By NANCY VORIS
Indiana Correspondent

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Beefing up the Indiana cattle market; entertainment down on the farm; nutrient loss through field tile; and strong yields while reducing applications of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

These are a smattering of the many ideas to be reaped at Purdue University’s 78th annual Indiana Farm Management Tour on June 23-24 in Boone and Hendricks counties. Five Hoosier farm families will open the gates for an up close and personal tour of their farming operations.

The free tour is open to the public, and features interviews with each farm owner and mini-tours covering a variety of farm-related topics. A sampling of the topics covered during the tour include:

•Beef management practices and marketing strategies;
•Christmas tree production and management;
•Crop production systems and technology;
•Farm safety and disability recovery;
•No-till equipment settings;
•Soil profile changes;
•Land-holding and operational entities;
•Strip-till and corn after corn; and
•Cultivating goodwill in the community.

“We have really good operators out there in the state, and we ought to be able to learn something from looking at what they do,” said Alan Miller, Purdue farm business management specialist and tour coordinator. “That’s still the core of the way the Farm Management Tour works.”

Tour stops include an interview with the farm owners and mini-tours around the farm dealing with different management topics and enterprises.

The schedule for the event includes:

Wednesday, June 23
1 p.m. EDT, Prairie Creek Cattle Company, 4919 Serum Plant Road, Thorntown: Donnie and Tammy Lawson and family share their cattle operation, which successfully bucks the Indiana trend showing a loss of 50 percent of its cattle operations in the past 20 years. Lawson is a leader in the Indiana Beef Cattle Assoc., and will share his perspectives on profitable and environmentally-sustainable beef production.

Mini-tours include environmentally sustainable pasture management and stream bank protection, beef production and management practices, and beef marketing strategies.

3 p.m., Dull’s Tree Farm, 1765 W. Blubaugh Ave., Thorntown: Tom and Kerry Dull take the agriculture experience one step further, from a grain operation and Christmas tree farm to a bed and breakfast inn and recreational club. The grain operation also includes a precision planting business.

The interview will focus on entrepreneurial agriculture and marketing agritainment.

6:30 p.m., Hendricks County 4-H Fairgrounds Conference Center, 8810 N. County Road 800 E., Brownsburg: Dinner followed by program, “Opportunities and Challenges for Farm Estate Succession Planning in 2010 and Beyond.”

Thursday, June 24
8 a.m., Little Ireland Farm, Inc., 8810 N. County Road 800 E., Brownsburg: Jack Maloney is squaring off with the increasing number of farm regulations by combining good production and conservation practices, technology and record keeping to greatly reduce applications of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium.
Mini-tours also include Bayer CropScience field trials and a look at farm safety – what can be done to reduce risks and recovery aids available if an accident does happen.

10 a.m., Starkey Farms Partnership, 9225 E. County Road 700 N., Brownsburg: Owners Mike, Dave and Jeff Starkey have no-tilled beans since 1989 and successfully started no-tilling corn in 2000.
They have also been involved for five years in a study analyzing nutrient loss from field tiles and using annual rye grass as a nitrogen scavenger. Study results – with infrared images comparing their farm with conventional-tilled fields – will be presented.

Mini-tours include no-till equipment settings, nutrient loss through field tiles and soil profile changes from prolonged no-till.

Noon, sponsored lunch at Starkey Farms with luncheon speaker Joe Kelsay, director of the Indiana Department of Agriculture, providing an update on the Department’s activities and initiatives.

1:30 p.m., Hession Farms Inc., 6290 N. County Road 1000 E., Brownsburg: Anthony and Matt Hession’s farming operation focuses on doing the basics well, raising food grade corn and commodity soybeans. They were one of the first operations to use a GPS linked yield monitor to map fields.

Currently farming on Indianapolis’s western urban fringe, a move to land acquisitions in Clinton County is in the future. Their parents’ forward-thinking strategy using both land-holding and operational entities has the family well positioned for the future.

Mini-tours include land-holding and operational entities, strip-till/corn after corn, and cultivating goodwill in an urban community. The tour ends at 3 p.m.

Meals are included in the free tour, and reservations are required by June 16 by calling 317-745-9260 or 765-482-0750. For more information and a tour map, go to www.agecon.purdue.edu/extension/programs/farm_tour.asp

Sponsors of the tour are Farm Credit Services of Mid-America, Bayer CropScience, Hendricks County Soil and Water Conservation District, Co-Alliance, Hendricks County Farm Bureau, Inc., BASF, DeKalb-Asgrow Seed, Dow Agro Sciences, DuPont Crop Protection, Monsanto and Syngenta.

The Farm Management Tours have been held annually since the early 1930s to highlight successful farm management practices and share those experiences with other farmers.