The Advocate-Messenger from Danville, Kentucky • 4

A4 TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER, 8 2009 FARMPET THE ADVOCATE-MESSENGER WWW.AMNEWS.COM Time marches on as Eicher children return to school Ha ti Amish I mj. Cook HI jMa By LOVINA EICHER This past week we were busy canning again. It definitely is "canning season" now! We tackled the three bushels of peaches we they don't care for, I pack their lunches. Usually, I like to pack a sandwich, some type of fruit, and maybe some crackers. A packed lunch might consist of homemade summer or deer sausage, cheese and crackers or maybe a soft burrito shell with ranch dressing, bologna and cheese slices rolled up like a wrap.

I also like to take home-canned peaches and freeze them in small single-serve containers and take them out of the freezer and put them in their lunch bucket. This keeps the rest of the lunch cool and by lunchtime the peaches are thawed for a fruit snack. (Editor's note: Lovina's children attend public school as do many Amish in their area; in some settlements most go to small parochial schools) This year Susan, 13, will be in seventh grade; Verena, 11, will be in fifth; Benjamin, 10, in fourth; Loretta, 9, in third; Joseph, 7, in first; and Lovina, 5, in preschool for half a day. Lovina is very excited to start school and Verena is excited about entering middle school. Our youngest child, Kevin, will have his fourth birthday on Sept.

2 He told me this morning he will have to sleep two more nights before he is 4. He keeps Photo submittedKevin Williams Many Amish, but not all, attend small one-room schools like this one in rural eastern Indiana. Such schools charge a tuition and focus heavily on the basics of reading and writing and math. Ever wanted to tour the inside of an Amish school? AmishCookTV allows readers of this column to view cooking demonstrations, tour an Amish school, visit a harness shop, a buggy shop, look at Lovina's quilts, experience meal-time at Lovina's, and look at a set-up of a traditional Amish church service. To subscribe, visit amishcookonline.com.

This month the $50 price is suspended and readers can sign up by naming their own rate for the subscription. have and ended up canning 35 quarts and freezing the rest. We canned 34 pints of homemade salsa. This week, I hope my tomatoes do well enough to make "V-8" juice. We had a cold 48 degrees this morning, so, I don't think we will have too much of a growing season left.

This also is the last week for the children to be home before school starts. It will seem different to be back on a school schedule for them. This means busy mornings of feeding children breakfast, making sure homework is in order and, yes, packing lunches. Most days the children eat at school but if there is something on the menu cooking demonstrations, tour an Amish school, visit a harness shop, a buggy shop, look at Lovina's quilts, experience meal-time at Lovina's, and look at a set-up of a traditional Amish church service. To subscribe, visit For September, the $50 price is suspended and readers can sign up by naming their own rate for the 7 cups sugar 3 12-ounce cans of frozen orange juice concentrate In one very large bowl or divided even into several, mix everything together equally and evenly.

Spoon into freezer containers and freeze. AmishCookTV allows readers of this column to view at home. He can play very nicely at home with his toy horses, though. He also likes our two little puppies and is constantly playing with them. I will share my recipe for freezing peaches: Frozen peaches 20 pounds peaches, peeled, sliced or crushed saying, "When I turn 5 I can go to school with Lovina." Daughter Elizabeth, 15, is done with her school years so I will have her good help at home this year.

She will also do some house-cleaning jobs. These years ago by so fast and the children keep getting older. Kevin will be so lost without a playmate THE NEXT BIG THING Apple growers sweet on new variety Danville Boyle County Humane Society Photographs are courtesy of Ronnie Logue. the regular adoption fee. Prices include spay or neuter surgery and much more.

If you are considering adding a pet to your family, please come to the shelter and visit the beautiful animals waiting for new homes. Also, many of our available pets may be viewed at our Web site at www. homes4pets.org. Low-cost, high-quality spayneuter surgery is available for pet owners with low and fixed incomes. For an appointment, call our Happy Paws Clinic at (859) 691-1137.

Please help control the pet over-population by having your pet spayed or neutered. Our pets of the week are Greta and Tex. Greta is an adorable 3-month-old tabby and white kitten. She loves to play and to be held. When Greta looks at you with her pretty, amber eyes, she will win your heart.

Tex is a handsome 2-year-old golden retriever mix. This happy fellow always looks like he's smiling. Tex gets along well with other dogs and will make a fun and loyal companion. The Danville-Boyle County Humane Society is continuing its summer fur sale through September. Kittens are two for the price of one and adult dogs and cats are $20 off AP PhotoSteve Karnowski Tim Byrne, president of the Next Big Thing growers' cooperative, shows off a SweeTango apple Aug.

26 at Pepin Heights Orchards near Lake City, Minn. The SweeTango, developed by the University of Minnesota, is being touted as the successor to the incredibly successful Honeycrisp. crisp and SweeTango. Another asset is SweeTango is ready in early September. "Woefully few" premium apples come out then, when produce managers are eager for something new to start the fall season, Byrne said.

The university earned more than $8 million from Honeycrisp, mostly from a $1 per tree royalty paid by licensed nurseries before the patent expired in November. The school will earn a similar royalty on the SweeTango patent. But it also licensed the SweeTango trademark to Byrne and a group of growers who audaciously named their cooperative the Next Big Thing, in the hope that SweeTango will prove as lucrative as Honeycrisp. The co-op will pay the school 4.5 percent of the apple's net wholesale sales in perpetuity. Bedford said he expects the university to earn as much on the deal as it did from Honeycrisp, with the money supporting more research.

But Byrne said he expects the school to do even better. The arrangement creates a "managed variety," a relatively new concept for U.S. growers but more common abroad. The Jazz apple from New Zealand and Pink Lady from Australia are managed varieties sold in the U.S. Honeycrisp is a managed variety in Europe.

The deal gives Next Big Thing control over who can grow SweeTango and where, and how the apple is marketed and shipped. The co-op has about 72 growers in Minnesota, Michigan, New York, Washington, Wisconsin, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Any Minnesota grower can get licensed through Pepin to grow and sell SweeTango at their farms, farmers markets or to local grocers. Byrne said 87 have signed up. They pay the $1 per tree royalty, but not the 4.5 percent of sales.

By STEVE KARNOWSKI Associated Press Writer LAKE CITY, Minn. Tim Byrne picked an apple from the spindly tree, sliced it and popped a chunk into his mouth. He couldn't have been more pleased as he chomped and got a juicy blast of sweet-tart flavor. "This is what's got us excited," Byrne said as he shared samples from a perfectly ripe SweeT-ango apple, which he and other growers are about to introduce as the successor to the incredibly successful Honeycrisp. Honeycrisp was a phenomenon in the apple industry because its taste and texture were so good it sold for about $1 more per pound than other varieties.

Those investing in SweeTango are banking on it commanding the same premium price, and they've formed a cooperative to grow and sell it nationwide. SweeTango will start showing up in some Minnesota farmers markets Labor Day weekend and arrive in selected grocery stores around the Twin Cities, Seattle and Rochester, N.Y., a few days later. If all goes according to plan, the apple should be available nationwide in 2011 or 2012, said Byrne, who's president of the cooperative and vice president of sales and marketing for Pepin Heights Orchards in southeastern Minnesota. SweeTango and Honeycrisp were developed at the University of Minnesota. The new apple has Honeycrisp's crisp-ness and juice but kicks up the flavor and adds an intriguing note of fall spice.

It was made by crossing Honeycrisp with another University of Minnesota variety. "It inherited Honey-crisp's texture, and that's a rare commodity, and it actually has more flavor than Honeycrisp," said David Bedford, the university apple breeder who helped develop Honey Deadlines set for FSA's Livestock Indemnity Program LEXINGTON Livestock producers who suffered a loss in calendar year 2008 have until Sept. 13 to file a notice of loss and application for payment to be eligible for benefits in the Livestock Indemnity Program. LIP provides assistance to producers for livestock deaths that result from disaster. Using funds from the Agricultural Disaster Relief Trust Fund established under section 902 of the Trade Act of 1974, the program is administered by the USDA Farm Service Agency.

LIP compensates livestock owners and contract growers for livestock death losses in excess of normal mortality due to adverse weather, including losses due to hurricanes, floods, blizzards, disease, wildfires, extreme heat and extreme cold. Eligible losses must have occurred on or after Jan. 1, 2008, and before Oct. 1, 2011. Note: Participants that apply for livestock deaths that are caused by disease are required to provide documentation to support how disease was accelerated or exacerbated by an eligible adverse weather event before COC approves the LIP application.

Specific provisions for the other supplemental agricultural disaster assistance programs authorized by the 2008 Act the Livestock Forage Disaster Program the Supplemental Revenue Assistance Program, the Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees, and Farm-Raised Fish and the Tree Assistance Program will be implemented through separate rulemakings and announced at a later date. For more information on available supplemental disaster assistance programs, visit the FSA county office or http:www.fsa.usda.gov. sites that are too warm and the quality can suffer, he said. And Byrne said quality is the key to getting Americans, particularly children, to eat more apples. Many kids have been turned, off by the low-quality apples they often get at school, he said.

"We're fighting for that share of stomach," Byrne said. "And we firmly believe that we have to be able to provide a great eating experience so that when a kid is given a choice between a really good apple and something else snacky, that the apple will be the one they choose." On the Net: SweeTango site: sweetango.com University of Minnesota apple site: http:www.apples. umn.edu Growers outside Minnesota must join the coop to get SweeTango. The trees likely won't be available to the general public until the patent expires in 2028, Byrne said. Other major horticultural schools are developing managed varieties, too, including the apple programs at Cornell University and Washington State University.

But only the top new varieties are likely to attract enough interest to merit becoming managed, said Bedford, who expects most to be released to everyone as before. An important advantage of managed varieties is they allow growers to enforce high quality standards, Byrne said. An emerging problem with Honeycrisp, which debuted in 1991, is that anyone can grow it, so it's now planted at some.