This 110-acre farm duplicates many of the research projects under way near University Park, but does so in southeastern Pennsylvania, where most of the state’s field crops are grown. “In Landis-ville, we have a longer growing season, higher temperatures, more humidity, more opportunities for diseases, and different insect pests,” says agronomist John Yocum, who has worked at the facility since 1961. “We give researchers an opportunity to experiment under the same conditions as many of the state’s farmers.

Dauphin County extension agent Alan Michael oversees a growing trial to determine how bedding annuals perform in shade. Michael uses black porous material to simulate shade on the beds in the background.

The Landisville center has deep roots in Penn State history. The University’s first field station started as a five-acre tobacco research lab in Ephrata in Lancaster County in 1915. The Tobacco Experimental Laboratory moved to Lancaster in 1931, then to Landisville in 1952 when more land was needed to mount large-scale field crop trials. In 1957, the present farm was purchased. These days, the farm is large enough that Yocum employs two farm technicians and student help in the summer.

Most of the acreage is used for agronomic research, but ornamental and vegetable research has increased in recent years. In addition to research initiated by Yocum, 13 faculty members at the University Park campus and four extension agents worked at the center during 2000. “We’ve shifted from just applied research to research, outreach, and education,” Yocum notes. The farm has raised its profile considerably, hosting events such as the 2000 Flower Field Day and intensive training sessions for local producers, crop consultants, agricultural businesses, and Master Gardeners.

For many years, researchers collaborated with local farmers to grow experimental crop plots. Today, aside from nutrient and fertilization trials, almost all growing trials are done at college facilities. “Farms are getting bigger as more family farms disappear, and today’s farmer doesn’t have the time to help us with growing trials,” Yocum says. “Also, we have better control of the experiments at the centers.” Each year Yocum oversees some 240 growing trials for corn, soybeans, forages, and vegetables, as well as trials for about 800 flower varieties. Yocum estimates that 90 percent of the farm’s plots are filled with field crops, with the remainder dedicated to horticultural crops.

Capital Region extension agent Alan Michael runs a large growing trial program for bedding plants. More than 800 geranium varieties grown from cuttings are evaluated for growth, flowering, and other attributes. The evaluations are collated with results from geraniums grown from seed at the Penn State Trial Gardens at University Park, then distributed yearly to growers.

Michael also oversees evaluation trials for a variety of bedding annuals, including an extensive plot devoted to studying how such plants perform in shade. Michael and Yocum also collaborate on a long-term evaluation project for flowering crabapple tree varieties, which are numerous enough to fill three orchards on the research farm.

“When flowering dogwood varieties became threatened by the plant disease anthracnose in the late 1970s, growers felt crabapple varieties could become a top Pennsylvania landscape tree,” Yocum says. “We’re evaluating these trees for flowering time, foliage, fruit yield, disease susceptibility, and growth rate.”