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Our Purpose
At the heart of the Professional Dairy Managers
of Pennsylvania, Research and Development (R&D) is serving
our dairy producer members. We are looking to fill unique
voids in the R&D community in Pennsylvania today by undertaking
projects that are immediately useful to our producer members
and currently not adequately addressed by industry or the
university community.
Our Goals
The Corn Silage Hybrid Project has a two-fold
objective:
- Short Term: Provide reliable, third-party
silage hybrid research and do so in a customizable format
so that producers can determine the best hybrids for their
operations according to the unique characteristics that
are important to their situations and objectives.
- Long Term: Influence the decisions of seed
companies all the way back to the chain of influence,
to the plant breeding decision makers, so that developing
highly digestible true forage hybrids become a priority
of the commercial seed industry.
Our Structure
Research & Development is one of the committees within the PDMP organizational structure. The Corn Silage Hybrid Project is a sub-committee of the larger R&D committee. The current chairs are:
Corn Silage Project Leader
Gary Kline
Y Run Farms, LLC
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Our Partners
Our great success in this project is due largely
to a unique collaborative partnership that PDMP has created.
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PDMP is the initiator and lead
collaborator of the Corn Silage Hybrid Project, an effort
to serve our producer members consistent with the purpose
of PDMP. |
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PSU Crop & Soil Sciences, under the
leadership of Greg Roth, has been contracted by PDMP
to handle the extensive logistics of planting, maintaining
and harvesting the numerous test
plots. We owe a great deal of gratitude to the support
and expertise of Greg and his team. |
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FORAGEData, under Jeff McClellan, has
been contracted by PDMP to develop and operate
the propriety data delivery system that has been the key
to turning the mountain of data into meaningful information
for PDMP producer members. We appreciate Jeff’s
unique vision and support of the project. |
We would also like to express our appreciation
to the PDMP members and project collaborators who provided
test plots for these trials.
Blair County:
Bill England
Weeping-Hollow Farms
Dave Hileman
Hilecrest Farm
Bradford County
Gary Kline
Y Run Farms, LLC
Jeff Morse
Morse Farms
Centre County
Dan Ulmer
Guided-Path Farm
Scott Harkcom (back up)
Rock Springs |
Franklin County :
Clint Burkholder
Clint & Kara Burkholder
Lancaster County:
Donald Risser
Meadow Vista Farms
Dave Johnson (back up)
Perry County:
Logan Bower
Pleasant View Farms
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Our Success
| In only eight years, the PDMP
Corn Silage Hybrid Project has become one of the largest,
most extensive and well-respected projects of its kind
in the country. |
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2002
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2003
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2004
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2005
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2006
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2007 |
2008 |
2009
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| Hybrids |
40
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63
|
75
|
101
|
149
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124 |
131 |
124
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| Seed Brands |
12
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18
|
18
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21
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22
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20 |
22 |
18
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Our Future
We are looking forward to expanding our Corn Silage Hybrid project, as well as pursuing additional future projects to benefit our dairy producer members. The Corn Silage Hybrid project is establishing an Advisory Committee comprised of seed companies, nutritionists and producers. The Advisory Committee will be structured to review the current program, identify areas of concern, and make recommendations to the Corn Silage Committee.
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