Tim and Carol Weiser Receive 2011 Master Farmer Award

Tim and Carol Weiser of York Springs, fruit growers and farm marketers in Adams County, received the prestigious Mid-Atlantic Master Farmer Award. Five new Master Farmers were honored by Mid-Atlantic ag leaders and past award recipients during the 2011 Master Farmer Awards Luncheon festivities at the Sheraton Harrisburg/Hershey Hotel in Harrisburg, Pa. The award is co-sponsored by American Agriculturist magazine and the Cooperative Extension programs of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

More than 100 candidates are nominated each year for the award. Based on submitted applications, award recipients are selected based on their demonstrated success as progressive business managers, responsible environmental stewards and exemplary civic leaders.

Tim Weiser, a second-generation Master Farmer, grew up on the Adams County fruit farm of his father Everett Weiser near York Springs. After graduating from McPherson College in Kansas, he returned to the family farm in 1972 and did substitute teaching during winter. Twenty-two years after dating Carol at McPherson, they met again and were married in 1995.

In 1986, Tim built his first greenhouse as a separate business entity. Since then, Weiser’s Greenhouse operation has grown to 18,000 square feet under plastic and an additional 1,000 square feet of outside growing area, producing wholesale and retail bedding plants, hanging baskets, planters plus vegetable transplants for the fields. This winter, they're growing fresh lettuce for an urban market and starting tomatoes for early-season sales. The Greenhouse  operation is located at 830 Old US Route 15, York Springs behind the Farm Market which is located at the corner of 65 Bonners Hill Road and Route 15 north of York Springs.

Today, Weiser Orchards is a family partnership owning 700 acres and renting 100. Some 150 acres of fruit, vegetables and horticultural crops are marketed through their farm market or to processors. The farm also produces more than 300 acres of corn and soybeans and 15 acres of sweet corn. Tim's brother, Steve, manages fruit production and harvest, spraying and accounting for the farm.

Tim manages the 20-acre vegetable operation which includes 30 varieties of vegetables sold retail and wholesale and four acres of a pick-your-own berry enterprise along with Weiser’s Farm Market, the farm’s retail market. The berry enterprise includes blueberries, red and black raspberries, and blackberries. He also does most of the corn planting and harvesting of corn and soybeans. Carol oversees the market's workforce and helps manage production and accounting for the greenhouse.

Carol has been a choir member at their Lutheran church. She's a member of the Gettysburg chapter #392 of the Order of the Eastern Star and is Deputy Grand Matron of Region 8A.

Tim’s current fruit industry and community leadership includes serving the Adams County Fruit Growers Association for 20 years including leadership positions of chair, secretary and treasurer. For over 20 years, Tim coordinated volunteers to work the State Horticultural Association of Pennsylvania’s booth in the food court at the Pennsylvania Farm Show. He is a board member of the Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Association and vice chairman of the Adams County Conservation District where he has served the board for eight years. Tim currently serves as vice-president of the State Horticultural Association of Pennsylvania and served as a Pennsylvania Cherry Growers Association officer and a past nine year board member of the Penn State Extension Board of Directors in Adams County. 

The Weiser’s blended family includes Tim’s sons Bradford and Michael and Carol’s daughter Tannis and three grandchildren Noah, Garrian and Laurel.

The Weisers join a prestigious group of 35 Adams County Master Farmers named since the award was established in 1927. The Master Farmer program is one of America’s oldest and longest running honors programs. It’s the “Academy Awards of Agriculture,” says John Vogel, editor-in-chief of American Agriculturist. “Mid-Atlantic Master Farmers comprise only 0.9% of all farmers in the five states,” adds Vogel. Other Master Farmers inducted include Walter Moore, West Grove, Pa., a Chester County dairy farmer and Noel and Elizabeth Schlegel, dairy farmers from Topton, Pa., in Berks County.

Master Farmers from Adams County
1935     H.E. Brown
1936    John W. Luckabaugh
1940    John H. Menges
1941     Mrs. Rose Murren
1948    William M. Lott
1951    Roy H. Heckenluber
1959    John B. Peters
1961    Robert C. Lott
1961    Clarence J. Waybright
              and sons Horace and Richard Waybright
1963    Ralph Tyson
1963    President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1st Honorary Master Farmer)
1965     Paul Pitzer
1966    Fremont Kuntz
1967    George Schriver
1968     Joseph Stoner
1969    John R. Pitzer
1970    Ryland Garretson
1972    M. Everett Weiser
1973    Thomas O. Oyler, Sr.
1974    Richard B. Trostel
1975    Lloyd E. Benner
1976    John H. Baugher
1992    Paul Waybright
1993    John J. Hess
1994    Janet K. Knouse
1996    Glenn Jr. and Marion Slaybaugh
        Scott and Debra Slaybaugh
1999    Guy Donaldson
2009     John K. Lott
2010    David and Cheryl Reinecker
2011    Tim and Carol Weiser
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