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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1982-11-24, Page 15• Perth's soyabean champ BY MARIE +>YNES For the first time in 17 years, Perth county has a winner in field crops at the Royal Winter Fair. And, for the first time,a world champion soya bean grower is located this far north. Yes, Lorne Fell of RR 2, Staffs, not oily took the world championship forsoya bean growing, but he broke some traditions the act. After getting a second placimg last year at theRoyal Winter Fair, Mr. Fell was more than pleased to be declared world champion in 1982. He and his wife Helen and their c 'Ldren, Roger, Sharon, Joyce and Pauline were all in Toronto to accept the trophy presented by Victory Soya Mills Ltd. off Toronto, a cheque for $100 and an engraved silver tray. To become a world champion, you have to enter and win one of the three categories of competition- pedigree, r ! en or 4-111; Lorne took the open championship. Then, the champions of eacltof the three classes must compete, and he again took top place, which made him world champion. Other qualifications were- ha `rig four acres of soya bean crop this year or di eprevious year and exhibiting 10 pounds of the beans. There were 50 entries in the three classes this year. "In the last 20 years, half of the awards for soya beans went to the state of Indiana", says Mr. Fell. He has been growing soya beans for the last four years, although he tried it for three years too in the early 70's. "The varieties at that time couldn't get a high enough yield to make growing soya beans as worthwhile as growing white beans," he said."Now white beans yield is going down and soya bean is going up. Soya beans are not nearly as risky as white beans," he added. "1 straight combine them, they will stand the weather and they won't deteriorate." Mr. Fell has been a farmer all his life, taking over his father's farm (Bert Fell, now deceased), in 1960. He says he started into the seed business 35 years ago, at the age of l5 when he showed at the Royal and got a second placing. He sold his grain and 'bought seed, and that washow he really got into the seed business. He gadually worked his way up from there, getting into soya beans, oats, barley, wheat and white beans. He has no livestock, but on the Fell LORNIE AND HELEN FELL erty is his own seed processing plant. s process cleans the beans, treats them and bags them, and he sells the seed retail to farmers mainly. "People also grow grain for as and we process it," says Lorne. By 'we' he means he and his son Roger, now 13 and the rest off the family sometimes pitching in. He hires a part-time man in the winter because winter is their busy time. Bringing the trophy home to Perth County was a real thrill for Lorne. He says, "1 know of only two other men who came home with awards in field crops - Joe French of Mitchell (deceased) in 1963 for barley, and Roy Coulter of Milverton for barley in 1965. Lorne belongs to the Canadian Seed Growers', Se -Can Associat- ion, and is a director with the Mitchell Agricultural Society. The trophy is giant size, and now sits in the Agricultural Hall of Fame, Toronto with Mr. Fell's name engraved for 1982. It depicts the statue of a man holding the world in one hand and a stream of soya beans in the other. standing above a miniature of a farm. From the time Lorne Fell was a member of the boys' and girls' Grain Club in his teens (the forerunner of 4-H) to today he has been aiming high, and this year proved just how high; he now sits on the world champion soya bean grower's throne. r HFA will hear new general manager Huron County Federa- tion of Agriculture's monthly meeting is to be held Thurs- day, December 2, at the St. James Separate School in Seaforth. The guest speaker is the new O.F.A. general manager, Harry 2 er. He is assuming - [ti on formerly held by J Hale Short cour Rural people in this arca will have some interesting courses to -choose from this winter. Centralia College of Agricultural Technology has released its brochure describ- ing winter programs. "There are more courses than last year" said Don Cameron, head of Continuing Education Most of the courses are • called "longer training pro- grams" and they are at least 30 hours in length. Many are held in the evenings and all are free of charge. Fourteen of the twenty-two longer programs will be held in off -campus locations- Five swine management programs will be held in centres rang- ing from Atwood and Bel - more to SI. Jacobs and then Stratford and Parkhill. "This gives us a swine program accessible to a lot of different producers in this part of the province." Mr. Cameron ..stated. Also a Feeder Pig ' program will be held in St. Marys and some interesting crop programs. a Crop Pro- duction and Marketing course in Atwood and Crop Pest Control in the Board room of OMAF Huron in Mr. Zwerver was born in the Netherlands in 1942 and attended high school in Brockville. He received his B.A. degree at Calvin College Reports will be heard from the delegates who attended the O.F.fi. Convent$oqgeld Nov. 22 to 25 in Toronto. A social get-together with ses offered Clinton will be held. Also, to help farmers Financial Man- agement courses feature area accountants and Ministry of Agriculture and Food special- ists. Courses will be held at OMAF Waterloo, in Seaforth "We also have some inter- esting on -campus programs" Mr. Cameron emphasized. New this year is a course for Fruit and Vegetable pro- ducers. Also, a Young Swine Farmers Training Program featuring two weeks of class- room work and two weeks of on-farm training has -been developed. "This swine pro- gram is very similar to the successful young dairy farm- er training program." said Mr. Cameron. "We have some one -day short courses planned as weB," he said. The annual "Farm lncotne Tax Update" will be held again this year. A Beef Day is planned and a program on Trading In Corn. modity Futures will be offer- ed. For more information about these and other courses offered by Centralia College. contact Continuing Education at 228-6691. coffee will be held trom 8:00 to 8:30, with meeting begin - nine at 8:30. THE HURON EXPOSITS -R, NOVEMBER 24, 1982 — A15 Alfalfa disease is serious BY PAT LYNCH Solis and Crops Specialist You read about the new alfalfa disease -Verticillium Wilt -in this column about eight weeks ago. Since then we have done a mini -survey. We checked 12 consecutive fields in south Perth, 12 in north Perth and 12 in central Perth and Huron. Of these 36 fields 18 or 50% have been confirmed by the lab at the University of Guelph as hav- ing Verticillium Wilt. Thirty of the 36 fields had field symptoms of Verticillium Wilt. The survey did not include fields planted in 1982. If this disease advances in 1983 as it did in 1982 these 18 fields will have no third cut, half a crop for the second cut, but hopefully about 90% of a normal first cut. Stands es- tablished in 1982 should have 3 normal cuts in 1983. Within a plant there are two main conducting sy- stems. One is responsible. for moving water and nutrients to the top of the plant (xylem). The other moves sugars from the leaves back to the roots (phloem). Verticillium Wilt (or vert as it is nb knamed) A A`''ver f nkeit fig OnC@ gcxA 'd@ VMQVow byi30b 7ff L4@P' A groundswell of dissention is surging through the boondocks, in case you city folk have not noticed, • I'm a lover, not a fighter, but I just may join the ranks of thousands of disgruntled farmers who are protesting these days. 1 do not condone the foolishness that a group of farmers perpetrated in the Owen Sound area last year. They dressed up in masks and at least one carried a rifle and pawned themselves off as vigilantes. They hoodwinked a Toronto paper into believing them. Nor do I applaud those who leave dead animals tossed carelessly on the steps of banking institutions. But the statistics prove conclusively that a great many farmers are having a tough time and they may be forced into taking a more militant approach. The federal consumer affairs department reported last month that more farmers had gone broke by the end of August than in all of 1981. A record 261 -farm bankruptcies were • reported in 1981 but by the end of August this year, 278 farmers were forced into bankruptcy. almost half of them livestock producers whose rising costs and huge debt loads were not matched by prices received in the marketplace. Ontario was the hardest hit with 117 bankruptcies followed by Quebec where hog farmers have been hard hit, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. These figures do not tell the whole story, either. Just take a look at the high number of auction sales in any rural area and you can add them to the attrition rate in agriculture. Instead of waiting for the foreclosures, many arc selling out while they can still salvage something. Farmers. then. are justifiably angry. Further proof was reported in September. An angry group of farmers applied enough hecklin pressure to an auctioneer's efforts. to r force the end to a sale of machinery that had been seizefl by a bank the night before the auction sale. A crowd of about 200 came to the sale barn in Lindsay, Ont., for the sale of machinery which had been owned by Ross Fisher, a cattleman. The protesters began shouting and the auctioneer cancelled the sale. Mr. Fisher ran a 2,000 -head cattle ranch north of Lindsay for 25 years. His debt of 81 million was accumulated over the years, he said.The combination of high interest rates and low prices for beef made it impossible to make payments. Bankers being bankers and not farmers demanded the money. Mr. Fisher, taking advice from the Canadian Farm Survival Association, ar- ranged for the removal of the equipment. It was rumored to be hidden in various spots all across Victoria County. The bank's people managed to find 11 pieces of equipment and the sale started. But it never finished. This is just one story fromthe naked country. There are thousands of them out there, just as there are thousands in the ' towns and cities. Bankruptcies are not confined to agriculture, There is a difference, though. Farmers raise food. Everybody eats, It is a difficult habit to break. Farmers constitute less than five per cent of the population now. If these bankruptcies continue, that percentage may dwindle to the, vanishing point. What, then, will we do for food? Import it all, most of it from the United States? And when there is a shortage over there, we'll pay a great deal more for it than the reasonable price most farmers are asking right now. Those protests by farmers will be mild compared to the fooferaw that will come if farmers cannot get a reasonable price for their .roducts. YOUR LAST CHANCE IN NOVEMBER to get that on I.H. Tractors and Equipment NOTICE Closed for Inventory LH. BIG BUCKS REBATE 7e9% FINANCING 12 MONTHS WAIVER Tailor One of The Three Programs Shown Abore Monday, November 29 OUR YEAR- END IS FAST APPROACHING Wnnld 1•rrri plrowr c hrr.*r row elf r"rrnrr 'Mg/ 11(1/' n5 twin up the /rrn5,' ends by November an l'!+_ Yrmr rn upr-rmtrrw will hr• greuth •'rrtr. r„toil S Y ,enlDrq�MMSn,-r•.n. SEAFORTH FARMERS CO-OP to Meet Your Requirements SE4fO41H 521' 0120 • FARM EQUIPMENT LIMITED , %H.DREH • AYR • ! AMBRIDGE • JVC)(; )StOC.K attacks the xylem tissue and makes this water conducting tissue very inefficient. If there is lots of moisture, vert does not seriously affect alfalfa. For this reason most of our first cut should be normal neat year. Once the late June -July drought period comes this disease really becomes evident. The plant will start to grow and as long as there is Tots of moisture everything is alright. How- ever, as soon as we get four or five days of extremely dr weather the plant will "wilt.” The diseased xylem tissue will not be able to keep the water flowing from the roots to the top. These individual plants or parts of plants will turn brown as if they have been frosted. In fields that have a high level of vert the affected plants tend to only grow a small number of stems. As long as there is lots of moisture these few stems tend to be taller than the nearby unaffected stems. But, when the water flow is slowed down these taller stems wilt. Please turn to page 18 ROOFING CONTRACTORS "ROOFS INSTALLED IN ANY TYPE OF WEATHER". LOCALLY CALL PAIL=527-1819 75 KEEWATIIN AVE. KITCHENE8 579.3015 - — ODLOT MANAGEMENT AND FUELWOOD OHKSHOP Topics: Selection of trees for cutting Safe tree telling techniques Burning fuelwood safely Time: 8:00 p,m, on Tuesday, November 30, 1982 Place: Royal Canadian Legion Hall 95 Kirk Street, Clfnton,,Ontario Free admission -Everyone welcome For further details, contact MURRAY HALL, Ministry of Natural Resources, RR.85, Winghem, Ontario. Telephone 15101 357.3131, inistry of afural es®Uro s •Mario -a CHRISTMAS SHOPPING• SPREE MONDAY, NOVEMBER 29 OPEN TILL 11 P.M. 7 /OFF ALL MERCHANDISE EXCEPT FOUNTAIN AND TOBACCO PROM. CTS VISA THE MET MET SUNCOAST MALL GODERICH 1_