A few weeks ago, Gasport resident Nathan Herendeen got a nice write-up in the Lockport US&J. Today, the Buffalo News discussed his retirement with him:
A man of the soil spreads good news
Nathan “Nate” Herendeen, of Gasport, recently retired after 38 years with Cornell University Cooperative Extension in Lockport. He is an expert in soils and field crop problem-solving, pest management, grain handling, stored grain management and water quality/nutrient planning.
He married his high school sweetheart, Burniece, and they raised three daughters, who have now given them two grandsons and two granddaughters. Herendeen was on the Royalton-Hartland School Board for 12 “trying” years. His wife was a Girl Scout leader for 15 years. Family vacations usually ended up at conferences of the National Association of County Ag Agents. For 26 years, he has been an editor and writer for the agriculture newsletters AgImpact and AgFocus. He has written more than 280 articles and columns for various publications, and was honored at a retirement dinner Saturday in the Batavia Party House.
Now a sought-after a speaker on a wide range of topics, from crops and soils to the future of the ethanol industry, Herendeen was the guest speaker at a Lockport Rotary Club meeting recently at the Lockport Town and Country Club. Since agriculture is still the major industry in the Niagara region, we sat down with the expert after the meeting to get the dirt on farming.
What’s the current state of agriculture in the Niagara area?
These are good times for the ag business. Prices are high. Milk was $12 to $15 a hundredweight for years, and now it’s more than $20 a hundredweight. Vegetable and fruit prices are way up. Corn prices are the highest they’ve ever been.
How much of that bounty is being exported to other countries?
We have never been a big exporter of dairy products — until now. Dried milk products are going to China and India — they’re the big buyers. Much of the soybeans produced in the Niagara-Orleans area are exported to Canada. In the U.S., we’re sending milk to drought-affected Southern states.
All good for the regional economy, obviously.
Regionally and nationally. Farm exports are the one positive force in our balance of trade, a real stability in the current economy. We import manufactured goods but export commodities.
As an expert in soils and field crops, how does the Niagara area compare with other areas?
We have excellent soil. The limestone on the Niagara Escarpment is a mixture of calcium and magnesium, excellent nutrients. All throughout Western New York, the soil has one of the highest contents of lime and calcium. The weather here is good for crops. In the cool season, crops do very well. The cold weather interrupts the insect cycle, so we don’t have many of the bugs that plague crops in warmer regions.
You were raised on a farm. Tell us about that.
I grew up with seven brothers and two sisters on a farm in the Finger Lakes area. My father was a cattle dealer, fur dealer, wool buyer and crop farmer. With 10 kids, my mother was a full-time homemaker. Both my mother and father grew up on farms in Ontario County.
I understand there’s a history to your first name. What is that?
I was named for Nathan Herendeen, one of a group of six men who came to the area to buy property in 1788. They built cabins and returned the following winter with their families because that was when the creeks were frozen and they could get across them with horse and sleigh.
You were raised in more modern circumstances, I assume.
A little bit, but I did go to kindergarten through the third grade in a one-room schoolhouse and then to Victor Central School for the fourth grade.
How did you get into a career in agriculture?
I graduated high school in 1960 with a class of 60. Surprisingly, four of us from that class went to Cornell. Two of my brothers and one sister went to Cornell ahead of me. General agriculture was my major, but I soon became more interested in agronomy — soils and crops. When I was growing up, I always wondered why we had a couple of fields with clay and no rocks and most fields with all sizes of rocks. Rock picking was one of the skills we learned as soon as we were big enough to carry them.
There are a lot of great rocks on the Niagara peninsula, I reckon.
This whole area was covered by a glacier. That’s why we have so many different rocks. I love doing talks on soils and the glacial geology of this area.
What brought you to Niagara County?
I was a research assistant in the Agronomy Department at Cornell, doing nitrogen fertilizer experiments on farms and measuring nitrogen content in the plant parts and soil residual. That led to graduate school with a major in soils and a minor in communication arts. But I decided I’d rather be working with farmers than in research at the college level. I looked at alternative jobs and in 1969 ended up in Niagara County as a generalist agent doing dairy, crops, chickens, beef, hogs and most everything else.
And you worked your way up to what?
A crop and beef specialist on a team that was created to cover Niagara, Orleans, Genesee and Monroe counties. I am the last of the charter Cornell specialists.
Speaking of crops and beef, if you were starting out again today, would you rather be a dairy farmer or a crop farmer?
Crop farming is more risky, but your winters are relatively free. Dairy farming is a 24/7 operation, 365 days a year. You can’t take a day off.
Did any of your brothers and sisters keep the family farm going?
We still have farm property in Ontario County, but no one in the family is working the farm. It’s leased out.
The steady disappearance of the family farm is a sad sign of the times, is it not?
In the 1970s, there were 250 dairy farms in Niagara County. Today, there are about 40. But they still produce the same amount of milk. The smaller farms are being consolidated into larger farms of 1,000 cows or more. These farms have more cows and a higher production of milk per cow.
Apart from losing the heritage of the family farm, are there disadvantages to larger farms?
Larger farms generate more odor complaints from neighbors. There are a lot more people moving to the country from cities and suburbs. These are not people who grew up on a farm. The smell of manure doesn’t bother me — it’s all part of agriculture.
I caught a strong whiff of that agriculture driving up to Lockport today.
April and May are the months when farmers apply manure for the first planting of crops. Farmers incorporate the manure into the soil as quickly as possible, but there are always a couple of days after the manure is applied before they can till the soil.
Can anything be done to reduce the odor?
A lot of people have tried to make fertilizer smell different. There’s a process called methane digestion. You construct a 50-by-75-foot concrete pit with a cover so there’s no oxygen, process the manure and pump it into tanks, which are used spread it on the fields. At that point, it has very little odor — what I’d call an earthy smell.
Earthy is good.
But expensive. The process requires a huge capital investment. The machinery costs $500,000. There are only two or three methane digestion systems in Western New York.
Besides your speaking engagements and writing, what else will you be doing in retirement?
I’ve taken a consulting job with the Western New York Crop Management Association. And there are things to do around the house. We have a vegetable garden.
Is it a large garden?
Not really, about 100 feet by 50 feet, but it provides all the food we can eat.
Good soil in that garden, I bet.
The best.
Source: http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/niagaracounty/story/327705.html
A man of the soil spreads good news
Nathan “Nate” Herendeen, of Gasport, recently retired after 38 years with Cornell University Cooperative Extension in Lockport. He is an expert in soils and field crop problem-solving, pest management, grain handling, stored grain management and water quality/nutrient planning.
He married his high school sweetheart, Burniece, and they raised three daughters, who have now given them two grandsons and two granddaughters. Herendeen was on the Royalton-Hartland School Board for 12 “trying” years. His wife was a Girl Scout leader for 15 years. Family vacations usually ended up at conferences of the National Association of County Ag Agents. For 26 years, he has been an editor and writer for the agriculture newsletters AgImpact and AgFocus. He has written more than 280 articles and columns for various publications, and was honored at a retirement dinner Saturday in the Batavia Party House.
Now a sought-after a speaker on a wide range of topics, from crops and soils to the future of the ethanol industry, Herendeen was the guest speaker at a Lockport Rotary Club meeting recently at the Lockport Town and Country Club. Since agriculture is still the major industry in the Niagara region, we sat down with the expert after the meeting to get the dirt on farming.
What’s the current state of agriculture in the Niagara area?
These are good times for the ag business. Prices are high. Milk was $12 to $15 a hundredweight for years, and now it’s more than $20 a hundredweight. Vegetable and fruit prices are way up. Corn prices are the highest they’ve ever been.
How much of that bounty is being exported to other countries?
We have never been a big exporter of dairy products — until now. Dried milk products are going to China and India — they’re the big buyers. Much of the soybeans produced in the Niagara-Orleans area are exported to Canada. In the U.S., we’re sending milk to drought-affected Southern states.
All good for the regional economy, obviously.
Regionally and nationally. Farm exports are the one positive force in our balance of trade, a real stability in the current economy. We import manufactured goods but export commodities.
As an expert in soils and field crops, how does the Niagara area compare with other areas?
We have excellent soil. The limestone on the Niagara Escarpment is a mixture of calcium and magnesium, excellent nutrients. All throughout Western New York, the soil has one of the highest contents of lime and calcium. The weather here is good for crops. In the cool season, crops do very well. The cold weather interrupts the insect cycle, so we don’t have many of the bugs that plague crops in warmer regions.
You were raised on a farm. Tell us about that.
I grew up with seven brothers and two sisters on a farm in the Finger Lakes area. My father was a cattle dealer, fur dealer, wool buyer and crop farmer. With 10 kids, my mother was a full-time homemaker. Both my mother and father grew up on farms in Ontario County.
I understand there’s a history to your first name. What is that?
I was named for Nathan Herendeen, one of a group of six men who came to the area to buy property in 1788. They built cabins and returned the following winter with their families because that was when the creeks were frozen and they could get across them with horse and sleigh.
You were raised in more modern circumstances, I assume.
A little bit, but I did go to kindergarten through the third grade in a one-room schoolhouse and then to Victor Central School for the fourth grade.
How did you get into a career in agriculture?
I graduated high school in 1960 with a class of 60. Surprisingly, four of us from that class went to Cornell. Two of my brothers and one sister went to Cornell ahead of me. General agriculture was my major, but I soon became more interested in agronomy — soils and crops. When I was growing up, I always wondered why we had a couple of fields with clay and no rocks and most fields with all sizes of rocks. Rock picking was one of the skills we learned as soon as we were big enough to carry them.
There are a lot of great rocks on the Niagara peninsula, I reckon.
This whole area was covered by a glacier. That’s why we have so many different rocks. I love doing talks on soils and the glacial geology of this area.
What brought you to Niagara County?
I was a research assistant in the Agronomy Department at Cornell, doing nitrogen fertilizer experiments on farms and measuring nitrogen content in the plant parts and soil residual. That led to graduate school with a major in soils and a minor in communication arts. But I decided I’d rather be working with farmers than in research at the college level. I looked at alternative jobs and in 1969 ended up in Niagara County as a generalist agent doing dairy, crops, chickens, beef, hogs and most everything else.
And you worked your way up to what?
A crop and beef specialist on a team that was created to cover Niagara, Orleans, Genesee and Monroe counties. I am the last of the charter Cornell specialists.
Speaking of crops and beef, if you were starting out again today, would you rather be a dairy farmer or a crop farmer?
Crop farming is more risky, but your winters are relatively free. Dairy farming is a 24/7 operation, 365 days a year. You can’t take a day off.
Did any of your brothers and sisters keep the family farm going?
We still have farm property in Ontario County, but no one in the family is working the farm. It’s leased out.
The steady disappearance of the family farm is a sad sign of the times, is it not?
In the 1970s, there were 250 dairy farms in Niagara County. Today, there are about 40. But they still produce the same amount of milk. The smaller farms are being consolidated into larger farms of 1,000 cows or more. These farms have more cows and a higher production of milk per cow.
Apart from losing the heritage of the family farm, are there disadvantages to larger farms?
Larger farms generate more odor complaints from neighbors. There are a lot more people moving to the country from cities and suburbs. These are not people who grew up on a farm. The smell of manure doesn’t bother me — it’s all part of agriculture.
I caught a strong whiff of that agriculture driving up to Lockport today.
April and May are the months when farmers apply manure for the first planting of crops. Farmers incorporate the manure into the soil as quickly as possible, but there are always a couple of days after the manure is applied before they can till the soil.
Can anything be done to reduce the odor?
A lot of people have tried to make fertilizer smell different. There’s a process called methane digestion. You construct a 50-by-75-foot concrete pit with a cover so there’s no oxygen, process the manure and pump it into tanks, which are used spread it on the fields. At that point, it has very little odor — what I’d call an earthy smell.
Earthy is good.
But expensive. The process requires a huge capital investment. The machinery costs $500,000. There are only two or three methane digestion systems in Western New York.
Besides your speaking engagements and writing, what else will you be doing in retirement?
I’ve taken a consulting job with the Western New York Crop Management Association. And there are things to do around the house. We have a vegetable garden.
Is it a large garden?
Not really, about 100 feet by 50 feet, but it provides all the food we can eat.
Good soil in that garden, I bet.
The best.
Source: http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/niagaracounty/story/327705.html
