Hello, Harford County! It seems that nowadays there is a “day” for everything: February 21 is National Tortilla Chip Day, July 16 is International Juggling Day, and June 9 is Donald Duck Day. And, of course, there are many others! With all these “days” it’s easy for National Agriculture Day—which was celebrated on March 19 this year—to be overlooked.

Rest assured, though, that Ag Day did not go overlooked in Harford County. With the help of contacts set up by our Farm Bureau, I was able to schedule a visit with each fourth grade class at Meadowvale Elementary School in Havre de Grace. My purpose was to bring National Ag Day to those students in the form of a fun and interactive science lesson about soils.

In our hour together, I shared with the students five soil samples that I had taken from different places around my house: pasture, garden, woods, stream, and a fallow area. Those who work the land can probably conjure up an image of what each of these soils might look like. But a ten year old with no experience outside of the dirt of his or her own backyard doesn’t even know there are different types of soil!

When I asked the students to share observations about the first sample I showed them, they said things like, “it looks like normal dirt.” But by the end of the lesson I heard comments like “this soil is more sandy” and “that soil has more organic matter.”

The activity we completed involved adding water to a soil sample, shaking it, and allowing the soil to settle. The soil particles will settle in layers with the sand at the bottom, the silt in the middle, and the clay on the top. The students then

New USDA Microloan

Program

2

New Colt on Campus 3

Guide to Seed

Treatment

Stewardship

4

Dairy Princess

Candidates Sought

5

New Phosphorus

Management Tool

6

Maryland Gourd

Festival

7

Clover Tea 7

University of

Maryland Extension

Harford County Office

P.O. Box 663

2335 Rock Spring Road

Forest Hill, MD 21050

(410) 638-3255

M—F 8:00 a.m—4:30 p.m.

harford.umd.edu

facebook.com/HarfordAg

Sara BhaduriHauck

Ag Extension Educator

sbh@umd.edu

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

could measure each layer and create a pie chart showing the relative percentages of each component in each sample. Some of the students were so enthralled with the activity that they promised to try it with soil from their backyards when they got home!

At the end of the day, I left the school physically exhausted (apparently I am not cut out to be an elementary school teacher!) but entirely fulfilled. I know that others in the county also visited schools, and some may have celebrated Ag Day in other ways. I hope those folks found Ag Day to be just as satisfying as I did!

You might think it’s hokey for agriculture to have a “day.” And maybe it is. But it’s a reason for the rest of the country to take notice of what we’re doing in agriculture, which allows us the opportunity to share our stories with an audience who is listening.

Now that Ag Day 2013 has just passed, there’s plenty of time to plan for Ag Day 2014. Ag Day efforts on the national level are coordinated by the Agriculture Council of America; for those interested in organizing activities on the local level, ACA provides a myriad of resources on their website. Check out www.agday.org for event ideas, planning tips, promotional materials, media kit, and a variety of teaching resources.

Wishing you a safe and successful spring season! Sincerely,

National Ag Day was March 19. How did you celebrate?

Commercial Vegetable Production RecommendationsCommercial Vegetable Production RecommendationsCommercial Vegetable Production Recommendations

Fruit and Vegetable Headline NewsFruit and Vegetable Headline NewsFruit and Vegetable Headline News———Early Edition AvailableEarly Edition AvailableEarly Edition Available

USDA Finalizes New Microloan ProgramUSDA Finalizes New Microloan ProgramUSDA Finalizes New Microloan Program

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has recently announced a new microloan program designed to help small and family operations, beginning, and socially disadvantaged farmers secure loans under $35,000. Funds can be used to pay for initial start-up expenses such as hoop houses, irrigation, livestock, land, and delivery vehicles and annual expenses such as seed, utilities, land rents, and marketing. Funds may also be used to construct buildings or make farm improvements. The new

microloan program is aimed at bolstering the progress of producers through their start-up years by providing needed resources and helping to increase equity so that farmers may eventually graduate to commercial credit and expand their operations. The microloan program will also provide a less burdensome, more simplified application process in comparison to traditional farm loans. The interest rate for microloans changes monthly but is currently at 1.25 percent. USDA’s microloans are being administered through the Farm Service Agency (FSA). Harford County producers interested in applying for a microloan should contact the Harford FSA office at 410-838-3950 .

Fruit and Vegetable Headline News is published by University of Maryland Extension bi-weekly during the growing season. Check out this season’s early edition! Articles include:

Virus Infections in the 2012-2013 Strawberry Crop Early Strawberry Monitoring Can Pay Off Season Long Vegetable Fungicide Update for 2013 Pruning Season GMO Corn: To Stack, or Not to Stack. That is the Question!

Contact the Harford County Extension Office to obtain a copy.

University of Maryland Extension’s guidebook of recommendations for

commercial vegetable production is now available! This publication

includes information about general production, soil and nutrient

management, irrigation management, pesticide safety, pest

management, insect resistance and control, records, and additional

resources for the great variety of vegetable crops grown in Maryland.

This is a thorough and detailed resource for growers but is not

intended for use by home gardeners. Access the publication online at

mdvegetables.umd.edu/files/EB-236_2013RecGuide.pdf or visit

http://extension.udel.edu/ag/vegetable-fruit-resources/commercial-

vegetable-production-recommendations/ for the same publication in

a more interactive format.

If you’ve been by the Campus Farm in the last couple of weeks, you may have noticed a crowd clamoring for a glimpse of the newest member of the Terrapin family frolicking outside the h o r s e b a r n : a thoroughbred colt born

in the early morning hours of March 8 as students and faculty watched on in wonder.

“It was the most exhausting but rewarding experience,” says junior animal science major Steven Moirano. “It was just incredible.”

Students like Moirano enrolled in an equine reproduction course were on “foal watch” for several days and nights prior to the colt’s arrival, sleeping inside the barn or the farm’s small office building. “All of a sudden it was happening and within 15 minutes the foal was out on the ground,” says senior animal science major Kristen Brady, who witnessed the foal stand and take his first steps within 30 minutes of his birth. “People don’t realize how much more productive a foal is than a baby being born. You can literally watch him learn everything within the first couple of hours.”

Since the colt’s arrival, crowds have been queued outside the horse paddock, fascinated by the “little” guy, who weighed in at 153 pounds at just four days old. Even construction workers are flocking to the farm fences to watch the colt gallop like he’s already training for the Kentucky Derby.

This marks the first time in three decades a foal has been born on the university’s Campus Farm. The practice was somewhat common before roughly the mid-80s, when the Campus Farm had more acreage. However, Dr. Amy Burk, coordinator of the equine studies program in the Department of Animal and Avian Sciences (ANSC), has been working for the past several years to bring foals back to campus.

“Not only is this going to make our Equine Studies Program better but it’s going to make people more aware of the horse-breeding industry – in particular Thoroughbreds – which to me is the most rewarding part of working with horses,” says Burk.

Animal science students have been involved with the entire process of preparing the horses to foal and bringing them to campus. In order to overcome space constraints on the Campus Farm, two pregnant mares were kept on a demonstration farm in Clarksville, Md. where research is being conducted on the effects of rotational grazing on pasture management. The mares were transported to campus about a month before the first – named Cassie – was due to give birth. (Pictured below: Cassie and her colt)

“They moved here beautifully,” says Brady, who assisted Dr. Burk with the plan for relocating the mares from Clarksville. “A ton of things could have gone wrong with moving them and introducing them to new horses and they handled it all with grace.”

The yet-to-be-named Thoroughbred colt was born at 6:48 on the morning of the first big Spring Open House for high school students admitted to

Rock Star Status for New Colt on CampusRock Star Status for New Colt on CampusRock Star Status for New Colt on Campus

By Sara Gavin, Communications Coordinator for the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources

The United States Eventing Association is seeking a

communications assistant to be primarily responsible for assisting

with the promotion and marketing of the USEA and its programs

and coordination and fulfilling contracts with USEA sponsors. The

position will involve some travel to provide on-grounds support for

the American Eventing Championships and media coverage for

some Gold Cup competitions. In addition, the successful candidate

will have the ability to assist with updating and maintaining the

USEA website. The ideal candidate will have a bachelor’s degree,

be well organized, deadline-oriented, and creative with excellent

written and verbal skills. Proficiency in Microsoft Office programs is required. Knowledge of the sport is

an advantage. Please send cover letter, resume, and writing samples to: USEA, Inc., Old Waterford

Road NW, Leesburg Virginia 20176, or e-mail to hr@useventing.com.

US Eventing Association Seeks Communications AssistantUS Eventing Association Seeks Communications AssistantUS Eventing Association Seeks Communications Assistant

Guide to Seed Treatment Stewardship AvailableGuide to Seed Treatment Stewardship AvailableGuide to Seed Treatment Stewardship Available

UMD for the upcoming fall semester. Many of the UMD animal science students acted like nervous parents, anticipating how the foal – and his mother – would react to the lines of people streaming by to sneak a peek.

The young chestnut brown colt will remain on campus throughout the fall semester so that students can continue to work with him. Faculty, staff and students within ANSC are compiling a list of suggested names for him and will

eventually invite the campus community to vote for their favorite. He’ll soon have a friend to frolic with too as another mare, named Amazin’, is due to give birth April 7 on campus, setting up round two of “foal watch.”

“The horse barn is just filled with so many people with joy and excitement so it’s really lightened everybody’s spirits and put a smile on people’s faces,” says Burk.

The Guide to Seed Treatment Stewardship is now available online at:

seed-treatment-guide.com This publication is the product of industry-wide collaboration between seed companies, seed treatment

providers, and universities and draws from data collected worldwide. Jointly produced by the American

Seed Trade Association and CropLife America, its purpose is to provide farmers and seed companies

with critical information and up-to-date guidelines for managing

treated seeds effectively to minimize the risk of exposure to

non-target organisms. As seed treatment technology advances,

more resources are developed and the needs of the seed and

crop production value chain evolve, the guide will be updates to

ensure the latest in seed treatment management information

for seed companies and growers. The guide has been endorsed

by the National Corn Growers Association, American Farm

Bureau Foundation, and the American Soybean Association.

Maryland Dairy Princess Candidates and Maids Sought

MD Nursery and Landscape Association Scholarships

The Maryland Nursery and Landscape Association (MNLA) will be awarding two $2,500 scholarships for college students enrolled in an ornamental horticulture or landscape program. Applicants must be Maryland residents but need not attend a Maryland institution; be current college juniors, seniors, or graduate students; and have a minimum GPA of 2.7 with a minimum of 3.0 within the major classes. Applications are due May 1. To obtain an application, visit www.mnlaonline.org or call the MNLA office at 410-823-8684.

MAEF Sponsoring Calendar Contest for Students

The Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation (MAEF) invites students in grades kindergarten through 12 to submit an illustration for their 2013-2014 sixteen-month calendar. Contest

rules and registration form can be found online at www.maefonline.com under the Elementary Programs link; scroll down to Calendar Poster Contest for more information and forms. The deadline is April 30. Cash prizes will be awarded to 18 winners.

The Maryland Dairy Princess Association is seeking candidates for the 2013 Maryland Dairy Princess. Dairy princesses visit fairs, schools, grocery stores and more promoting milk, dairy products, and the dairy industry. Candidates must maintain residency in Maryland (may attend an out-of-state college); own at least one dairy animal in a 4-H or FFA project and/or be enrolled for at least two years in a dairy-related project, OR be a daughter of a dairy farmer, dairy farm manager, or employee in a dairy-related industry or be employed herself as one of the above; be 16 years old or turn 16 during 2013 but not reach her 22nd birthday by December 31. Candidates may not hold a county Farm Bureau or dairy breed queen/princess title that would cross over for more than three months. The dairy princess will be expected to attend a dairy princess seminar July 10-12 in Pennsylvania. The association is also seeking dairy maids; ladies between the ages of 13-16 are eligible. Dairy princesses are chosen to represent their county or region, and each county or regional princess goes forward to compete in the Maryland Dairy Princess Contest July 16-17 in Frederick. Interested candidates may contact Laurie Savage at 301-349-0750 or LaurieZSavage@aol.com by April 24.

The MNLA website also includes scholarship information for awards offered by the Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation, Maryland Greenhouse Growers’ Association, and the Southern

Nursery Association. Visit www.mnlaonline.org for more details!

The New Univ. of Maryland Phosphorus Management Tool

Nutrient management regulations have been changing in the state of Maryland, and changes to the Phosphorus Site Index (PSI) are among these. The most noticeable update is the name change: the PSI will now be known as the University of Maryland Phosphorus Management Tool (PMT). This change was intentional as the focus of the PMT is management and how management changes affect nutrient loss.

The PSI was designed as a management decision tool for farmers. If a farmer had a load of manure that needed to be spread, the PSI could be used to decide how much manure should be spread on each field. Less nutrients would be applied to fields with a higher risk of phosphorus (P) loss.

In order to decrease nutrients entering the Chesapeake Bay, some cutoff value (or critical value) must exist. Theoretically, the addition of nutrients above this critical value would cause nutrient loss to surface water. In the past it was thought that a field with high soil P, determined by a soil test, would have a risk of P loss to surface water. However, we now know that high soil P is not the only factor contributing to P loss. Not all fields are equal when it comes to losing P to surface water. Therefore, using a critical value to make nutrient recommendations could result in the application of P to fields with the highest risk of P loss.

For this reason, the Maryland PSI was originally designed to calculate relative risk, meaning it identifies which fields on a farm have a higher risk for P loss. It does not calculate how much P could be lost from a field. Each state has their own version of the PSI, and some states present their results as a quantity of P loss. In Maryland, however, PSI results are reported only as a relative risk of loss.

The PSI is used instead of a critical value to restrict nutrient application because it more correctly assesses the risk of P loss in individual fields by identifying which fields on a farm have the greatest risk of P loss.

For a field to have a high PSI score, there has to be both a source of P and a P transport pathway. The current index is multiplicative, meaning the source component is multiplied by the transport component. Therefore, both source and transport components have to be high for the final score to be high.

After observing the results of many Maryland PSI scores over several years, it was found that PSI scores were not accurately representing what was happening in some areas of the state. These results prompted modification of the PSI being used in Maryland.

The major modification to the Maryland PSI is that the equation for calculating scores has been adjusted. As explained above, the current PSI is multiplicative: the equation multiplies the source component by the transport component. The modified PSI equation, conversely, is additive. It begins by examining the three P transport pathways (dissolved, particulate, subsurface) separately. Each transport pathway is multiplied by the source factor, and then those three products are added together. This allows for the final PSI score to be high when only one transport pathway dominates P loss and, thus, more accurately predicts risk of P loss.

Additional changes include removal of the “Very High” interpretative category, leaving three categories remaining (low, medium, high). All nutrient recommendations are now based on P management.

A draft of the MD PMT has been published in the Maryland Register. Modifications are not yet complete, but the final version of the PMT could be completed as soon as this summer.

If you have any questions about new regulations, please contact Dr. Joshua McGrath, University of Maryland Soil Fertility and Nutrient Management Specialist, at mcgrathj@umd.edu.

By Nicole Fiorellino, PhD Student Department of Environmental Science and Technology, University of Maryland

NHHS Plant SaleNHHS Plant SaleNHHS Plant Sale

Maryland Gourd FestivalMaryland Gourd FestivalMaryland Gourd Festival

The University of Maryland Extension programs are open to all citizens and will not discriminate against anyone because of race, age, sex, color,

sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, religion, ancestry, national origin, marital status, genetic information, political affiliation, and gender identity or expression.

Jeff Myers

Area Extension Director

Harford, Baltimore,

and Carroll Counties

Sara Meagher BhaduriHauck

Faculty Extension Assistant

Agriculture and

Natural Resources

sbh@umd.edu harford.umd.edu

facebook.com/HarfordAg

Congrats to Annie’s Project 2013 Graduates!Congrats to Annie’s Project 2013 Graduates!Congrats to Annie’s Project 2013 Graduates!

You are invited to the inaugural Clover Tea to benefit the Harford County 4-H Camp improvement projects. A variety of teas will be served along with a mixed herb green salad, scones with assorted spreads, tea sandwiches, and desserts. Door prizes and musical entertainment will also be provided. Wear your favorite spring hat! To reserve your table of 8, send $120 to Harford County 4-H Clubs Inc., PO Box 70, Forest Hill MD 21050. For more information, call 410-838-1779 or e-mail events@deercreekoverlook.com.

North Harford High School agriculture students will offer a variety of vegetables, herbs, annual and perennial flowers, and hanging baskets. Proceeds benefit the school’s agriculture education program.

On March 21, Harford County’s second class of Annie’s Project participants successfully completed the eight-week course. Congratulations to these eight ladies! Annie’s Project is a business planning and risk management class designed to give farm women the networks, resources, and tools they need to be successful partners in the farm business. Registration for the 2014 class will open in November 2013.

This event, sponsored by the Harford Community College Gourd Club, will offer workshops, vendors, and a silent auction of gourd products to benefit the college’s youth arts

scholarship fund. Admission to the festival is free; fees apply to hands-on workshops. To register for a workshop, or for more information about the festival, visit www.gourdday.org. For questions, contact Susan Zanella at 410-557-0900 or prsonline@comcast.net.

April 26-28, 2013 Harford Community College Chesapeake Center Dining Room Bel Air, MD

April 28, 2013 2:00 p.m.—4:00 p.m. Deer Creek Overlook Street, MD

Clover TeaClover TeaClover Tea

May 4, 2013 9:00 a.m.—12:00 p.m.

North Harford High Pylesville, MD