Celebrating 100 years 1919-2019

Pinney-Purdue Agricultural

Center

Pinney-Purdue Farm Superintendents

Virgil Mood (for Valparaiso University)George S. Wann (for Valparaiso U., and Purdue)

Harry Brunner 1927-1941Cloyce D. Clover 1942-1949Marshall Mohler 1950-1987Gerald Fankhauser 1988-1995Jon Leuck 1995-2017Gary Tragesser 2018-present

Pinney-Purdue Agricultural Center

Saturday, June 22, 2019

11402 South County Line Road

Wanatah, Indiana

Gary Tragesser, Superintendent

purdue.ag/pinney

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All Times Central

Master of Ceremonies Dr. Marshall Martin

Welcome/registration 9:00 a.m.

Presentations in 20-minute intervals 9:15 – 10:35

Red Poll cattle – Shuter Sunset Farms of Frankton, Indiana

Vintage corn & soybean varieties – Bob Nielsen, Shaun Casteel

Heirloom Garden of early 1900s era – Master Gardeners

Keynote speaker Fred Whitford Using Research To Change Farming Practices in the Early 1900s

10:45

Karen Plaut, Glenn W. Sample Dean of the College of Agriculture at Purdue University 11:30

Special guest introductions followed by lunch catered by Birky Farms of Valparaiso 11:35

Additional time to view continuous displays and repeat morning presentations 1 – 2:30 p.m.

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•  History of Agriculture: 1919-2019 – by local FFA chapters

•  Tractors, past to present: Jerry Smoker, LaPorte County Sunday Farmers, and International Harvester Collectors Club, Chapter 33

•  Slide show of Pinney Farm photos from past to present; framed photos and cattle show awards

Dr. Karen Plaut is the Glenn W. Sample Dean of the College of Agriculture at Purdue University. She is responsible for administering academic programs in the College of Agriculture, the Indiana Agricultural Experiment Station, the Purdue Cooperative Extension Service and a number of state regulatory services. In addition to her administrative role, Dr. Plaut is also Professor of Animal Sciences and has an active research program in lactation biology.

Marshall Martin is the Senior Associate Director of Agricultural Research, Assistant Dean and Professor of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. He is responsible for USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture federal-formula funding accountability and reporting by Purdue faculty affiliated with the Office of Agricultural Research. A specialist in agricultural policy, international trade, and technology assessment, he also is Director of the Indiana Wine-Grape Council.

Fred Whitford is a Clinical Engagement Professor and Director of Purdue Pesticide Programs at Purdue University. An accomplished author, his latest books are Scattering the Seeds of Knowledge, which examines the early history of Purdue Extension, and Enriching the Hoosier Farm Family, a collection of photos and captions.

Bob Nielsen is a Professor of Agronomy at Purdue University with major responsibilities for Extension education in corn management systems. One of his Extension activities is the development and maintenance of web-based corn information sites. The most popular are the Corn Growers’ Guidebook and the Chat ’n Chew Café.

Shaun Casteel is an Associate Professor of Agronomy at Purdue University and the Extension Soybean and Small Grains Specialist. Key areas of interest include precision management of resources and practices; integration of soil characteristics, nutrient inputs, and crop physiology; and the influence of agronomic practices on yield physiology of first crop and double crop soybean systems (winter wheat and cover crop).

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A touch is all it took. William Pinney never forgot.

The gates at the original family homestead “were things of perfection,” Mr. Pinney recalled, months before his death. “A long log balanced on a gatepost, with the attached gate hanging like a flag on the small end of the log, the butt of the log being the counterweight. It swung at a touch of the hand.”

According to an article printed in the Oct. 27, 1989, edition of the Valparaiso Vidette-Messenger, Mr. Pinney was the speaker at a 1923 gathering of the Saturday Evening Club. (He died the next year at age 76.) Pinney, at the time the club’s president, helped found it in 1904 and was its first vice president.

Other memories purportedly mentioned that evening included passenger pigeons and sandhill cranes in great numbers; the former “flew over like clouds.” Thanks to his Aunt Mary, William was stocked with tales of the family’s taxing seven-week migration from Virginia in 1837. He knew that an abandoned cabin near Clear Lake became Horace and Nancy (Snavely) Pinney’s first Indiana winter residence, and that a quarter-section of land was soon bought on credit, and that when the state sold swampland for $1.25 an acre, Pinney’s father bought 80, land that still bears the family name.

“No one was devoted solely to the accumulation of wealth,” said Pinney, born in 1847 in a log cabin built on high ground. “Ours was simply the business of making a living, mostly within our own province. Whatever wealth anyone managed to obtain was most likely through the enhancement and improvement of the land for which we paid little and obtained — and deserved, much — after a lifetime of struggle.”

The struggle yielded prosperity perhaps beyond the family’s imagination and led, 82 years after a humble beginning, to the Pinney-Purdue Agricultural Center.

William E. Pinney was a lawyer, banker, civic leader and philanthropist whose heart never left the farm. One of Horace and Nancy Pinney’s eight children, he attended local schools, then enrolled in Valparaiso Male and Female College (now Valparaiso University) and later took classes at Chicago University (University of Chicago.) Armed with a law degree from Indiana University, he opened a real estate law practice in LaPorte in 1872 and moved it to Valparaiso in 1874. In 1889, he co-founded First State Bank of Valparaiso. Later came the Thrift Trust Company, and Farmers and Traders Bank of Wanatah. Civic efforts included pushing for what became Valparaiso’s public library. His banking and law connections helped him acquire about 4,000 acres in Porter, LaPorte and Starke counties.

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Clockwise from top left: 1873 sketch of Pinney Farm. April 1, 1921, a delegation led by Harry J. Reed (far left), Farm Director and Purdue’s future second Dean of Agriculture (1939-1957); William Pinney is third from right. Protector No. 335199; 2,040 pounds, 3 years old. Swine feeding trial. West Pine Graflex, a Belgian stallion.

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W.M. McVey and Cloyce D. Clover observing soybean crop, late 1940s.

The view from above, circa 1960. In 1919, the buildings

were valued at $34,800.

Field Day, 1967.

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Research technician James Watkin checks meters at the weather station.

Marshall Mohler, superintendent from

1950 to 1987.

William Pinney and the home’s familiar

plaque.

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Marshall Mohler and Don Griffith.

Photos by J.C. Allen and others.

1921, water trough of wood construction.

The dairy barn was built using native lumber from the farm. Calves were housed in the lean-to.

Page 16, Thursday, June 19, 1986, edition of the LaPorte Herald-Argus.

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Pinney and his daughter, Myra F.P. Clark, decided to donate 486 acres. Nearby Valparaiso University accepted the donation but later, concluding that the farm’s mission could be better served under different management, returned the property. On Jan. 25, 1919, Pinney, Clark, and the State of Indiana agreed that the land should be “for the use and benefit of the Trustees of Purdue University.” The land is on the Porter-LaPorte county line near Wanatah. (In 1979, an additional 157 acres were acquired from Wayne Pinney.)

The warranty deed, which is quoted above, also says:

“This deed is executed for the purpose of passing the possession, management and control of all said land to the trustees of Purdue University for the use of the University in the interest of better farming and better home life on farms. It is contemplated by the grantors that agriculture, agrinomy (sic), soil experimentation, horticulture, forestry and domestic economy, and demonstrations pertaining thereto will be the use to which said land will be devoted.”

A shorter version of that wish is inscribed on a stone marker at the Pinney homestead:

“This farm is dedicated to the advancement of agriculture and the enrichment of country life.”

Pinney died on Aug. 29, 1924, at his daughter’s home in Chicago.

Myra Clark later founded the Pinney-Clark Farms Library for the benefit of Porter County farmers. The library, administered by the Thrift Trust Company of Valparaiso, was a place “where young men and women, who are to assume the responsibilities of agriculture, will be able to obtain the information that agricultural colleges impart to their students.” The library was started with 300 volumes selected by experts in field crops, animal husbandry, soils, entomology, horticulture, rural sociology, veterinary, rural economics and farm management, and home economics.

The 1919 warranty deed declared that one section would be called “Pinney-Purdue Soil Experiment Station,” and that another section was to be “Pinney-Purdue Farm.” By any name, the center has always been a research site blessed with three distinct soil types: Runnymede loam, shallow muck, and Tracy sandy loam.

An Oct. 30, 1919, letter from H.J. Reed, Farm Director, to Purdue Professor C.G. Woodbury recommended $3,000 additional insurance on the “dwelling house on the Pinney Purdue Farm”—to a total of $5,000. “The house is easily worth from eight to ten thousand dollars.” A “very careful inspection” of the property had valued the buildings at $34,800; the horses, hogs, dairy cattle, feeding cattle and sheep were valued at $11,500. (A 1945 accounting listed two dwellings, one dairy barn, one cattle feeding barn, two cattle barns, two hog barns, double crib and granary, tool shed, poultry house, two brooder houses, 25 portable hog houses and several small structures.)

A 1930 station bulletin noted that “the regular lines of work that have been conducted at the farm were continued that year. These included cattle feeding, hog production, corn borer experiments, and the muck experiments.” The Department of Agronomy conducted a field trial on the sweet muck, a non-acid type representative of much of the muck in northern Indiana. A series of experiments was started in 1925 with a four-year rotation of corn-corn-soybeans-potatoes to determine the need for lime, phosphate, and potash.

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Corn performance trials in 1937-38 included locally adapted “conventional” open pollinated varieties and the much anticipated new hybrids released by Purdue’s corn breeders. Such hybrids were attracting great interest because grain yields were 10-20 bu/acre better, and vastly improved stalk strength facilitated mechanical harvesting and greatly reduced field losses. The advent of hybrid corn is considered one of the major advancements in modern agricultural history, and the Pinney-Purdue Farm was (and continues to be) a significant test site for evaluating commercial cultivars.

Swine research ‘most important’

In 1941 a swine breeding project was initiated in cooperation with the Regional Swine Breeding Laboratory of USDA, with a goal of developing improved feeding efficiency and lower lard percentages than existing breeds. A Landrace Duroc boar was mated with 20 Duroc-Jersey sows in the fall of 1940. Gilts of these matings were bred to another Landrace Duroc boar in the fall of 1941. Moderate inbreeding was applied to establish a uniform line of hogs “with rapid gain, good fertility, nursing ability, general vitality, and carcass quality.” In 1943 it was noted that swine research was the most important project on the farm, indicating the prominence of pork production in the state.

Horses, too

Belgian draft horses were also bred and raised at the farm. An article dated 1930 notes that a purebred stallion named Felix was transferred from Purdue’s Herbert Davis Farm near Muncie to the Pinney Farm to replace the Belgian stallion West Pine Graflex. A photo dated July 16, 1943, shows a pair of 5-year-old geldings sired by Pinney-Purdue’s “Baron.”

Hail the Red Poll

With the donation of the farm Purdue received a herd of Red Poll cattle for which the facility would eventually become world renowned. Although this breed did not achieve the popularity of other specific beef or milk production breeds, it most nearly represented the concept of dual-purpose meat and milk production valued by many conservative farm operations.

Pinney purchased his first purebred Red Poll bull in 1905, and in 1909 he purchased about 10 bred cows. From this lineage the Pinney Red Poll cattle herd had its beginnings. Later it was the largest in the state and was considered one of the country’s best, as noted in an early 1950s document. In the ’50s, four head of young animals bred and shown by Pinney-Purdue at the Indiana State Fair won two Junior championships, five firsts, and a third place. The top-selling open heifer in the previous two national sales came from the Pinney herd.

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At the 1944 National Red Poll show, the Pinney-Purdue herd produced the grand champion steer and the top selling bull. “Gold Coin Advancer” placed first at six state fairs as a bull calf in 1945, and was first Junior yearling at the National Red Poll show a year later. That year “Julietta” placed first in class and set registry records for milk and fat production.

The development of the herd and support given to the Indiana Red Poll Breeders Association, with more than 100 paid members at that time, was considered a significant contribution with local, national, and international impact in the cattle industry.

In 1960 a performance testing program was initiated with the Red Poll herd at Pinney. An industry trend in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s toward specializing breeding for meat or milk production had led to waning interest in Red Polls for dairy purposes. However, Red Poll breeders continued selection for persistence of lactation, udder shape, and longevity in their programs, under a concept avoiding selection for strict dairy characteristics while also avoiding the trend for an extremely short-legged compact body structure that dominated beef breeding practices at that time. Rate of weight gain and milk production records at the Pinney farm were utilized to steadily improve the economic parameters of raising Red Polls, and in 1966 this breed was among the first cattle introduced at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center at Clay Center, Nebraska. Based on those results, the breed was selected for a second cycle in the comprehensive cattle germplasm evaluation program.

An April 4, 1975, newspaper clipping shows a picture of Maurice Sampson of Rensselaer, who bought an 18-month-old Red Poll bull at the Indiana Performance Tested Bull Sale in Springville, south of Bloomington. He paid $3,900, a sale record; the previous high for a bull was $2,025 for an Angus the year before.

Marshall Mohler, who was superintendent at Pinney-Purdue for 37 years, noted that the herd was known among breeders worldwide, with award-winning cattle on five continents.

But by 1986, Red Poll was considered a minor breed, and Purdue’s herd—132 females and two bulls—was the victim of budget cuts. The herd was sold for $200,000. “What is sad to me,” Mohler said at the time, “is this is the most tested herd in the world. From conception to consumption, there is no herd anywhere that is better documented.”

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Seeds and poultry

A 1945 station bulletin notes that certified soybeans and hybrid seed corn, seed oats, and seed wheat were grown on the Pinney farm and distributed to area farmers “to supply them with a good source of these seeds.” Varieties were selected for local production based on results of trials conducted on the Pinney farm, ensuring that only cultivars well adapted to the region were released for sale. In 1935, about 300 Rhode Island Red laying hens and about 700 young chickens were at the farm. Production per bird was 100.13 eggs, and the October 1934 to April 1935 period produced a $402.36 net profit for the coop.

In 1960, the cropping program called for 169 acres of corn, 43 of soybeans, 24 of wheat, 17 of oats, 13 of hay and 77 of pasture. That year, 156 commercial double cross corn hybrids were tested on loam soil, and 44 early-maturing hybrids were tested on muck soil.

The Staff, 1969Marshall Mohler - superintendentRichard Harman - field foremanJames Watkin - research technician Collett Quinn - cattle herdsmanLeonard Boehlke - fieldman

The Staff, 1935Harry Brunner - superintendentWilson Listenfelt - stallion caretakerJohn Bos - herdsmanSam Pfledderer - farm handLloyd King - farm handMaurice Goodman - farm hand

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Current research

The Pinney Ag Center is one of eight regional Purdue farm centers located across Indiana. Research conducted currently at the farm includes trials pertaining to hybrid and variety evaluation, agronomic practices, organic and conventional vegetable production, weed science, insect and plant disease management, climatology, and forestry.

More specifically, field research now is focused on production management and the technological tools that can enhance decision making and improve economic efficiency. Principal investigators represent Purdue departments of Agronomy, Botany & Plant Pathology, Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, Entomology, Forestry, and the USDA-Agricultural Research Service, National Weather Service, and the National Soybean Research Center.

Recent research trials have investigated:

• winter production of vegetables in high tunnels (unheated greenhouses)

• plant density and starter fertilizer effects in continuous corn

• sulfur effects in corn and soybeans

• nitrogen rate and application timing in corn

• effects of various sulfur sources in soybeans

• soybean seeding rate x plant type effects

• double crop versus relay soybean response

• impact of neonicotinoid insecticides on honeybees

• neonicotinoid residues and effects on secondary pests in continuous corn

• efficacy of commercial and experimental insecticides

• monitoring corn insect and soybean aphid presence

• effectiveness of current and new herbicide formulations

• commercial and experimental variety trials in corn, soybeans, and wheat

• evaluation of organic growing media for production of warm and cool season vegetable transplants

• evaluation of warm and cool season vegetable transplants seeded in various growing media

• evaluation of vegetable varieties in field or high tunnel production systems: sweet corn, pumpkin, tomato, cucumber

The Forestry department continues long-term studies on Poplar species biofuel, Black Cherry grafting and coppicing, Butternut screening for fungal resistance, Red Oak and Walnut seedling media effects on establishment, and Long Eared bat habitat.

We thank the library staff at Valparaiso University for providing some of the historical information used in this program.

Purdue University is an equal access/equal opportunity institution.