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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1981-07-15, Page 21Huron farm and home news Times -Advocate, July 15, 1981 Pone 21 It's even hotter insldethe barn, so check your ventilation system When it's hot outside, it's even hotter inside so ef- ficient ventilation systems in livestock barns are es- pecially important during the hot summer months, says Dr. J.R. Ogilvie, direc- tor of the School of Engineering at the Universi- ty of Guelph. Animal barns need three to five times as much air in summer as in winter. Max- imum air circulation is es- sential to keep barn temperatures close to out- side temperatures. Check and clean all fans before summer heat hits, says Dr. Ogilvie. Shutters, motors and screens need cleaning, and all air inlets should be kept wide open and free of obstructions so fans have ample air. "Cleaning is easier in the summertime, but a lot of people ignore it," says Dr. ENGINEERING TECH- NICIAN — Ron Meidinger, son of Mr. and Mrs. Steve Meidinger, Zurich, graduated June 26 from Fanshawe College London in the Mechanical Engineering Technician (Design) course. He has secured a position with Fisher Bearings Ltd. Stratford. Ogilvie. "Clean fans will prevent overheating." Check belts on larger, slow -speed fans to ensure they are not slipping. This is also the time to consider energy efficient fan motors," says Dr. Qgilvie. Energy efficient (EE) motors offer an energy sav- ing alternative, especially with motors working 24 hours a day. They use sub- stantially less energy than conventional motors to move the same amount of air. Barns should also be checked for excess air in- lets. "When it's hot, the tenden- cy is to fling open all the doors and windows," says Dr. Ogilvie. "But then you have natural ventilation and you might as well shut off all the fans." Too many open windows and doors, combined with fans, can result in short cir- cuiting. Air enters through an opening near a fan only to be drawn out by the exhaust fan before it circulates in the building. Avoid large openings near fans. Too many open windows and doors, combined with fans, can result in short cir- cuiting. Air enters through an opening near a fan only to be drawn out by the ex- haust fan before it cir- culates in the building. Avoid large openings near fans. Also, watch for dead spots of air in the barn. You can tell if air is circulating properly by walking around the barn and smelling for freshness. Pork producers should recognize the need for in- door circulation, especially in farrowing barns, says Dr. Ogilvie. Farrowing crate walls can create a stale air zone, increasing the heat stress on sows ready to farrow. Indoor fans can direct air over animals and increase air circulation in the barn. For further information in ventilation problems in Seek volunteers for Huron centre The Huron Day Centre for the Homebound located at Huronview in Clinton is in great need of volunteers Super duper woofle dust Here is a summer event for the entire family! The Andrew Forgrave super duper woofle - dust magic show will be presented on Thursday, July 23, at the Exeter Branch Library at 10:30 a.m. and the Kirkton Branch Library at 3:00 p.m. This 60 minute program contains music, comedy, mystery doves, Clarence Tiberius Rabbit the third, audience participation and the mysterious element of Woofle Dust. Forgrave has performed for adults and children at libraries and playgrounds throughout Southwestern and Northern Ontario.There is free admission to this program and you are invited to attend. This event is funded through Outreach Ontario. Too often, a luxury becomes a necessity when You can make a down payment on it. livestock and poultry barns, contact your local agricultural office. SEED CROP INSPECTION APPUCATIONS "Seed growers who have not been able to mall their application for seed crop in- spection to the Canadian Seed Growers' Association because of the postal strike are requested to take their applications to the nearest office of the Plant Products Division of Agriculture Canada. If seed growers are not sure that their application has been received by the Canadian Seed Growers' Association because of the postal strike, It is suggested that they check by telephon- ing the C.S.G.A. in Ottawa at (613) 236-0497.' - D. S. Pullen, Agricultural Represen- tative. SERVICE DURING POSTAI. DISRUPTIONS The Clinton Agricultural Office will be accepting mall from the public that is ad- dressed to any Provincial Government offices, during the present postal disrup- tions. We will also receive mail addressed to the Federal. Agricultural Stabilization Board, and combine it with the O.1V5A.1 mail sent by courier on a regular basis. Further, we have agreed from the Exeter area. Volunteers are needed to drive clients to the centre (They receive remuneration for mileage) to teach crafts, do woodworking and assist with whirlpool baths, water therapy and exercise programs. Transportation for volunteers is provided if needed. The Centre is presently open four days a week: Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. In the fall it will be open on Tuesday as well. People who are homebound due to physical or mental disabilities come to the Centre from throughout the County. Twelve to 15 people come in each day from 10:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. fora fun day of socialization and recreation. Most of the clients are elderly. Some are han- dicapped. Wednesday are set aside for a stroke Recovery Club. On this day str%ke patients meet each other, socialize, exercise and learn new crafts. Each day clients receive a hot meal at noon. The aim of the Centre is to keep the elderly and han- dicapped out of institutions and in their own homes as long as possible. If you are interested in giving some of your time to a worthy cause please contact Nancy Anstett or Karen Scruton at the Huron Day Centre for the Homebound at 482-7943. to cooperate with Holstein breeders and Holstein Canada head office, Brant- ford, in a mail pick-up and delivery system during the postal disruptions. Holstein Canada staff or their designated courier ser- vice will call once a week to bring mail from Brantford and to take mail from the Holstein boxes back to Brantford. - Don Pullen Agricultural Representative 1981 • Kidney Ben Study Sixteen growers in Perth and Huron counties are par- ticipating in a kidney bean study. This study involves sampling the seed purchased by each grower and com- paring the emergence in the field with that obtained in the plots at Centralia College of Agricultural Technology. The twenty fields involved have already been walked to complete the first phase of the study. They will be rated for dis- ease, insects and other problems. Many growers walked their fields with us during the emergence check and some of their comments were echoed again and again. Their buggest con- cern coentered around the poor quality seed they were receiving. Many had noticed a greater number of split beans and quality seed they were receiving. Many had noticed a greater number of split beans and less unifor- mity in seed size than in provious years. These obser- vations were borne out at Centralia when the number of seeds per pound was calculated. Redkloud had a 23% difference in the number of seeds per pound between lots. One lot had 697 seeds/lb., another lot 859 seeeds per lb. Sacramento had a 10% difference. One grower remarked that since he paid a lot of money per acre for seed, he expected better quality. The twenty fields being watched were all planted between May 25 arid June 5 and all have gotten off to a good start. When tested in the plots at Centralia, all the lots exhibited 86% or better emergence. In the fileds, emergence was generally good, but in some cases, seed bed preparation could have been improved to in- -crease emergence. Seeding rates varied from 50-75 lbs. per acre with only six growers going at the recommended 60-65 lbs. Those using the lower seeding rates felt that the beans would fill in the rows. They also hoped that the chances of disease would be lessened by not crowding the plants. The number of plants per foot of row varied from 2.0 - 3.4. Even though many fields were below the suggested 3 - 5 plants per foot, the rows still looked full. This would indicate that 3 - 5 plants per foot may not be necessary in order to obtain full and vigorous stands. While walking the fields, a check for weeds nad insects was also made. Bindweed was present in many of the fields as were ragweed, twitch and sowthistle. Isolated patches of swamp smartweed, ground cherry, and climbing nightshade were also found. The only insect damage uncovered to date has been seed corn maggot. Half of the fields were planted, us- ing seeds treated with B-3 or DL Plus. Two of the un- treated fields showed some maggot damage. The plots at Centralia are showing some leafhopper burn but seed corn maggots have„not been a real problem. W 111 be watching the fiel for signs of bacterial blight and white mold throughout the summer. If a quality product is harvested, kidney beans can be a very profitable crop. By having growers participate in such studies as this, perhaps we can help them produce such a product more efficiently. JUNIORS DONATE — The Huron County Junior Farmers recently presented a cheque for $533.20 to Huron County's Family and Children's Services (FACS). The money, which was raised at the Junior Formers' provincial winter games in Exeter in February, will be used to buy skates and skating lessons for a girl and a bicycle for a boy, both in the care of FACS. Left to right are Peggy Rivers, co-ordinator of volunteer services at FACS and John Penn, local FACS director who accepted the cheque and Sharon Colclough, Junior Farmer president and Bob Wilson, Junior Farmer communityPtobettermentbnpr project hcom- mittee member who presented the cheque. City dwellers and antique hunters scan the auction sale advertisements looking for bargains. Check those pages of your favourite newspaper and you will find farm sales are taking up more and more space. What is a bargain to some, though, is the shattering of hopes and dreams to others. Not always, mind you, but sometimes. Auctioneers sometimes have a better idea of what is going on out there in the boondocks than many other observers of the farm scene. They are keenly aware of prices for farm livestock, feed, hay and machinery. They also have a pouchful of horror stories. A beef farmer near us, after 30 years of farming, was forced by a bank to liquidate. He was helpless to prevent it. High interest rates with subsequent lowering of equity caused the problem. At first, he was not bitter about it. Later, when bank officials did some surprising things, he felt he had been taken for a ride. The bank wanted its money. Fair enough, but officials put a price on his herd that was ridiculously low. No one took into con- sideration the increased value of his cow -calf operation between the time of the fore -closure and when a number of calves were born. The bank got its money. The farmer feels he got BUSY COLOURING -- Tammy Feltz, Chris Mosurinjohn, Teddy Hoffman, John Paul leibold, Jeremy Becker and Christy Mosurinjohn are busy with their crayons at the Dashwood Vacation Bible School, Friday. In the background are teache photo ers Deanne McKnight and Audrey Gibson. Utters are app'ec.aled by Bob Troller Efdak Rd Elm,ra Ont N38 2C7 shafted. Another case was also docum ented by an auc- tioneer friend of mine. The foreclosure proceedings started. Another farmer made a bid for the blue silo on the farm. He felt the price was reasonable. When he started to remove the silo, he found it almost full of feed. He told the bank officials that the feed in the silo was worth almost as much as he paid for the silo. "What do I do with this feed?" he asked. The bank said it was his problem, not theirs, and the original owner again got shafted. The reason? For the auctioneer, it was because the bank officials knew next to nothing about farming. They had no idea of the in- creased value of the cow -calf herd. They saw the contents of the silo as a nuisance. The original owners could have came out of the bankruptcy perhaps owning a little less and some other creditors besides the bank may have received a more money. Now that the government has moved to name a committee to review farm foreclosures, some im- provement can be expected. Henry Davis, a beef farmer from the Barrie area, ap- pears to have the credentials to help farmers. He was named to the committee in mid-June. He has indicated a certain amount of reluctance for the jobHe may be caught in that damned -if - you -do and damned -if -you - don't position. The work of reviewing foreclosures has been in the hands of three civil servants. The new committee will certainly have its hands full if we can believe all those • Deficiency symptoms In the corn - Pat Lynch This summer I have seen numerous corn fields show- ing zinc deficiency In some spots. The most common sympton is light streaking of the leaf, followed by a broad whitish band starting slightly in from the leaf edge and extending to the midrib. The leaf edges, midrib and top of the leaf remain green. The plants are often short and squatty. Sometimes the leaf edges take on a purplish colour. Generally, the plants outgrow this deficiency. But this year the prolonged lack of rain dramatized this deficiency - especially on soil with poor structure. The obvious solution then would be to just apply zinc with all your corn fertilizer. This year, Ken Britton near Mitchell, Ralph Buffins near Clinton, and Ray Brown near Goderich, all applied some zinc with some of their corn fertilizer. On all three farms, the corn is shorter and 1 to 2 leaves behind the non -treated corn. This is probably because the treated areas did not need zinc. This zinc treatment may have set up another micro nutrient imbalance. So back to the drawing board. John Oke, a Soil and Crop Improvement director in the Exeter area, also had zinc deficiency. After he noticed his defipiencies, he foliar sprayed with zinc but without any effect. He also foliar sprayed with zinc plus magnesium and it seemed to improve the crop. In this case, John was foliar spray- ing only the deficient area of the field, not the whole field. I think this points out the importance of only treating with micro nutrients the areas of fields showing micro nutrient deficiency, not the whole field. In the same manner, if you had a pen of pigs and one was ruptured, you would only treat the one - not the whole pen. So what's in store for the future. We will probably have more micro nutrient deficient areas. Of all the fields I mentioned, John Oke's is probably the only field where we can make im- provements for next year. Now that he knows his deficiency, he can broadcast micro nutrients on those deficient areas, or foliar spray each year. Purple corn too This past spring, we have also had numerous calls about purple corn. A lot of these calls have been Pioneer hybrids but then if one company has the lion's share of the market, the odds are there will be more complaints with their hybrids (percentage wise of acres planted, a small number of complaints.) stories in agricultural cir- cles. The recently -announced program to give beef far- mers $40 a head for every animal marketed in 1980 will be a step in the right direction. The program is expected to cost more than $30 million. The program will certainly help some beef farmers. Ralph Barrie, president of the federation of agriculture, said farmers cannot expect governments to bail out farmers for all their losses but the program is "rich" enough to help some people. What is desperately needed right now is a low- interest loan program to help farmers in financial dif- ficulties. I do not think for a moment that farmers enjoy being forced to belly up to the public trough for help. They would rather see a low- interest loan program than be given government han- douts. They are still a fiercely independent group. I am convinced they would prefer that all government subsidies be dropped, even in milk, if it were at all possible. But until such time as the general public is ready, willing and able to pay ful price for all food products those subsidies will remain There have been two theories advanced for this purple corn. One theory suggests that some corn companies have in their breeding lines a gene that gives a purple colour. This gene expresses itself under adverse growing conditions such as real wet and cold, or excessively dry - or if the soil is in poor condition. The other theory put forth is that hybrids with good stalk strength get this strength due to their calcium content. Calcium is used as a cementing agent in plant cells. The more calcium, the better the cell strength and thus stalk strength. All plants also have a unique calcium to phosphorus ratio. This second theory suggests that these plants that show purple are good utilizers of calcium,but poor utilizers of phosphorus. The plant takes up phosphorus but doesn't utilize it. Again, under stress conditions this phosphorus utilization is poorer. Harvey Wright of the Soils and Crops Brand did some testing on purple corn in Ox- ford county. His conclusions were that most fields pulled out of the purple colours and there was no yield loss. In some of the severe purple areas, there was very little corn. High rates of phosphorus, either broad- cast or with the seed, did not reduce the damage. This year I have noticed most of this coloured corn in areas that have either been Cecil R Squire Sales & Service Repair Shop Equipment 92 Waterloo St, Exeter 235-0465 IN ARMED FORCES -- David Marquardt graduated on June 25 •from C.F.B. Cornwallis, Nova Scotia. He has joined the R.C.R. and is presently stationed at C.F.B. Petawawo, Ontario. David is the son of Emerson and Lillian Johns of RR 3 Exeter, Ontario. JJIIIIII.lllllllllllllllllll111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111i1i11111111111111111{{III{I{II{{I{111111{Illlllllt{IIlUIIIIII,IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII IIIIIIIIIIIIIIL worked too often or too wet. An other common area is on knolls where the topsoil has eroded away. In some fields these areas are getting bigger for obvious reasons. The other most common areas are fieldsthat have not had a perennial forage recently. We can't treat the ailment but maybe we should look further ahead and treat the cause. By: Chris Allcott Soils & Crops Summer Assis- tant, Pay Lynch Soils & Crops Sepecfalist, John Heard Assistant Agricultural Representative Iflltllllllllllfllllllllllllllllllllllllllll Il! Field Crop Competition Anyone who wishes to enter their wheat, corn or beans in the field judging competi- tion for the Kirkton Agricultural Society contact Burns Blackler, Clarence Switzer or Ewart Crago. 1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 HESSTON 12% Prime Program Available now on all Hesston Farm Equipment. 12 mo. financing — 12% finance charge* 24 mo. financing — 14% finance charge* 36 mo. financing — 14.5% finance charge* •E^ectve annus' oercentage •ate OR, CHOOSE... FINANCE CHARGE WAIVERS to Dec. 1, 1981 OR... CASH REBATES You may choose an, one or three otters The Pnme Program. Wager of F,nance Charges or Casn Rebates — OFFER ENDS JULY 31, 1981 — FARM SUPPLY LIMITED PHONE 236-4934 236-4321 PRIME LINE HFSSPUN TERRA -GATOR Custom Application r 1 Saves Time and Money Ask About Our Special Summer Prices Fast, Economical Custom Flotation Manure Application. Serving Huron, Perth, Middlesex and Oxford for the past 3 years. For Information Call 519-225-2340 LO -DELL AGRI-SERVICES R.R. 2 Granton NOM IVO Dietrich Metal Products Manufacturer of Metal Trim Soles of Steel Siding Farm Building Construction Concrete Forming Complete Building Soles fork Self -Erected Structures s 1 '/4 Miles West of Mt. Carmel and '/2 Mile South R.R.## 8 Parkhill Phone 294-69401 �IIIIII11111111111111111111111111111111111H1111111111111111111111111111111111111111MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIrSF t 1'