an important clarification

We realized yesterday, after our kernels musings, that we need to clarify about this corn we are harvesting. This is not sweet corn. This is "feed" corn (also sometimes referred to as "field" corn), corn that will end up (depending on your view) satisfying many cattle, in order to satisfy many beef-eaters. The vast majority of cattle in the US have corn as a significant part of their diet (though there is a growing movement to head back to "grass" fed cattle, but that is another story).

A little more on the mechanics of how this all works. Sweet corn you harvest when the stalks are still nice and green, and in a perfect world you eat that corn as quickly as you can after you have picked it (it's sugars start turning to starch as soon as you pick it... so the closer you are to picking time, the sweeter it is). With feed corn, one wants the corn to dry out (better for storage), so you don't harvest the corn until the stalks have died and dried, and the moisture content of the corn drops below 20%. You really want the moisture content to get to ~14% for storage, but you can't always wait for that to happen in the field (snow can sometimes come early, and you don't want to have to wait until spring to harvest :) ), so when we haul it out of here (actually, the Figenbaums haul it out of here), it goes to Tripoli (pronounced "truh-POH-lah") where it is stored and dried. Once dried, it is either sold from there, or some might come back out to the farm and Drape grain bins to be stored until sold (at this point, I can't begin to explain the process around the sale of corn (or beans), so you'll have to wait on that). Corn that comes out of the field in the neighborhood of 15% moisture content, can be put directly into grain bins at the farm.

I'm sure if my Uncle Dave is still reading our blog, he'll let me know if the city-boy has any egregious errors in his attempt to sound informed about corn here.