 Penn State Research Farm Tour - Thursday, July 16
This tour is not part of the Congress Registration. Tickets must be
purchased in advance so that arrangements can be made for buses and meals.
Space will be limited by bus availability. The fee includes transportation
and lunch. Tickets may be purchased by promptly at 8:30 am. Breakfast is on
your own prior to departure.
Penn State’s Horticulture Farm
 The
Horticulture Research Farm is located approximately 10 miles
southwest of University Park at the Rock Springs Agricultural
Research Center. Horticulture, Agronomy, Plant Pathology, and
Entomology are the major departments involved at these
facilities. Several other departments within the College of
Agricultural Sciences as well as other colleges at Penn State
cooperate in the work done at the Research Farm. The land for
this center was purchased starting in the late 1950’s and has
now grown to over 2100 acres.
There are 100 research acres at the Hort Farm.
There are 8 acres of apples, 1.5 acre peaches, 4 acres shade
trees and conifers, 0.5 acres strawberries, 1 acre raspberries,
and 0.25 acres of grapes. Approximately 25 acres are utilized
annually for small-plot research crops. The remaining acreage
involves the rotation crops, wheat, red clover, buckwheat,
soybeans, sweet corn and field corn.
In the spring of 2004, a 30’x96’ high tunnel was
erected to serve as a cold frame with the potential of heating
it with a plastic burner furnace.
At
the farm Penn State now has the largest high tunnel research facility in
North America. This facility enables researchers to evaluate high tunnel
structures and their components including plastic covers biodegradable
plastic mulches, colored mulches and row covers.
 In many cases, the plastic
technology is integrated into the high tunnel production programs to
increase soil temperatures, air temperatures, increase available soil
moisture and photosynthetic active radiation (PAR) within the high tunnel
environment. Hand in hand with the high tunnel program is a specialty crop
evaluation program. The goal of and marketed by Pennsylvania growers.
In addition, a number of recycling technologies will be
shown on the research tour. A plastic-derived fuel mobile processing unit
will demonstrate how used called Plastofuel™, for stationary heating
operations. Studies at Penn State’s Energy Institute have shown with coal at
temperatures of 2000 0F. A plastic-derived fuel burner and boiler system
will also be demonstrated to recover energy from discarded plastics,
especially those from agricultural applications. The heart of the inside a
boiler vessel. The burner operates by preheating its combustion chamber
using fuel oil, automatically switching to pellet fuel made from used
agricultural will demonstrate its truck-mounted recycling system designed to
granulate plastic pesticide containers. Containers are collected statewide
and recycled as part of a program sponsored by the Ag Container Recycling
Council.
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