We can t wait to see you at the fair. I look forward to seeing all the hard work our 4-H members have put into their projects this year!

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1 Purdue Extension Harrison County 247 Atwood St. Corydon, IN (office) (fax) Harrison County Agriculture and Natural Resources Newsletter July-September 2014 Summer Days are Here (or at least that s how I feel)! While we are still one week away from the real start of summer, this season has already been warm and full of activity! I know my garden got a jump start and is growing like crazy! Hopefully you are also having a great start to the warm months. Check out what s going on in the county in the next few months. I hope to add to this list after we have passed the fair and I have the chance to book speakers for different topics. Look for private application recertification programs as we get into the cooler months, and a pasture weed walk will be scheduled for September! Sorry we got rained out this spring, we ll try again for next spring. Also starting in August is the Let s Talk Thursdays Series hosted by myself and Gina in Floyd County. We plan to offer a monthly seminar with an assortment of different topics having to do with agriculture. If something is of interest to you, please sign up! We hope offering different topics will bring in more awareness of what extension does for the county. Share this newsletter with a friend and help us spread the word! The Master Gardeners will be at the fair again this year. Their booth will be located in the merchant booth. Stop by and say hi! We ll be there every day to answer questions about gardening, horticulture, and more. This year s theme is Celebrating 100 Years in Extension. We will be showcasing Extension s role in the county and how it has evolved throughout the years. We can t wait to see you at the fair. I look forward to seeing all the hard work our 4-H members have put into their projects this year! Sincerely, Miranda C. Ulery County Extension Educator, ANR Harrison County mulery@purdue.edu Check us out on Facebook! It is the policy of the Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service that all persons have equal opportunity and access to its educational programs, services, activities, and facilities without regard to race, religion, color, sex, age, national origin or ancestry, marital status, parental status, sexual orientation, disability or status as a veteran. Purdue University is an Affirmative Action institution. If you have special needs call us prior to the event at or call 888-EXT-INFO and ask for the Harrison County office. 1

2 Calendar of Events: July: 2 DTC (Mid-Season Diagnostic workshop), Southeast Purdue Ag Center 4 Office Closed 4th of July H Fair 12 Back to School Giveaway Ag Society Fair 17 Master Gardener Meeting, Extension Office, 6:30pm 22 IBEP Bull Weigh Day 22 Cooking with Herbs, Extension Office, 6:30pm 29 Teen Master Naturalist Class begins, every Tuesday through Sept. 16, 2014 August: 1-17 Indiana State Fair 4-10 National Farmers Market Week 14 Let s Talk Thursday s: Canning and Preserving Fruits & Vegetables with Janet Steffens, Floyd County 16 Fair Oaks Farm Trip 19 IBEP Bull Weigh Day Soundness Exam 21 Master Gardener Meeting, Extension Office, 6:30pm 23 Cattleman s Field Day, Dennis Konkle s Farm, Greenville, IN 23 Feldun-Purdue 100 Year Celebration, Bedford, IN September: 1 Office Closed Labor Day 11 Let s Talk Thursday s: Emergency Management for Agriculture Crops, Floyd County 18 Master Gardener Meeting, Extension Office, 6:30pm 22 IBEP Off Test Weights 25 IBEP Bull Freeze Branding 2

3 IDNR Nursery Program Tree Seedling Ordering Now Available! Pick up an order form at the Extension Office today! Any individual may purchase seedlings as long as that person agrees to plant them in Indiana for conservation plantings as stated in the Nursery Program mission statement. Plant materials cannot be redistributed or resold for profit. If seedlings produced by our nurseries are to be given away, the buyer must conduct an educational program stating the Nursery Program mission prior to distribution of the seedlings. If you are consulting with a forester or tree planter, please be sure that only one order is submitted. Forage, Feedstuff, and Soil Analysis Available! We strongly encourage checking the nutrition of your forages and feedstuffs before feeding them to your livestock. You may be surprised at how much energy and nutritional value may be lost in a year of storage! Soils should also be analyzed before planting a new crop, whatever it may be. We have several options for analysis depending on what your needs are. If you have questions about how to sample your forages, feed ingredients, garden, field, or yard, please contact me! Harrison County Master Gardeners, Inc. The Master Gardener club meets every third Thursday of the month at 6:30 pm. If you are not receiving s from either Wanda or I, please let us know! Dues for 2014 are due NOW!! Please get your membership status updated as soon as possible! Also, if you have not been very active lately and would like to try and become more involved, we have options for you to get started again. We would love for anyone who has taken the training in the past to join our efforts to improve our community! Ask Miranda how! Interested in a Gardening or Farming Magazine but don t want to sign up for the whole year? Check out the extension office library! We have several issues available for: Vegetable Grower Fruit Grower Hobby Farm Indiana Prairie Farmer Hoosier Farmer 3

4 Saturday, July 12 10:00am-1:00pm Here is how you can help make a difference this year! 1) We need monetary donations to purchase the backpacks. 2) Begin bringing in school supplies donations now! We will need pencils, 24-box crayons, scissors, big pink erasers, spiral notebooks, glue sticks, index cards, dry erase markers, boxes of tissues, rulers, reams of paper, sandwich bags, 2-ring solid binders, and 3) beginning in June, you can bring in donations of gently-used clothing!!!! Items can be dropped off at Lincoln Hills Christian Church in Corydon. Kentuckiana Herb Society Tuesday, July 22, :30-7:30 pm Purdue Extension Office Harrison County Open to the public. Limit of 15 people. $10 per person. Call the Extension Office to register today, spots will fill quickly!! 4

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6 Livestock Forage Disaster Program and Indemnity Program The 2014 Farm Bill has made the Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP) and Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP) permanent programs and provides retroactive authority to cover eligible losses back to October 1 st, LIP provides benefits to livestock producers for livestock deaths in excess of normal mortality caused by adverse weather or by attacks by animals reintroduced into the wild by the federal government. More information about this program will be made available at a later date. LFP payments for drought are equal to 60 percent of the monthly feed cost for up to five months, depending on the drought conditions in the specific county. You can check out the drought monitor for the county at Eligible conditions will be one of the following: (1) D2 (severe drought) in a county for eight consecutive weeks or more during the normal grazing period will receive assistance equal to one monthly payment; (2) D3 (extreme drought) in a county for four weeks or more during the normal grazing period or D4 (exceptional drought) anytime during the normal grazing period will receive assistance equal to four monthly payments; or (3) D4 in a county for four weeks (consecutive weeks unnecessary) during the normal grazing period will receive assistance equal to five monthly payments. Harrison County is eligible for 1 monthly payment, Crawford County is eligible for 4 monthly payments, and Floyd County is equal to no monthly payment. Sign up for assistance through either program at the local FSA service center (1855 Gardner Ln NW. Corydon; ). You can find more information about these programs at this office or by going to fsa.usda.gov. Emergency assistance now available for livestock, honeybees and farm-raised fish through the Farm Service Agency Now that the 2014 Farm Bill has been passed, $20 million of Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) funds have been authorized for the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honeybees, and Farm-Raised Fish Program (ELAP). This provides assistance to eligible producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish that have had losses due to eligible adverse weather or eligible loss conditions, including blizzards, disease (including cattle tick fever), water shortages, and wildfires occurring on or after October 1, This program covers losses that are not covered under other Supplemental Agriculture Disaster Assistance Payment programs established by the 2014 Farm Bill. These other programs are the Livestock Forage Disaster Program (LFP) and the Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP) which will both be discussed in another article. There are four categories of livestock losses covered by ELAP: (1) Livestock death losses caused by an eligible loss condition; (2) Livestock feed and grazing losses that are not due to drought or wildfires on federally managed lands; (3) Losses resulting from the additional cost of transporting water to livestock due to an eligible drought; and (4) losses resulting from the additional cost associated with gathering livestock for treatment related to cattle tick fever. Eligible livestock include alpacas, adult or non-adult dairy cattle, beef cattle, beefalo, buffalo, deer, elk, emus, equine, goats, llamas, poultry, reindeer, sheep, or swine. For feed and grazing losses, the livestock eligible would normally have been grazing the eligible grazing land or pasture-land during the normal grazing period for the specific pasture type in the county where loss conditions occurred. Contract growers of poultry or swine, eligible livestock must be maintained for commercial use as part of a farming operation on the date of death. Eligible livestock must also have died as a direct result of an eligible loss condition occurring on or after Oct. 1, Livestock that were or would have been in a feedlot are not eligible for livestock feed and grazing losses under ELAP. For death loss, livestock must have been legally owned by the producers on the day the livestock died. Contract growers must have had a written agreement with the owner of the eligible 6

7 livestock, control of the eligible livestock on the day the livestock died, and had a risk of loss in the livestock. For grazing and feed losses the producer must have owned, cash-leased, purchased, entered into contract to purchase or been a contract grower of eligible livestock for 60 days prior to the beginning date of the eligible adverse weather or loss condition. Eligible losses from transporting water must have occurred on or after October 1, 2013, due to an eligible drought, and are for the additional cost of transporting water to eligible livestock including, but not limited to costs associated with water transport equipment fees, labor, and contracted water transportation fees. It does not include the cost of the water itself. Payment is calculated based on a minimum of 60 percent of the lesser of: (1) the total value of the cost to transport water to livestock for 150 days, based on daily water requirements, or (2) the total value of the cost to transport water to livestock for the program year, based on the actual number of gallons of water the eligible producer transported to livestock for the program year. Death loss payments are based on a national payment rate of a minimum of 75 percent of the fair market value for each livestock category times the number of eligible livestock that died in each category in excess of normal mortality. The national payment for contract growers is based on a minimum of 75 percent of the average income loss sustained by the contract grower with respect to the dead livestock. Payments for eligible grazing losses will be calculated based on a minimum of 60 percent of the lesser of the total value of: (1) the feed cost for all covered livestock owned by the eligible livestock producer based on the number of grazing days lost, not to exceed 150 days of daily feed cost for all covered livestock or (2) grazing lost for eligible livestock based on the normal carrying capacity of the eligible grazing land of the eligible livestock producer for the number of grazing days lost, not to exceed 150 days of lost grazing. Feed payments will be calculated based on a minimum of 60 percent of the producer s actual costs for: (1) livestock feed that was purchased or mechanically harvested forage or feedstuffs intended for use as feed for the producers eligible livestock that was physically damaged or destroyed due to an eligible adverse weather or loss condition; (2) the additional costs incurred for transporting livestock feed to eligible livestock; or (3) the additional cost of purchasing additional livestock feed above normal to maintain the eligible livestock until additional livestock feed becomes available. Producers are limited to no more than $125,000 in total payments under ELAP, LFP, and LIP combined for 2012 and subsequent program years. Also, those producers or legal entities that have an average adjusted gross income that exceeds $900,000 will not be eligible for ELAP payments. If producers are certified to be socially disadvantaged, have limited resources, or are a beginning farmer or rancher, they will be eligible for a payment factor of 90% under ELAP. Producers who are eligible under ELAP are not eligible for LIP and LFP payment for the same loss. Beginning with the 2014 program year (Oct ), if the producer is eligible to receive assistance for the same loss under Catastrophic Risk Protection or the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP), then the producer must elect whether to receive benefits under ELAP or under the other program, not both. To sign up to receive ELAP, LIP, or LFP benefits for eligible livestock losses suffered during 2012, 2013, and 2014 program years, please go to the local FSA service center ( 1855 Gardner Ln NW. Corydon; ) to fill out an application. You should bring your farm records with you to assist in determining eligibility. Contract growers should bring your contract and any other supporting documents. Supporting documents must show evidence of loss, current physical location of livestock in inventory, and evidence that grazing land or pastureland is owned or leased. The deadline to file notice of a loss for program years 2012 & 2013 is August 1, For program year 2014, the deadline to report a loss is November 1, To find out more information about any program contact the local FSA office or go to 7

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10 Have you eaten local today? By Miranda Ulery, ANR Extension Educator Have you thought about becoming a locavore, which was the word of the year in 2007? But what is a locavore? The second part of the word vore is derived from vorare, which is Latin and means to devour. When vore is combined with a prefix such as loca, omni, or carni, it forms a noun that indicates the kind of diet an animal has. Thus a locavore is interested in eating food that is locally produced, that is food that isn t brought in from over 100 miles away. So a locavore might be a hawk, a mouse, a caterpillar or you! Becoming a human locavore is easier than you may think! Eating local doesn t mean that everything you eat must come from a local producer. It means you are making a conscious effort to include something local into every meal you eat. Think about each meal you prepare. Is there a way to include honey from a local beekeeper s hives on your toast in the morning? How about goat cheese and farm-fresh eggs from area farmers to get your day started? For lunch, you might create a salad composed of locally grown lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers and a homemade salad dressing plus a ham sandwich. Dinner may be fresh lamb chops on the grill with roasted potatoes, onions, summer squash and green beans complete with a homemade pie made from fresh blackberries. Sound yummy? All these delicious items can be found locally, depending on the season. And you have several options: you can start a garden at home, join a community garden, sign up for community supported agriculture (CSA) or shop at a farmers market. By doing any or some of these options, you ll be able to sustain a local diet throughout most of the year! You, as a consumer in Southern Indiana, can easily find locally grown or produced foods. The beauty of living so close to a metropolitan population means there is a great need for farmers markets to offer locally grown fruits, vegetables, meats, and locally prepared goods for those who don t have the space to do so themselves. How far does one need to go to find locally produced fruits, vegetables, meats, eggs, etc.? According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the average consumer will travel 12.3 miles to find a farmers market. However, local in our area can be just down the road close to downtown Corydon. Many Harrison County farmers set up every Saturday morning to sell locally grown vegetables, plants, fresh frozen meats, eggs, and homemade items at the Harrison County Farmers Market. The market is located in the parking lot of Grace Hall Church, which is within view of the Dollar General and Sears stores on Old Highway 135. The market is underway now from 8 am to noon on Saturdays until October. On June 11 th, the market will also be open on Wednesday afternoons. Local vendors are also available at the Indian Creek Marketplace, also on Old Highway 135 if you re heading south into downtown Corydon, it s located on the right after crossing the bridge. They re open from 8 am to 1 pm on Saturday. Because produce is available at different times of the spring, summer and fall, talk with the farmers to know when your favorite vegetable will be in season and available to purchase at the market. The Harrison County Extension Office and Master Gardeners can also offer you a spot at the community garden on a seasonal basis where you can grow your own vegetables and fruits and even get your family or a group of friends or coworkers involved. However, the 2014 plots are already filled. You can get a head start for next year and sign up for 2015 at the extension office today! And if you want to know more about becoming a locavore and the local movement in Harrison County, contact the Purdue Extension Office of Harrison County at or mulery@purdue.edu. We offer workshops on gardening, nutrition, health, and so much more! Get involved--help make Harrison County more sustainable, and your diet more nutritious! 10

11 Feldun Purdue Agricultural Center 100th Year Celebration Event & Tours Date: Saturday, August 23, 2014 Times: 2-3:00pm Registration 3-5:30pm Farm Tours 6-6:45pm Dinner Evening Program Location: Feldun-Purdue Ag Center 1117 State Road 458 Bedford, IN ag.purdue.edu/arp/pac/pages/fpac-home.aspx Each year thousands of farmers or member of their families and farm workers sustain life changing injuries or develop serious health conditions. If you or someone you know is one of them, the AgrAbility Project was created for you. AgrAbility experts can give you ideas on how to modify your buildings, your equipment, and your home. They can suggest ways to restructure your work to maximize productivity through local peer support networks. AgrAbility experts can also introduce you to others who face challenges just like yours. AgrAbility staff helps farmers, ranchers, and farm workers as well as their family members identify ways to make the most of their abilities. Ideas and suggestions from AgrAbility can help men and women involved in production agriculture maintain their independence and their rural way of life. For more information or a free consultation, call AgrAbility today at or visit The local contact is Linda Tarr, Hoosier Uplands (812) or via at ltarr@hoosieruplands.org. AgrAbility is a program of the USDA. August 16, 2014 If you plan to go and have yet to sign up, please do so immediately. The bus is filling up quickly. Contact Miranda for more details. 11

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