety devices on their machinery. The bill goes into effect in 60 days. Senate Bill 492—provides loans to purchase machinery or install equipment for sustainable agriculture practices that improve soil and Water quality and help reduce reliance on chemicals and fertilizers. The legislation also provides grants for farmers and nonprofit educational groups to experiment with alternative crops. The bill goes into effect in 60 days. Senate Bill 728—provides tree at Schuylkill Forest Christmas Tree Farm. sumer, I hope he comes back to me, so I can keep him happy, because I don’t want him to go out and buy an artificial tree.” loans to concentrated animal oper ations that adopt specialized agri cultural practices to prevent nutri ent run-off and soil erosion as part of the Chesapeake Bay cleanup. The bill goes into effect July 1. Senate Bill 439 —provides matching funds from existing funding sources to construct six anaerobic manure digester demon stration projects so farmers can see <how that technology can be used to deal with nitrogen pollu tion from livestock manure. The bill goes into effect in 60 days. Senate Bill 1046 —permits the Department of Agriculture to pay indemnities to compensate owners of nontraditional farm animals which are condemned to protect animal health. The bill goes into effect in 60 days. House Bill 2542—requires humane officers to receive instruc tion on the cruelty to animal laws care and treatment of animals, rules of criminal law and training in animal husbandry practices. The bill goes into effect in 60 days. House Bill 2367—amends the Clean and Green Law to forgive roll-back tax provisions in cases where landowners donate land to a school district, municipality, county, volunteer fire department, ambulance service or non-profit corporation. The measure also permits a landowner to avoid the roll-back penalty if he or she con veys property to a nonprofit cor poration for use as a cemetery. The bill goes into effect imme diately. DRPC RALEIGH, N£, The annual meeting of DRPC Raleigh was held recently in Raleigh. High lights from the meeting included no increase in DRPC Raleigh fees for 1994-95. The financial report showed a profit for the last two years. Another profit is projected in the 1994-95 budget. An update on the results of pro cessing and mailing reports on the same day was given. DRPC Raleigh began color laser printing of DHI reports in March of this year, and effective September 12, began processing records twice per day. The time from date of test to date processed at DRPC Trees are cut, wrapped, and< loaded for shipping for a farm market In Bronx, N.Y. Raleigh Holds Annual Meeting dropped from a regional average of 3.8 days to an all-time low of 3.0 days in October, 1994. This interval was 2.0 days for 50% of the herds processed. Participation in DRPC Raleigh programs was updated with increased enrollment realized in all areas. A total of 7,740 herds and 927,056 cows in 25 states, Puerto Rrco and the Virgin Islands were processed at DRPC Raleigh as of September 30, 1994. Partici pation figures for October, 1994 and October, 1993 are shown in the table below. A proposal was presented to develop a version of PCDART for The Bacherts carefully remove a wrapped Douglas Fir from the baler. consultants. An updated version of PCDART (version 5.0) is current ly being tested and is to be released by the end of this year. The group approved development of PCDART for consultants for release in early 1995. A new marketing strategy for the PCDHI program was approved that will expand sales to service affiliates outside the DRPC Raleigh region. Currently, non- tree wrapper. DHIA producers use PCDHI as a stand-alone dairy management system. Interfaces will be devel oped to allow DHIA members to use PCDHI with the DHI system in other DRPC regions. The next meeting of the DRPC Raleigh cooperative will be an advisory board meeting scheduled for March 25, 1995 in Burlington. Vermont prior to the National DHIA Annual Convention.
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