We’ve had some great weather in April (look at that beautiful sky) and I was able to take the planters out for a test-run in the field! Unbelievable–at one point I was planting 25 acres an hour. Now that’s what I call using technology to your advantage!

Speaking of taking advantages of things, we have an Intern this spring–Carissa. Yes, there are still young people who want a career in farming! She (yes, she) has been following me around and wanted an opportunity to write the blog. So, I decided to let her have a shot at it:

“This year we will be planting three different varieties–white corn, yellow waxy corn, and yellow dent corn.  White corn is used for making food products, including corn chips, tortillas, and cereal; we sell our white corn to Quaker Oats in Cedar Rapids.  Yellow waxy corn contains roughly 25% more of a certain type of starch than regular corn.  Waxy corn is used by wet-corn millers to produce waxy cornstarch, which is utilized by the food industry as a stabilizer/thickener and in the paper industry as an adhesive.  Our waxy corn gets sold to Penford in Cedar Rapids. Yellow dent corn is what people usually think of when they hear the word ‘corn’ and is made into a variety of products including ethanol alcohol, batteries, rubber, skin care products, food additives, and many other things.  It can also be fed to animals.  The corn we grow for our corn maze is yellow dent corn.

We will also be planting two varieties of soybeans.  We will plant regular soybeans, which get used in soyfoods, coffee creamers, cooking oils, biodiesel, ink, paint, soybean meal for animal feeds, and many other things.  The other type of soybeans we will plant are Asoyia Ultra Low Linolenic Soybeans.  These soybeans contain 1% linolenic acid, whereas regular soybeans contain 7% to 8%.  Linolenic acid is the most unstable component of soybeans, thus beans with a higher percentage of linolenic acid produce oil that goes rancid quickly, and creates undesirable characteristics when used in cooking.  Low-linolenic soybean oil is used as an ingredient in crackers, cookies, and cereals.  It also produces foods lower in saturated fats and trans fat.”

Well, that’s a mouth full. It is a bit technical, but writing a blog and marketing is a part of farming in today’s world.

Later, Dave

This entry was posted on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 12:44 am and is filed under Bloomsbury Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.