Page 6—Ag Progress Section 1, Lancaster Farming, Saturday, August 12, 2000
ROCKSPRING (Centre Co.)
If invention is 10 percent in
spiration and 90 percent perspi
ration, it will be no sweat to be
inspired by the agricultural in
ventions showcased at Penn
State’s Ag Progress Days, Aug.
15-17.
The College of Agricultural
Sciences Exhibits Building, on
West 11th Street at the Ag Prog
ress Days site at Rockspring,
will feature several inventions
that changed the face of agricul
tural business, as well as innova
tions that helped create new
business opportunities and edu
cational technologies.
“Visitors will really get an
idea of how much work goes into
bringing an invention to
market,” said George Hamilton,
senior lecturer in agronomy and
inventor of Penn Mulch, an envi
ronmentally friendly mulching
product for lawns and gardens.
“For me, the real work started
after I had the idea and figured
out that it would work. I think
this display really shows all the
facets of how new ideas come to
market.”
One of the building’s main ex
hibits will detail how DuPont
Inc. and Hummer Athletic
Fields collaborated with Andrew
McNitt, assistant professor of
turfgrass science, to work with
them on the development of
Grass Tiles, a turfgrass system
for sports stadiums. McNitt
mixed and tested a variety of re
silient materials used with sand
and turfgrass to create an im
proved playing field.
“Using the Grass Tiles
system, a crew can lay down an
entire football field over an as
phalt surface, and a team could
play on it the next day,” McNitt
said. On display will be a ma
chine used to install the large,
square turf tiles and a special
machine used to simulate the
wear and tear inflicted on a turf
surface during a typical football
game.
Hamilton’s invention,
Lexi Lingle, 5, holds the wheel of a brand-new tractor
while cousin Bob Hartman, Jr., 4, looks out on a bustling
crowd at last year’s Ag Progress Days. Lexi Is the daughter
of Brian and A.J. Lingle, Centre Hall, and Bob is the son of
Bob Hartman Sr. and Jackie, Port Matilda. They visited Ag
Progress mid-week last year to check out the new equip
ment and have fun.
Penn State’s Ag Progress Days Celebrates
Invention, Innovation In Agricultural Sciences
Penn Mulch, also marketed for
consumers under the name
Emerge, created a new product
category for lawn and garden
centers pelleted paper mulch.
The product uses recycled news
paper fiber and fertilizer mixed
with a polymer that expands on
contact with water to form a
protective mulch over lawns or
landscape and vegetable gar
dens.
Another inventor, Joseph
Mac Neil, professor emeritus of
food science, will display and
demonstrate his prototype for a
machine that separates the egg
shell from the protein mem
brane coating the interior of the
shell. Mac Neil’s process, which
is now licensed and used by
Cutler Eggs, a Philadelphia egg
processing company, has been
adapted to create value-added
products from what were once
landfill-bound eggshells.
Once the shell is separated
from the membrane, processors
can market the calcium in the
eggshells and use collagen from
the shell’s protein membrane for
medical products.
Another Penn State innova
tion, Penn State’s Community
Impact Model, or CIM-PSU,
uses a database of economic in
formation from Pennsylvania’s
67 counties to analyze how
changes in a community’s econ
omy will affect the long-term
health of the area. Designed by
Tim Kelsey, associate professor
of agricultural economics, and
Martin Shields, assistant profes
sor of agricultural economics,
CIM-PSU can be used by a com
munity to better plan its eco
nomic development strategies
and react to economic down
turns.
Innovation in outreach to new
audiences will be on display in
an exhibit about a Penn State
Cooperative Extension program
in Potter County called Com
munity Information Network.
The display details how rural
communities can utilize infor-
mation technologies to compete
in the global economy by creat
ing a community technology
center and using community re
sources to market the communi
ty’s resources nationally and
internationally.
Another outreach exhibit will
detail how Penn State Coopera
tive Extension and Outreach
and Continuing and Distance
Education created the Mifflin
County Outreach and Coopera
tive Extension Center, which
provides educational and voca
tional opportunities for the
largely rural Juniata Valley, an
area that has no college or uni
versity within 30 miles of its
population. Visitors can see how
the new center has provided op
portunities for undergraduate
and graduate degree programs
as well as vocational training
and extension education pro
grams.
The College of Agricultural
Sciences’ Publications Distribu
tion Center will provide a dis
play of college publications.
Visitors can pick up a variety of
Penn State
free publications and an order j u jy jq to Ai
form for the college’s for-sale Progress
publications. World Wide
ror more information, call cas nsn win
(800) PSU-1010 toll-free from cas P suedu -
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