f
Va. Association Sale Upcoming
HARRISONBURG, Va. The first six Hereford bulls certified as
Virginia’s Finest by the Virginia Hereford Association (VHA) and Vir
ginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS)
have been consigned to the Hereford Association’s annual sale on
April 19, during the Virginia Beef Expo in Harrisonburg, Va.
The Virginia’s Finest Trademark Program identifies and promotes
outstanding Virginia agricultural products that consistently meet the
high quality standards proposed by industry and approved by the De
partment.
Six of the twenty bulls that started the performance tests in August
2001 met the qualifications for Virginia’s Finest certification and sale
criteria. During the testing period each bull was monitored for rate of
gain and underwent ultrasound tests for intramuscular fat, backfat
and ribeye size.
Livestock Marketing Specialists from VDACS evaluated and scored
each bull for muscling, structural soundness and overall quality.
“Our goal is to make the Hereford cattle industry more profitable in
Virginia. We expect many of these bulls to end up in black herds,
where the Hereford breed has a tremendous amount to offer in hybrid
vigor,” said Sid Rogers, Chairman of the VHA Bull Development Pro
gram.
The sale will take place on April 19, 2002 at 3:30 p.m. at the Rock
ingham County Fairgrounds in Harrisonburg, Virginia. For additional
information, contact the Virginia Hereford Association at (540)
347-6663.
Organic Mulches May
Boost Transition From
Plowed Land To No-Till
WOOSTER, Ohio Farmers
looking to convert their plowed
land to no-till may be able to con
trol disease pressure and improve
soil fertility by spreading organic
mulches such as animal manures
and composts.
Ohio State University re
searchers have found that adding
organic mulches helped to de
crease the time it took to convert
from plow-till to no-till, with the
benefits of the mulches showing
up within the first year of appli
cation.
“It usually takes a few years,
two to five, to successfully con
vert plow-till to no-till, especially
with clay soils, because there are
more insect and disease prob
lems,” said Wafren pick, a soil
science researcher with the Ohio
Agricultural Research and Devel
opment Center (OARDC). “We
found that the organic amend
ments helped to stimulate the mi
crobes in the soil to counteract
disease organisms and reduce
their expression in the field.”
Dick said that adding manures
to fields to improve soil fertility is
common, but using high rates of
manures (or composts) to aid in
the transition of plow-till to no
till is a relatively new idea. Dick
will discuss how the impact of
various mulches can jump start
no-till practices at the Conserva
tion Tillage and Technology Con
ference, Feb. 25-26 in Ada, Ohio.
Over 50 speakers from land
grant universities, the farming
sector and agricultural industries
and organizations will be speak
ing at the two-day conference.
The program will cover a wide
range of topics including agricul
ture-related panel discussions,
strip till research, weed and pest
management, soil fertility, GMO
crops, value-added farming, crop
consulting, soil and water quality
issues, precision agriculture and
producer programs.
“The organic mulches provide
a slow release of nutrients, like
nitrogen, phosphorus and potas
sium that tends to match the re-
quirements of the crops through-
out the growing season,” said
Dick. “In our studies, we found
that we didn’t have the yield de
pressions that you normally see
when planting into clay soils that
had been tilled but now are being
converted to no-till.”
He recommends a one-time
high rate mulch application of
about 15-to 20 dry tons per acre
and then an annual three-to five
dry ton per acre application for
as long as the farmer is able to
apply the organic amendments.
“Depending on the location of
the farm, organic mulches, like
animal manures and yard trim
mings, are easy to come by and
are cheap,” said Dick. “If farm
ers do use organic mulches, we
recommend they add the mulch
in the fall to give the decomposi
tion process time to get started.”
Sixty-percent of corn and 24
percent of soybeans in Ohio are
grown on no-till land. In 2000,
crops were grown on over 50 mil
lion acres of no-till land through
out the country. Part of the Ohio
State study was conducted at
OARDC, where researchers have
been managing no-till for 40
years, the longest continuously
maintained no-till test plots in
the world.
Registration after Feb. 11 is
$3O a day or $4O for both days.
For a copy of the agenda, regis
tration information, or directions
to Ohio
Northern
University,
contact the
Hancock
County
Ohio State
Extension
office at
(419)
422-3851 or
the Allen
County Soil
and Water
Conserva
tion District
at (419)
223-0040
Tee Times Golf
Outing Set
UNIVERSITY PARK (Centre
Co.) The Penn State Depart
ment of Dairy and Animal Sci
ence invites you to enjoy a day of
golf and fellowship at their sec
ond annual “Tee Times for Tui
tion” golf outing. This year’s
event is scheduled for Tuesday,
June 18, at the Penn State Blue
Course along Route 26 in State
College.
Individual sponsorships start
with a $lOO fee, which covers the
participants’ greens fees, cart,
continental breakfast, and barbe
que dinner. Various levels of
sponsorship are available beyond
the individual level, from the
$250 “event sponsor” to the “out
ing sponsor,” which offers incen
tives based on each $l,OOO donat
ed.
The primary goal is to raise
money to fund student schol
arships. The department’s schol
arship honors represent 14.3 per
cent of the total tuition expense
for the 70 students receiving
awards.
There is no rain date for the
event. Preregistration is neces
sary. Visit http:// www. das.psu.e
du for more information on regis
tering for “Tee Times for
Tuition.” If you do not have web
access or if you have any ques
tions concerning the outing, con
tact Sylvia Way at (814)
865-1362 or sway @ psu.edu.
NFU Urges Caution On Cattle Imports
FT. COLLINS, Colo. Na
tional Farmers Union (NFU) has
urged the U.S. Department of
Agriculture’s Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service
(USDA-APHIS) to use extreme
caution when impoiting foreign
cattle into the US.
“Wide-scale importation of
foreign animals, such as commer
cial feeder cattle from Australia,
is a bad idea,” said Rocky Moun
tain Farmers Union President
John Stencel, who testified at the
APHIS public meeting in Fort
Collins, Colo., on behalf of NFU.
“It jeopardizes the safety of our
U.S. beef supply, the health of
domestic livestock and the liveli
hood of U.S. livestock produc
ers.”
Stencel, who represents pro
ducers from Colorado, Mex-
ico and Wyoming, said pro-
ducers are concerned about
the safety of their herds and
N.Y. Legislation To Propose
Ag Venture Capital Program
ALBANY, N.Y. Assembly
Agriculture Committee Chair
Bill Magee (D-Nelson) is plan
ning to introduce a bill to create
the AgriDevelopment Venture
Capital Program which would
allow the State Comptroller to in
vest public retirement funds in
new and existing agribusinesses.
“The agriculture industry, just
like the high tech" sector, is in
need of the investment capital
that this Program would pro
vide,” Magee said. “There is no
doubt that with an infusion of eq
uity farms, farmers and agribusi
nesses across the state will begin
to grow in profitability and num
bers.”
The AgriDevelopment Venture
Capital Program is patterned
after a similar program enacted
in 1999 which allowed the Comp
troller to invest the assets of the
Common Retirement Fund in
privately owned businesses but is
not specific to the unique needs
of agriculture and perhaps has
the tendency to focus more on
telecommunications and high
tech companies.
“Too often, agriculture is not
looked at as a means to improve
the state’s economy, but the fact
is that when you talk about the
are apprehensive about USDA’s
ability to protect them.
“Now is not the time to take
shortcuts on health and safety
protocols for imported cattle,” he
said. “In the wake of global re
ports of livestock disease out
breaks, both livestock producers
and consumers are experiencing
a high level of anxiety.”
Stencel pointed out that
USDA’s Office of Inspector Gen
eral (OIG) acknowledged last
July that more stringent controls
were needed to ensure the U.S.
was not accepting meat products
from countries with foot and
mouth disease. The OIG also re
vealed that hundreds of thou
sands of pounds of prohibited
meats were discovered in USDA-
inspected warehouses.
Stringent testing and import
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Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 16,2002-A43
Upstate economy you have to
talk about agriculture,” Magee
commented. “The creation of an
AgriDevelopment Venture Capi
tal Program clearly shines the
light on the need for equity in
vestments in farming and agri
culture.”
Initially, the bill would allow
the Comptroller to invest up to
$25 million in assets of the state’s
over $lOO billion Common Re
tirement Fund to be matched
equitably by private dollars cre
ating an investment infusion of
up to $5O million into the agricul
ture industry of New York State.
Among his other goals this ses
sion, Magee is pushing an agri
culture agenda that provides a
whole package of services for
farmers, food processors, agri
marketing associations and con
sumers. This includes the cre
ation of the state’s first
AgriDevelopment Zones; a new
focus on agricultural education in
schools that would entice young
people to enter farming as a ca
reer; as well as the continued
push on marketing “locally
grown, locally known” New York
agricultural products.
regulations for live cattle are crit
ical to protecting the nation’s
livestock populations, Stencel
said. But he also stressed that
“absence of evidence is not evi
dence of absence” when it comes
to livestock diseases.
NFU suggested that, at the
very minimum, mandatory coun
try-of-origin labeling for meat
products should be enacted to
better inform consumers and to
potentially trace sources of con
taminated products back to the
country in which it was pro
duced.
“Another significant and
threatening disease that should
not be overlooked is the ‘disease’
of market-depressing prices to
the livestock industry,” Stencel
said. “The importation of cattle
threatens the economic
K
m
health of the cattle sec-
tor, as well as the en
tire livestock indus
try.”