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‘ lndustry, Farmer, Scientist Working Together Toward A Sounder Grassland Program ’
Crownvetch Industry Is As P
Fred Grau Jr. examines a year-v . crown vet
grows to about two-feet high and is an excellent ground cover.
Seeleys’ Milky Way Farm Reaps Benefits Of Grazing
CAROLYN N. MOYER
Bradford Co. Correspondent
TROY (Bradford Co.) For the
Seeley family of Milky Way Farm in
Troy, the call of springtime is get
ting stronger and stronger every
day.
It not only signals the start of a
new growing season, but a shift in
focus for their entire operation.
“We will rotate cows by mid-
April, even though there is no
grass,” said Kim Seeley, who has
seen his farming focus change dra
matically over the years. “The
reason we do that is to get the ani
mals out of the barn. I think it’s im
portant to start grazing early just for
our mentality. The cows are excited,
too. They get spring fever just like
we do.”
Seeley’s grandparents purchased
the farm in 1928. In 1962, Kim’s
Pennsylvania Forage & Grassland Council
Newsletter Section April 21,2001
parents, Lewis and Marie, expanded
the operation by building a restau
rant and jugging operation. Their
goal at that time was to earn enough
money to put their four children
through college, which they did.
Kim and his wife Ann, along with
their two sons Shon, 18 and
Dane, 8 are an integral part of
the operation.
For many years the Seeleys ran a
conventional dairy along with their
jugging operation. In fact, they hold
the claim to having the oldest free
stall barn in Bradford County. After
a barn fire, the Seeleys decided to
move all the animals to a central lo
cation, with the milking animals in
total confinement.
“We built a brand-new barn in
1976 because of a barn fire. For
eight years we were in total confine-
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rennial As Plant Itself
near State C
lege. Crownvetch
Whole milk chocolate milk is one of the Milky Way’s successes.
Kim Seeley says that the whole milk and better ingredients set
their product apart from the rest. The Seeleys have been operating
a jugging plant since 1962.
Photo by Carolyn Moyer, Bradford Co. correspondent
GAIL STROCK
Mifflin Co. Correspondent
PINE GROVE MILLS (Centre
Co.) Dr. Fred Grau Sr. discov
ered a pretty lavender-flowered
cover plant along a shale pit near
Virginville, Berks County, in 1935.
Little did he know that it would
become one of the most sought-after
ground covers for the highway de
partment in the ’6os and a sole
source of business income for his
son, one of only three or four major
crownvetch producers in the coun
try.
By discovering crownvetch and
developing the production and mar
keting of the crop, Fred became the
founder of the crownvetch industry.
“He didn’t know what it was,”
said Fred Grau Jr. “He was an ex
tension agronomist in turf at Penn
State in 1935. He brought some back
to Penn State and identified it. He
immediately saw the erosion control
use for it.
“In the late ’4os and early ’sos,
Penn State picked up on the idea of
using it. My father, Penn State, the
Department of Agriculture, and the
Department of Highways together
conducted three years of research on
crownvetch in the late ’4os. Then
they released it as Penngift Crown
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