El 6-Grower & Marketer, Lancaster Farming, Saturday, May 17, 2003 f Cora: To Grow Or Not? (Continued from Page Els) Instead of buying land, Charles Marshall from the federal Farm Services Agency advised beginning farmers to “put your money into income producing things. You have to reduce the amount of money you need. Do not buy land at the outset.” • Use credit sparingly and wisely. • Save your money. “Don’t go out to eat, buy new cars or a lot of new clothes,” advised Brian Moyer, a Berks County pas tured poultry producer. “Go to the store very little. Make do with what you have.” • Add value to what you produce. “Value-added is where farmers here in Pennsylvania and the rest of the Northeast can beat the socks off of those of us in the Midwest who raise corn,” said Looker. “We may have some of the best soils and flattest fields on earth, but you’ve got millions of poten tial customers.” Holley Moyer, Brian’s help mate, said she does that by turning her goat milk into sev eral different kinds of “pot cheese,” which is exempt from food processing laws. Just one gallon of milk produces one pound of cheese that retails for $l4, which is more than most dairy producers receive for milk by hundredweight. The Moyers first bought goats to reclaim overgrown land. • Buy crop insurance, ad vised John Berry, Extension marketing specialist for south eastern Pennsylvania. It is a good risk management tool, comparable to homeowners, health and auto insurance. Secretary Supports Aquaculture HARRISBURG (Dauphin Co.) Agriculture Secretary Designee Dennis C Wolff an nounced the opening day of trout season. In support of the Pennsylvania Aquaculture program, the Department of Agriculture encourages every one to eat more of the com monwealth’s fresh and healthy farm-raised trout. “Research has proven that farm-raised trout contribute to a healthy diet,” Secretary Wolff said. “Trout season pro vides the community with a perfect opportunity to enjoy the benefits of eating one of Pennsylvania’s fine agricultur al products fresh farm-raised trout.” The Pennsylvania Depart ment of Agriculture (PDA) is working to ensure that Penn sylvania waterways are filled with farm-raised fish. In order to reduce effluents and poten tial pollutants in trout, PDA asked Zeigler Brothers, Inc. to • Explore the financial, land, housing and other re sources of your extended fam ily before turning to lenders and real estate agents. Federal farm programs, the speakers said, won’t do much for beginners since they most ly help larger, established farms that are getting bigger and pushing land prices high er. That’s especially true of commodity programs. Hog production, once a tra ditional “mortgage burner,” is also risky for beginners, unless they specialize in pastured or organic production and direct marketing, usually to some niche market. Successfully getting started in farming today all comes down to learning to be a suc cessful entrepreneur, not just an agronomist or tractor driv er, concluded Marion Bowlan, executive director of Pennsyl vania Farm Link. Key personality traits in clude passion and persistence, good health and lots of ener gy, creativity and innovation, independence and self-reli ance, good intuition, self-con fidence, market awareness, lack of need for status, accept ance of challenge and a strong work ethic. As what she called a “calcu lated risk-taker,” you’ll no doubt figure out pretty quick ly on your own that com is definitely not the place to start. Editor’s note: George De- Vault raises certified organic vegetables in Lehigh County. He is a Food and Society Fel low, a program of the Thomas Jefferson Agricultural Insti tute in partnership with the Institute for Agricultural and Trade Policy and funded by the W.K.Kellogg Foundation. perform an experiment. In co operation with The Pennsyl vania State University and the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC), Zeigler Brothers, Inc. conducted a study called “Trout Feed Evaluation: Integrating Waste Treatment Criteria.” In the experiment, trout feed formu lations were studied at Penn State’s Rockspring Research Center. On March 23 697 rainbow trout raised during the study were donated to a PFBC Cooperative Nursery in Montour County. This study is one of many that have been conducted in order to preserve the nutrition content of Penn sylvania’s farm-raised fish. For more information, con tact the Pennsylvania Depart ment of Agriculture at (717) 783-8462. For a free brochure or a trout cookbook, contact the U.S. Trout Farmers Asso ciation at (304) 7|B-^lB9. New Soil Bacterial Disease Of Geraniums/Tomatoes Eric Oesterling, from a talk by Dr. Seong-Hwan Kim at Mid Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable Conference, Hershey, Pa. I heard a very interesting talk at the Mid-Atlantic Fruit and Vegetable Conference that I feel I need to share with vegetable growers in Pennsyl vania. Dr. Seong-Hwan Kim, plant pathologist supervisor at the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, has identified a disease on greenhouse gerani um cuttings that he fears could threaten tomatoes and potatoes in Pennsylvania fields. It is a bacterial disease caused by Ralstonia solana cearum (=Pseudomonas sola nacearum, =Burkhordeia so lanacearum). In April 1999, a Pennsylvania geranium grow er lost 10-40 percent of seven different varieties of Guate mala-propagated geraniums because of R. solanacearum. This was the first occurrence of the disease in Pennsylvania. In March 2000, one green house lost a few plants of Michigan-propagated gerani ums, and in April 2000, anoth er greenhouse lost 20 percent of geraniums that were also from Michigan. More recently the disease has been discov ered on geranium cuttings originating from Kenya. The disturbing things about this disease are: It is caused by MAXIMIZE PRODUCTIONS Cultivate Your Row Crops With l&J Implements. *• 3 pt. tool cart with plow, harrow, potato The horse drawn riding cultivatorfs ideal for efficient plow & scraper attachments, weed control. Add our roller .--v & prepare beds easily! Steers with feet. Maintain crops with our 3 or 5 | . Pii rnSßfTi tinecu l tivators - Horse drawn cultivators, I to 4 N *-\ v Numerous options available. Call Us About All Of Our Farming ioHR J\ Implements. . wm . 1 rMB Cultivators from I-6 rows I for small or large tractors. __3? Fjord Horses For Sale! 1& 1 l&J Manufacturing BiaeS 5302 Amish Road • Gap, PA 17527 • 717/442-9451 a a * f a bacteria which attacks the roots and stem of not only ge raniums, but also tomatoes, eggplants, and potatoes. It is possible that this strain of the bacteria can overwinter in Pennsylvania soils. Let me emphasize that to this point there is no evidence that the disease is established in Penn sylvania soils it has been found only in greenhouses on geranium cuttings that came in from out of state or out of the country. The obvious con cern is that the disease could move from geraniums to to mato transplants in the same greenhouse and then have in fected tomatoes planted out doors. As a soil-home bacteria, it would be difficult to control in the field. Symptoms include yellowing and wilting of af fected plants caused by a root rot. It does not cause leaf spots. The geranium isolate of R. solanacearum found in Penn sylvania greenhouses belongs to the low temperature bio type, Biotype 11/Race 3, which is a quarantine pest in Canada and Europe. Biotype II is the biotype usually found on pota toes or tomatoes in temperate climates (Hayward, A.C. 1976, In Proc. Ist International Conf. and Workshop on the Ecology and Control of Bact. Wilt Caused by Psedomonas solanacearum. E. L. Sequeira and A. Kelman). All geranium isolates from both 1999 and Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture 2000 were tested and found to be the low-temperature bio type, Biotype II (Kim, S.H. unpublished data). Tomatoes and eggplants appear to be much more sus ceptible to the geranium iso lates of R. solanacearum than are geraniums (Kim, S.H. un published data). Tomatoes and eggplants should not be grown in greenhouses with ge raniums that were propagated in regions where Biotype II is known to occur (such as Mexi co, Central America, the Car ibbean, Africa, and South America). Further studies are needed. The bacteria should not be re leased near tomato and potato fields because Biotype II has the potential to be an invasive species that can survive out doors in Pennsylvania. Once established, chemical control would be very difficult. Crop rotation away from tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, and other solanaceous crops in a given field for at least two years would work to reduce or elim inate the bacteria in that field as long as nightshade weeds were also eliminated. If you encounter an unex plained wilt on geraniums (es pecially cuttings originating from out of the country), con tact Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture plant inspectors or your Penn State extension agent with a background in horticulture.
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