Developing and Testing Plant Growth Modifiers

When Ed asked me to host the Hymark Blog while he is gone I was somewhat concerned. I had a concern that it will soon become obvious that I am not an agriculturist like him nor a farmer and have very little to tell you about that will be of interest to his Blog members. To be honest that was an assumption on my part that the only people registered in this site are interested only in agriculture. And then I remembered one development area that may be of interest albeit in floriculture not agriculture.

When most people think about Procter & Gamble they envision laundry detergents, Mr. Clean, Mr. Wipple and Charmin toilet tissue. Believe it or not P&G was in the agricultural chemicals business too. That, in fact, is the part of P&G that I was in during the early part of my career
I headed up one agricultural chemicals project that resulted in a great chemical pinching agent! Some plants, like azaleas, are grown for sale to home and garden stores. The larger, more compact the plants with greater the number of flowers present when ready for sale the more the plant is worth. There are several ways to increase the number of flowers but all azalea growers do so by promoting branching through pinching the apical meristem or growing tip. This causes the lateral shoots to emerge. There are as many potential shoots as there are leaf nodes but usually only the top 4 or 5 lateral shoots develop into new branches

The product I developed was an emulsified methyl ester, which when sprayed on ornamentals burned out the apical meristem creating a pinched growing tip for each stem on the plant. That stem would branch out onto 4 or 5 lateral shoots, each of which set flower. Manual pinching is usual a very tedious and labor intensive effort. Most of the growers trim the azaleas like hedges which removes a lot of the growth and thus it takes longer to reach size and compactness.
Diluting a chemical pinching agent with water and spraying the plants with a spray boom is all that is needed for one person to pinch many more plants per person and in much less time than manual pinching or hedge trimming. I proved this at many nurseries by challenging the pinching crew to contest produce saleable plants the traditional way against me who wielded on a sprayer, sprayer and bottle of my great new product. Needless to say – I won every growing season. If sprayed at the right time and frequency – the plants I treated were larger, more compact and had many more flowers set than those manually pinched. The cost was 10% of production manually pinched.

What a sight that was in one particular azalea nursery in Jacksonville North Carolina to see this city slicker take off his tie and get ready to start the race. I started mixing the chemical pinching agent as soon as the starting gun went off. The pinching crew of 12 began pinching their 4 million seedlings by hand. Once my solution was shaken and I donned the back pack sprayer – I caught up quickly treating my 4 million seedlings with a spraying. I finished my 4 million plants in 34 minutes whereas the 12 pinchers finished 6 ½ hours later to do the same number. It took only 3 treatments to reach the desired quality chemically whereas it took twice as long and lots more labor by hand.

P&G decided to concentrate on the household products and sold the agricultural chemicals products and I moved on to others areas of the company but that is about the only area that I could talk about that might be of interest. There may be others but we will see.

Have a great week ahead!

Ralph Taylor
For Ed Winkle

Ukrainian Church Partnership Mission

Happy Saturday!

I am Ralph Taylor hosting Ed Winkle’s Hymark Blog while he and he pretty spouse travel through Middle Europe.

Ever Thought Of Doing Missionary Work?

Neither did I until I was approached by my Pastor in 1997. I was an Elder for26 years in a Church of Christ Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Around year 20 our Pastor asked me to stop by his office to discuss a special project he wanted me to consider. Certainly was not prepared to hear what his offer was about. Underand that I was at that point Director of Quality Assurance for the Procter & Gamble Company. He told me that our church was strongly considering a new mission project that required someone to raise money to support the project. Why did he decide that I would be the choice for fund raiser? – I asked. He thought with my business background and stature in the corporate world that I would be a natural at fund raising. I told him that I knew nothing about missionary work but also knew that Churches of Christ are all independent of one another and seldom did joint projects like the one he was proposing. Exactly why I chose you for the job" he responded. "P&G trains their managers to tackle the impossible".

As it turned out – we needed $250,000 a year to support two ministers and their families to live in the Ukraine – a country of the Soviet Union. Two churches there had requested a sister church in the USA to partner with them to re-learn how to conduct worship and consul the congregation. They had lost their skills under the oppression of the Soviet government. Wow! What a challenge! Could not let that one go! Never realized that this was mission work. I didn’t have to have training to be a minister or go any place. I solicited funds from 16 other churches to help us fund this project. All told we had raised $285,000 for year one.

Now that was easy enough! “Well that is not all we need you o do” says the Pastor. "We want you to be the Mission Field Manager. You need to visit the mission site to make sure that everything is going smoothly and take cash with you since there was no other way to get the funds transferred" Why? because the USA and Soviet Union did not have mechanisms in place to handle this at the time. I ended up travelling from Cincinnati to Kiev Ukraine 15 times from 1988 through 1992 during the time right before, during and after the Soviet Union collapsed. Each trip I carried between $30,000- $40,000 in $20 dollar bills each trip. Got to stay with Ukrainian families each time. What a thrill this was! I spent all of my 5 weeks vacation every year travelling back and forth to the Ukraine helping our missionaries do their work

One of life’s treasures! Meeting people of other cultures. Conducting mission work part of the year and managing quality control the rest of the year in the corporate world. More stories about this missionary project later if Ed is away long enough 
Hope your weekend is restful and calm.

Talk more with you tomorrow morning.

Ralph Taylor

For Ed Winkle

Good Morning Blogsters – This is Ralph Taylor – Ed’s Sub – Do You Have A Feline Companion?

I never had a cat in my life before we moved to the country. We met our first two when we stopped by our local post office here in Martinsville Ohio a week or so after we moved in. Two little kittens came up to our car before and before we could get out – jumped in. Both wrapped themselves around my wife’s neck purring up a storm. We took them inside to see who they belonged to. The Postmaster indicated “they had been left there abandoned the evening before – they were ours for the taking”. Great – Both my wife and I are allergic to cat dander! We put them back outside the Post Office and went on to the appointment we were headed to when we stopped. We just could not get those affectionate cats out of our heads – sitting there during the cold nights outside the post office.

We stopped on the way back home to give them some food. Big mistake! They are still eating our food today 9 years later. These two cats, Prince and Pyewackette, have pretty typical behavior of cats from what I understand in that they can be very affectionate when it suits them but normally pretty stand-offish”. Those moments when I am intently discussing business on the telephone sitting out on the deck is when one or both jumps into my lap full of papers and will not let me carry on anything – talk on the phone nor take notes. This is their time to get attention whether or not I am available or ready to give it. These are their moments! When I dare bother them calling them in for the night or want to show them off to visitors – they will not come close enough for me to pick them up!

We have since acquired two black cats, one a short hair called, yes - you’re hearing this right, Tom, Tom Cat, and the other a long haired Maine Coon called Whispers. Both of these cats actually enjoy being around us.

Whispers, the Maine Coon in picture, is the beautiful cat with soft long fur and golden eyes shown in the picture above. She just loves to sit in my lap to watch TV or while I am working on the computer – in fact is in my lap right now. When you come into a room that she is in – she greets you with a short meow. She responds to anything you say to her, almost sounding as though she is trying to engage you in a conversation with her. She has no claws front or back and as such does no damage to anything. Her favorite laying stance is on her back with her feet in the air. When she is forced to do something she doesn’t feel like doing she “growls” and for a long time grumbles as she walks away – full disgusted with the request.
I have always had a dog and now have 3.
I must say however that I missed having a life-time of feline companionship until we moved to the country – Now we have 4 cats - ahh - the country life!

TGIF!!! This is Ralph Taylor wishing each of you a great weekend!

Veteran’s Day Thoughts
I have never been in the military myself so I can not speak as a veteran but am certainly thankful for all of you out there who did serve this nation in the military. This service allows us to remain the free and independent country we are today. Sure we could do a better job managing the politics of governing this country and we could do a better job of regulating our capitalistic economy but our basic freedoms have historically been protected by our military since signing the Declaration of Independence many years ago. We have been involved in many wars over the years but the current war is the first one that does not seem to involve a single country but an ideology of radical Islam and its influence over groups in several countries, the most recent originating in Yemen. We are now negotiating with Yemen government trying to gain authorization for conducting targeted drone attacks – yet another country involvement in our efforts to combat al Qaeda internationally.
My Step Father, Frederick Schweinlin, was one of several hundred thousand USA troops who joined Allied forces in Normandy, France, during Operation Overlord in World War II. The invasion was the largest amphibious operation in history. He used to tell me a little about the terror that the young men experienced as the amphibious landing craft neared the Omaha Beach on that day in early June 1944. They could hear arterial fire all around them and then the front gate of the carrier opened and the troops poured out of the 4100 carriers wading their way onto shore in the middle of bullets penetrating the water all around them. He survived that battle and several more that came later as they defeated Hitler and then came home to resume life as American citizens. He continued serving his fellow citizens as a fireman.
I do extensive volunteer work in a soup kitchen in Wilmington Ohio. I frequently run into veterans who have served in active combat in the several different wars of the 20th and 21st centuries. For some of these veterans their sacrifices are obvious since they have artificial limbs but others are not so obvious in mental scars that came from the terrifying experiences of combat. One of our neighbors just had one of his hips replaced, recently had a pacemaker installed and wears a colostomy bag to facilitate every day bodily functions – all due to injuries experienced when injured as a marine in the Korean conflict. I see many others who have artificial limbs to replace limbs blown off by roadside bombs. For these and millions I have not personally met – I am thankful every time I go into the voting booths or while praying in church or choose the variety of foods we buy or walk the streets of our cities and country side without fear.
This day November 11th is a day set aside by congress to pay special honor to all of our veterans, Click on the video link below:


Thanks vets! Thanks!!!
Ralph Taylor for Ed Winkle

Free Range Chickens

When I was 12 years old I visited the farm of an aunt and cousins with my mom and step Father for Thanksgiving. We were anticipating a great chicken dinner with all the trimmings when my aunt announced that she needed someone to go out and collect the eggs and I volunteered. After lots of instructions I took off for the barn to complete my mission. Little did I realize that there were 3 barns and missed the description about the barn the chickens were in that are laying the eggs. The first barn had a couple of hogs and sheep in it but no chickens. The second had chickens in it opening out into the barnyard. The 3rd barn had several shelves in it with compartments on them. Most of them had chickens in them. Several were empty with 1 – 3 eggs on the straw nest.
This was the first time I ever saw a chicken coup with real live chickens and eggs under most everyone there. I had 4 pockets in my jeans, 2 in my shirt and two in my jacket. I started loading eggs into each pocket. I tried yelling at the chickens but they did not run away daring me to take their eggs. I got pecked and flapped by their wings as they tried to back me off. I had 28 eggs in my pockets and 3 in each hand when I ran out of places to stick them. I started back to the house to unload my bounty.
About half way back to the house I felt something wet against my leg and then the other one. Something was wrong! By the time I reached the door – my shoes seemed to be getting water-logged. I gave the eggs in my hands to my aunt and then went for the eggs in my jacket pockets – all but one in each pocket had broken and everything was very gooey! Needless to say that this event followed me all through my life through several generations of family until today.
Next came the final preparation for the dinner – harvesting the chickens. I had no idea what was to follow. My aunt grabbed a rooster by the neck and chopped its head off so fast I didn’t realize it had happened. As soon as she released the chicken’s neck it began running around the yard spewing blood all around until it collapsed. This was followed by another headless chicken running around. Nothing like anything else I had ever seen. Very traumatic for sure!
During out 3rd year in our country home my wife suggested we try raising our own chickens. Immediately the vision of those chickens running around the yard with their heads off came to mind. Not for me! My wife talked me into it and we ordered chicks from McMurray Hatcheries to arrive in a month and began constructing the free range cage for them. It was amazing! The chicks came into our post office very tiny chicks and within 7 short weeks they grew to over 6 pounds. We could see them get larger and larger day by day. All they did was eat drink and poop. In the last couple of weeks they had a very difficult time walking more than 3 or 4 steps and had to sit down to rest.
We took them to a processor who killed, defeathered, and slaughtered them and put them in vacuum packs ready for the freezer. Not at all like I saw at the farm. No chickens running around with their heads off. Those chickens tasted great!
We have produced 50 chickens every year since. We also now have layers in laying cages that produce fresh eggs daily. Nothing like this farm life! Who would have ever dreamed those words would ever come out of my mouth?

Ralph Taylor - Guest Blogger

City Slicker Life In Cincinnati

I was born at 9:05 AM Eastern Time (no daylight savings time then) April 12, 1942 at Bethesda Hospital in Cincinnati, OH about 5 months after the invasion of Normandy in WWII. The population of Cincinnati is now around 350,000 whereas the Cincinnati Metropolitan Area has a population of nearly 2,200,000 as of 2007 estimates. The reason is that Cincinnati is nestled in the SW corner of Ohio surrounded by other cities in Ohio, Northern Kentucky and Southeastern Indiana. If, as predicted for the last several decades, population growth continues primarily in the communities, North of Cincinnati and South of Dayton, the two communities will merge creating the 14th largest metropolitan area in the USA with 3.2 million people.
So, yes, the Greater Cincinnati is much larger than the city limits gives it credit for. My parents divorced when I was 2 years old so I spent half my life growing up in Mount Lookout in the Hyde Park community if Cincinnati and the other half in the gas-light district of Clifton about 20 miles apart, both well within the city limits. Mount Lookout had several prominent citizens that spent a good share of their lives there – Doris Day lived at the end of my (and her) street – Utopia Place. That was the street where I learned how to ride a two wheeler and where my Dad and I built a 20 foot cabin cruiser imaging the whole time what a tremendous job God gave Noah as He commissioned Noah to build the huge ark! Another prominent citizen of Mount Lookout in Hyde Park was “Uncle Al” and “Captain Wendy” Lewis of the Uncle Al show. This was one of the first big regional children’s shows in this new media called Television.

In Clifton I perfected my bike riding on the new but unopened portion of interstate 75 that ultimately would run from Hialeah Florida through Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and Michigan ending in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan at the Canadian Border at Sault Ste Marie, Ontario.
My Grandfather Ralph, my namesake, was an Engineer for the Cincinnati wing of the RKO Theatres. He once arranged for me to accompany Broderick Crawford when he came to promote a film in which he was starring. What a tough guy he was not only in the films but in real life!
I attended primary and secondary schools in Clifton graduating from Hughes High School, moved across the street to the University of Cincinnati graduating with a BS in Math and Chemistry. Was hired by Procter & Gamble, the first company I applied to. I married the year after. Produced 3 beautiful girls living in College Hill, and Colerain two other Cincinnati suburbs. I really spent most of the career years travelling to other places spending almost 75% of my time out of town.
I was very active in area churches serving as an Elder for 26 years. My first wife and I divorced after a 10 year struggle she had with substance abuse that she refused to get professional help. We were married for 31 years. About 6 years later I met my 2nd wife, Donna, who has introduced me to a whole new world of Jazz, County and Rock. I had no idea who Elton John, The Boss, Train, Billy Joel, Stevie Nick were or the songs they made popular. She convinced me that it would be great if I took our blended family of 3 girls and one son plus our 6 grandchildren we had then (10 now) to see Aerosmith. Boy was that an initiation! She is a great chef in her own right. I have tasted some of the best dishes known to man (or women) through her great talents!
I retired from P&G after 38 years and soon after my wife said one day “we should move to the country” That began the transition to Clinton County Ohio where we now live.

Ralph Taylor - Guest Blogger

Good Monday Morning Hymark Bloggers!

I am Ralph Taylor, the guy Ed told you yesterday would be filling-in for him while he and his lovely wife LuAnn are travelling in Central Europe. Why ask a city slicker to host an agricultural blog? Good question! I have little to contribute to the subject matter I have read about in most of the 700 + columns that he has written in the last couple of years.

Since I have had a completely different background than Ed - he thought might be a great change from his writings. Ed is my close friend of mine but I know exactly why he asked me to carry on his blog while he is gone. You will be so happy to once again hear his farm stories when he returns to this blog after 2 + weeks of enduring Ralph’s writing. 

I certainly qualify as a city slicker having lived within the Cincinnati borders for the first 60 years of my life. We moved to Clinton County in 2001 after searching for a “country home with some acerage”. Our real estate agent took us to see several properties that were good but not great. One day she took us on a journey to Clinton County, two counties away from Hamilton Country. It took almost 1 hour 20 minutes to get to a little town called Blanchester with another 15 minutes to a town called Martinsville, Ohio. Our real estate agent certainly knew for sure what it must be to take a trip with children because I must of asked her a hundred times on the way out here “are we almost there”?

We drove down this narrow road, crossed a single lane covered bridge and turned into the gravel driveway. We drove up the hill-laden and as we neared the top saw a 2 story home and very large red barn. Needless to say we knew from the first glance that this was the place we were looking for. Never did I imagine ever living in the country far away from the museums, music hall, Cincinnati neighborhoods with houses right next to each other.

We live outside of Martinsville in Clinton County. The population in our township-postal zone is 1800 + people compared to our previous postal zone of approximately the same space in Cincinnati is 23,000+. The amount of land we owned in Cincinnati was about 1/3 acre whereas here we have 21 acres. The homes here are a half mile apart where in Cincinnati we maybe had 20 feet between! The Martinsville Covered Bridge that we admired on our first visit here turns out to be on the North West corner of our property. What a great thing to have adjacent to one’s home – a covered bridge! We love the country life and wonder how I survived without it so long!
I have learned a lot about Farming from our friend Ed. Not so much to make me a farmer but enough to appreciate what you all do to provide food for our table and animals that become our food. It will take me another decade or so of intense study to become a farmer - after all you can take the city boy to the country but can not take the slicker entirely out.

Tomorrow – Cincinnati “Slicker” life