Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Corn Cam Part IV

The Corn has reached the R5 stage of corn development.  The ears of corn have fully formed and some of the kernels have developed dents.  


Dent corn or "field corn" is the majority of corn that is grown here in Western Kansas.  It is used to feed livestock, create ethanol, and high fructose corn syrup.  Dent corn is not like the corn you get from the farmers market and eat off the cob.  If you were to try to boil this corn and eat it you would regret it, because it only has about 1/5 of the sugars that are found in sweet corn and it is high in starches. 


We had to call in Air Support to spray our corn for the second time this year.  Our corn is being attacked by spider mites, which eat away at the leaves of the corn plant.  I actually snapped a pretty cool picture of the crop duster.  I think he is about a foot off the top of the corn.


It's pretty fun to watch these planes spray the fields.  They fly under power lines, dodge sprinklers, and fly about 1 to 5 feet above the corn.

-Farmer Ryan

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