I call this a guide to Indiana and I very rarely mention corn. Shame on me. WLFI reports that the corn planting is a little late this year due to the cold and wet start to spring. Planting is usually done between the last week of April and the first two weeks of May. Only about 8% of the state’s crop is in so far. But, we’re only about a week behind schedule, and the weather is supposed to be decent next week.
I frequently grouse and complain about our state because I love it, and I’m a native. But I have no complaints about our sweet corn. It’s one thing we do better than anyone else. Every year on my birthday, I request a menu of steak, tomatoes, and corn. My corn consumption has become a matter of public comment. I was given a little grief because I only managed to take down six ears of corn last year as compared to the eight the year before. So, I’m hoping the crop comes in by the first week in August so I can redeem myself.
I’m surprised planting won’t even be later, and May is supposed to be a little cool so that won’t help things along either. As for final expected figures, the Dept. of Agriculture estimates say that the corn crop is supposed to be down from last year, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be huge.
Almost all the corn in Indiana is field corn, but just because it’s not sweet corn it doesn’t mean you don’t eat it. Corn is in almost everything you eat.
Which corn, Doug? The real stuff you can eat or pop, or the phony inedible GMO dent corn the welfare farmers shove into our gas tanks at a rate of 10% and want to increase? I wouldn’t mind seeing a blight wipe out all that fuel corn.
I don’t want to put corn into my gas tank. Now that the Chinese are rejecting American GMO corn, the welfare boys will need some greater industrial/vehicular application for their crop.
In the main, the American corn farmer is a very wealthy welfare leech who uses his lobby to blow up your car/bike/chainsaw engine. Can Donnelly be any worse than Lugar?
GMA crops, corn and other, are not good for the environment, in that, for example, they make it possible for the SOLE food crop for monarch butterflies, namely milkweed, to be pesticide-sprayed with abandon and into oblivion. Do something good for the monarch, and grow some milkweed in your yard.
Mis-typed, it’s GMO of course.
My father leaves a lot of milkweed stand to encourage monarchs. But don’t worry, Mary, milkweed will develop resistance to glysophate and it will be back. A lot of milkweed grows along railroad tracks.
Great. Pesticides on GMO crops killing Monarchs so the corn boys can sell overpriced and subsidized fuel that gets worse mileage, provides less horsepower and hurts engines.
I really don’t want a world in which milkweed adapts to become pesticide resistant. I just want milkweed.
What manner of comprehensive depravity causes the farm lobby too look out over their corn fields and think to themselves “!FUEL!” ?
Does anyone in America make an honest buck off purely voluntary exchange? Probably the bookies and hookers, and they keep that illegal.
I agree that shoving food in your gas tank seems like a bad idea.
I don’t know the specifics, but I understand that it takes more energy and resources to make ethanol than you get out of it. And that doesn’t take into account what alcohol does to your engine. It leads to a crunch question, though: Do you want fuel or food?
Oil is abiotic, so we’ll never run out of that as long as the hot molten core of the earth has access to methane.
It does take more energy to make a gallon (unit) of ethanol than you get from it. Very far the reverse with oil/natural gas/coal.
Yeah, Doug, you have probably never seen a corn field that is growing a single ear of corn you could eat. I don’t know if you would even know where to look to find a real cornfield. Almost all corn you see growing is GMO dent corn that is a huge risk to the world food supply.
Prairie View Farms just north of town pulls its sweet corn out of the field for several weeks each year. Back when I lived in Monticello, I would drive past their farm house every day to and from work. They have a wagon out front where it’s on sale. They also take wagons to a couple of other locations around the county.
Small/hobby farms are great. Glad you know of one. Give them lots of business.
Don’t worry, Dog, many growers start sweetcorn early under plastic. Things won’t be too late. I am in the strong mood for fresh asparagus and morel mushrooms.
Before you guys get all heated up about not consuming GMO field corn and hoping for a big blight, please keep in mind that corn is in virtually everything you eat and use. If farmers stopped growing corn (GMO or non-GMO), your life would be very different, and for the worse. Just for educational reasons, you could check this out for starters: http://www.forbes.com/pictures/fejg45geil/12-surprising-products-that-contain-corn/
And that’s why, as a group, we’re so fat and unhealthy. Consumers can educate themselves to reduce their exposure, especially to the high fructose corm syrup. It’s not at all hard to do, but it is a little more expensive.
I don’t think I eat that ingredient at all anymore, except perhaps a little (unknowingly) when I dine out. Thanks to the list, I can start to find alternatives for some of the non-food products listed.
Mis-typed again, wow, I better quit. It’s “high fructose corn syrup”, not corm (although I suppose it could be that as well).
If they stopped growing GMO corn, they’d have to grow real corn. Like Europe. I don’t want salmon DNA being spliced into my corn, and I don’t want my corn producing its own pesticides. They can make all those products out of good, old fashioned, corn. They just don’t get the same ear yield per stalk.
I need to get serious about teaching my kids to husk corn though. I’m good at it, and kind of enjoy the process, and so haven’t tasked them with the job often enough. But, that’s doing them a disservice.
Also, for those who like corn, I highly recommend the “Butter Boy.”
http://www.bigkitchen.com/MerchantUploads/edgeCPIGroup/BB-G.jpg
It’s really good when you cook it in the microwave in the husk (2 min per ear, adding 1 min. per additional ear). It cooks in its own juices, without adding water or allowing the water to dilute the taste, etc. If you don’t eat it right away, it stays hot. Hold it by the peeled husk. Don’t try this at a formal dinner.
Wow, a little article on liking eating corn on the cob brings on a whole other area of debate. The reality is that GMO and “roundup” type of technology is not the evil thing some believe. But learned a long time ago that when some folks get an idea in their head, facts don’t really matter so don’t even try to change their mind.
For people who wish for the good old days, they never happened. There was never an old fashioned nice corn that my grandpa grew, at least one that would support 300 million people. You know all those fields marked with special signs, sponsored by Purdue, that tell you about new hybrids? That whole process has led to corn and grains that will only grow in the midwest, but will grow really big and fast. Micro-evolution developed characteristics that protected corn from all kinds of nasty things. Hybridization has speeded up the process. GMO is hybridization on steroids.
My only problem is that Monsanto collects $7 per bushel on their patented corn. I think they should be fairly compensated for their work, but I don’t think that’s right, whatever the courts have said.
“GMO is hybridization on steroids”
Splicing worm, salmon or other animal DNA into corn is not a “hybrid”; it’s a frankenfood.
I think you are reading too much demagoguery and not enough botany. Man, if the words clang, sound funny and offer simplistic conspiracy, you are totally up for it. Is this another evidence-free rant?
Stuart, are you saying that you can prove that DNA from no other species has been introduced into any corn crop grown in the U.S.?
No. I am asking you to show ANY evidence that “worms, salmon or any other animal” are integrated into corn, as you claim. I’m not a big supporter of Monsanto, but I do try to keep crazy talk out of the discussion.
Stuart, my wife is a molecular plant biologist at IPFW. Animal genes can be spliced into plants, but the serve small phonotype changes. Basically, GMO products are as safe as the land race and hybrid plants. And many times, genes that are somewhat similar cross plan species into the genome. Glysophate resistant crops have generated huge yields that feed more people.
But I do understand that stretching grain crops to their biologic extreme risks some collapse, collapse in a time then the world stretches its food supply. So I urge everyone to take my advice.
Go Vegetarian. Rarely are we offered a “switch”, a policy choice that will eliminate most of our land use, water quality, acqiofer sufficiently, and reduce about 30% of fossil fuel use. Turn the switch and go vegetarian.
Like they say, “There is no free lunch”, and I don’t like being a defender of Monsanto. I’m afraid that there is karma in glyophosate resistance. I don’t like the way things are going.
Yeah, engineered glysophate resistance is not a uniform evil.
Not good advice, Carlito. Vegetarians are less healthy, weaker and have shorter lifespans.
There is no data that confirms that vegetarians are less healthy. In fact, they have better cardio vascular health and lower colon cancer risk. There are some studies that demonstrate that vegetarians live longer lives than omnivores, although these studies are not well controlled, But eliminating meat production would huge effect on the health of this planet.
Freedom: time to get a life. Every post I have read of yours has been negative. Must be a sad world in your view of reality.
What a pathetic cop-out.
I’ll take that as a “no”, meaning you don’t have any evidence. Let me suggest that when you want to do a crazy talk rant, just tell us, and we will all give you room so you can feel better. Then everyone can say, “Oh, that’s just old uncle ‘Freedom’ talking.”
Since it wasn’t a response to your post, you shouldn’t take it, at all. Learn to read and follow a string. And stay out of discussions that don’t concern you. I might or might not get around responding to your vapid, ridiculous, post that seeks evidence of a widely known fact.
You really are stupid.
That will carry the day. When you run out of something sensible, insult people. You are 13 years old, right?