Grazing Walk Planned for Thursday at Elizabethtown Property

By George G. Landis, Reading Eagle, Pa.

Jun. 24–The first of seven grazing walks in southeast and southcentral Pennsylvania will take place Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Masonic Homes, Elizabethtown.

Frank Stoltzfus is the agriculture production supervisor of the 1,400 acre complex with 300 acres in grazing. About 190 cows and calves graze on paddocks from three to six days.

The walks are sponsored by Clyde A.B. Myers and Mena Hautau, educators for Pennsylvania State University Cooperative Extension in Berks County and Dan Ludwig, southeast Pennsylvania grazing specialist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service.

Berks exhibitor: Gwen Powers, Bethel, will exhibit Angus cattle next week at the National Junior Angus Show in Tulsa, Okla.

Powers, a junior member of the American Angus Association, is one of 817 young Angus breeders from 37 states who have entered a total of 1,773 head in the show.

Corn growth: Pennsylvania’s corn crop is 93 percent emerged, which is 6 percentage points ahead of the five-year average, the Pennsylvania field office of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service reported.

Corn height is 19 inches, which is 3 percentage points ahead of this time last year and 4 points ahead of the five-year average. Conditions are showing that 70 percent of the corn crop is in good or excellent condition.

Meanwhile, 94 percent of soybeans have been planted. This is 10 percentage points higher than the five-year average and 2 points above this time in 2006. The service said 68 percent of the soybeans are in good or excellent condition.

Ecosystem seminar: A regional seminar on the practice of restoring native ecosystems will take place Tuesday starting at 8:30 a.m. at the Penn State Great Valley campus in Malvern, Chester County.

The seminar will examine the principles behind the concept of restoration as well as important issues, approaches and techniques.

Food safety: Pennsylvania State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture will present a workshop Thursday at 2:30 p.m. on the “Good Agricultural Practices” program at Penn State’s fruit research and extension center in Biglerville.

This session offers participants a valuable opportunity to understand current agricultural food safety standards as they relate to tree fruit production and how the USDA audit program works.

Virus survey: State and federal agriculture officials have begun surveying and testing stone fruit trees in Pennsylvania as part of the Plum Pox virus eradication program.

Plum Pox virus severely decreases fruit production. Infected fruit may appear deformed or blemished and could drop prematurely from trees. Plum Pox causes no harm to animals or people who eat fruit from an infected tree.

In 2006, the department’s sampling and testing found only six positive Plum Pox samples out of more than 237,000 tested.

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Copyright (c) 2007, Reading Eagle, Pa.

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