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MCIA awards scholarship at 101st meeting
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The largest used equipment inventory in the Mid-Atlantic is only a click away. Visit our website by clicking here or visit us at one of our 11 locations throughout MD, DE, VA and PA.
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MCIA awards scholarship at 101st meeting
1.22.2008
By BRUCE HOTCHKISS
Senior Editor
RUTHSBURG, Md. — Patrick Forrestal is $1,500 richer today.
Well, not really. He will be spending the money promptly, no doubt, on his education at the University of Maryland College Park and on life expenses in general in the United States.
The $1,500 is a scholarship award presented annually by the Maryland Crop Improvement Association (MCIA), which held its 101st annual meeting — that is correct, 101st annual meeting — last Thursday at the Ruthsburg Community Center in Queen Anne’s County, Md.
The scholarship was created n the memory of the late Dr. Jim Miller, former long-time chairman of the University of Maryland Department of Agronomy and an equally long-time advisor to MCIA.
Forrestal was introduced and gratefully accepted the scholarship during the business portion of the meeting, which was attended by just shy of 60 farmers, educators and ag business representatives.
The meeting was otherwise notable for a snow “storm” that moved across the Eastern Shore and over Ruthsburg, dumping an inch or so of wet snow on the area before it turned to sleet and then rain.
Forrestal is 26 years old. He came to this country from Ireland 2 1/2 years ago to pursue a graduate degree in plant science, which he is doing at UMCP under the tutelage of Dr. Robert Kratochvil, Extension crop production specialist.
As he described it, his agronomic focus is on “corn greenness,” as evidence of the level of soil nitrogen in the plant. Using both eye observation and infrared technology, the “greenness” of the corn stalk near the soil level — where the plant stores nitrogen — could help farmers determine how much, if any, nitrogen remained in the soil for their following wheat or small grain crops in the fall.
Forrestal also found love in America. He met and married, in September 2005, Erin McGuire of Aquasco, Md., a town in Calvert County, east of Waldorf, where the Forrestals are making their home on the McGuire family farm.
Elsewhere on the MICA program for the day, attention turned largely to wheat, perhaps because wheat acres, in response to elevated farm gate prices, are expected to expand in the 2008 growing season. Planting intentions for the crop, at least in this part of the country, are up.
Extension plant pathologist Dr. Arv Grybauskas, discussed control of diseases in wheat; Joanne Whalen, University of Delaware pest control specialist, talked about the management of insects in wheat; and Dr. Kratochvil spoke on wheat growth stages and the management of nitrogen in the crop. In all of that relatively serious talk, there were several bright moments. One occurred as Whalen warned farmers about not responding to a pest invasion before the damage is done and the threshold is past.
“Forget the revenge spraying,” she said. “If you missed it, you missed it.”
“Feels good though,” Dr. Grybauskas quickly responded, to the agreement and delight of the audience.