NEW HOLLAND (Lancaster Co.) The annual tour and sum mer picnic for fertilizer and chemi cal dealers and their applicators sponsored by joint effort of Ciba, PMC, The Lancaster County Extension Service and the adult farmer program at Eastern Lancas ter County School District was held last Friday. Three school bus loads of participants left the New Holland Community Park and traveled to the Paul Kurtz farm, located south of town, to view pre and post herbicide options in com and soybeans, and to evaluate Canada thistle, and burcumumber trials. In addition, field trials in no til plantings and an educational program for com borer and root worm control was held. Dennis Calvin, professor, Penn State, gives a lecture on the control of corn bore at the Clba/FMC New Holland Tour.' WbfterGale. 3” Irrigation Pipe 30’ Length t. 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Zimmerman Irrigation RD#3 Mlffllnburg, Pa. 17844 1 (800) 452-5699 Ciba/FMC Hold Annual New Holland Farm Tour. “This annual tour brings together the companies and their The cutworm trial plots proved interesting to the tour visitors. representatives to see how the chemical and herbicide trials have gone,” said Jeff Stoltzfus. adult education instructor at Garden Spot “Not only do they see the products and learn what different rates of application have worked, we try to have something of special education, as well. “We have a lot of butcucumber and Canada thistle here, so it makes a good place for the scien tist to see the products in action. In addition, we have special trial beds Plant, First Cut Early (Contlnuad from Pag* A 26) reduce net return per acre because of additional costs compared with seeding with no nurse crop or herbicide. Hall recommended that only if at least 50-60 percent of the dry matter is weeds after first harvest should a herbicide be used. Also, if the stand starts to thin down, and weed pressure increases dramati cally, herbicide treatments should be used. If weed infestation is not antici pated (based on previous weed problems in the field) to be severe during alfalfa establishment, the researchers do not recommend the use of a nurse crop or herbicides for weed control. Whatever the decision is, Hall said it is important not to “ignore management techniques and herbi cides and expect to get away with it.” Also at the field day. Dr. Greg Roth, Penn State assistant agro nomy professor, indicated that he has received many reports from around the state that there has been “lousy stands in com.” There have been scattered reports that com establishment has been spot ty. with many of those fields planted between May 1-10. Also, heights are irregular. According to Roth, this could be the result of insect and fungi dam age to the seed. Because of the where we released cutworms to see how much damage is done in a short period of time and how the products worked. The New Holland Ciba/FMC tour proves to be one of the most popular yearly tours in Lancaster County. A noon lunch was pro vided by the companies. Tara Sop er, Ciba representative, and Steve Fisher, FMC representative, hosted the tour and lunch. warm winter, plant pests overwin tered and made their presence known. In some cases, seed germination in fields was reduced as much as 20 percent 10 percent higher than the standard. Germinating seed may have been under attack by seed corn maggots, wire worms, and seed rot. In the field at the research sta tion, planted May 1, germination was reduced from 21,000 plants to 16,000 plants per acre. Roth recommended that grow ers follow a standard three-way seedbox treatment, combining var ious seed fungicide and pesticide treatments, to protect the seed. He indicated more research on the problem was needed. Also at the Held day, those attending had a chance to look at a “weed screen,” to show the effects of different herbicide treat ments on a wide variety of weeds. Ed Werner, research tech agro nomist and master’s candidate at Penn State, provided information on an ongoing study of economic threshold study of velvetleaf in com. Dave Messersmith, graduate research assistant in the depart ment of agronomy, provided some detail on the bur cucumber study at Penn State. Also, herbicide studies looked at weed control in no-till and con ventional till com.