Real Corn Link
June 23rd, 2008 by Northern Farmer I’ve been busy dropping hay in the fields today, tomorrow will be the same, although if it would rain we’d gladly take it and never complain around these parts. The corn is finally starting to grow a little bit being that its warming up in these parts finally. Still no heat waves or anything like that but nice and comfortable days are the norm here this last week. I just wanted to put a link here that is of interest to me. Who knows, maybe I’m the last one to know about it but that’s the way it goes when a person is farming for real. There’s really not much time for internet or searching or anything like that.
In the mail today I received an Open Pollinated corn raisers news letter of all things. Never got anything like that in my life till now and it looks pretty durn good to say the least! Here’s a link that they had on the front page and after checking it out it looks like its worth a visit for anyone that’s interested in raising good corn. By that I mean corn the critters can eat and you can too! The outfit’s name is Seed We Need and I think it has allot of interesting stuff on it.
So with the hay making, corn cultivating and a bunch of stuff at our church to do, things are really busy around here. Nothing new about that!
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Tom, thanks for the link it looks interesting! I cultivated corn today before going to work, it was slow and eye straining! Been cool and rainy here, the Krug OP is slow getting going and was lost in the grass and broadleaf! Had to go by faith a few times when I couldn’t see the corn plants but hope with some warmer weather will make the corn pop up and make for easier cultivating. The every other day rain here is wrecking our hay making, got 10 acres down for over a week now and another 70 acres to go but weather is just not cooperating! We’ll plug away, maybe sell some off the field to the big guys just to get thru first crop. The Farmer Pirate must stay flexible!
June 23rd, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Brent,
The last few days the corn has finally started moving though and I figure around the end of the week I’ll continue cultivating. I held back on the later planted fields, just to durn small and I didn’t want to cover any up. I did a little faith cultivating last week too but the warmer weather has made the corn pass up the weeds now. I think I’m gonna collect as many OP sites as I can and put them on the side bar here, kinda a thing of mine. I like real corn that real farmers can keep their own seed from! I was just thinking a few minutes ago about how much OP corn we do raise, I all of a sudden realized that we might be one of the bigger OP corn raisers in the country! But when I’m in the corn field there’s a different feeling to it. Can save our own seed, can even eat the stuff, ain’t beholding to multi national big ag. Ain’t supplying them with money so they can sponsor all the evil in society today with some of their profits. But we’re looked at as weird, or religious fanatics or what ever else they can come up with! But I’m one happy religious fanatic, or hillbilly kook! Ah, life is good 
Our corn is way behind here too. The rains haven’t been bothering our hay making at all. I’m kinda hoping you’d send a little rain back our way
June 24th, 2008 at 7:55 am
Hey Brent,
I’ve been collecting up some OP corn varieties for the day I’m finally free from this crazy city I live in and can get a farm. Would you want to trade some of my seed for a bit of that Krug seed?
June 24th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Tom,
I really liked the link for the best OP corn for which area. Almost made me feel better about the dried up stalks that were once called reids yellow dent last year. Ended up, I was probably the #1 breeder of OP bessie fodder.
Gotta tell you, that site is now on my 10 best dressed list. I sent out to the National Plant Germplasm System for some seed right after I figured out that Germplasm wasn’t contagious
Well, better git. Talking to one hillbilly religious fanatic a day is enough…….
Thanks for the link.
Brad
June 24th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Tom
Thanks for the link. Hows the hay making going? Theres more than one or two hillbilly religious fanitics out there. Two more calf’s born today still praying for rain, dut all in His good time. The hay down here is pretty sparse no where the usual.
Blessings
June 24th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Brent,
Never mind I just ordered some Krug seed from Heirloom Acres.
June 24th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Wow!, what colorful corn!. I checked out that link. As an artist, I think I could grow corn like that. Almost paint a picture in the field with corn that colorful.
One of the tragedies of GM corn, is there is probably nothing GM corn can do, that one of the hundreds of open pollinated corn doesn’t already do. Centuries of farming, have created crops for every kind of ecological niche. I shudder at what was lost during the quote, “green revolution”. Now, if the dang rain would stop long enough to plant any of it!
June 24th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Don,
I buy my Krug OP corn seed (a 90 day variety) from a local seed store, they also carry Reid yellow dent but that tends to be 100 day, a bit long for my style of farming! Rain has messed up our planting schedule so I may be putting some more corn in yet. How much seed do you have in mind?
June 25th, 2008 at 5:44 am
Well folks,
Busy around here to say the least and today I’ll be raking and baling again, and tomorrow too. Glad there’s some interest in the corn link, like I wrote, I’ll have to gather the links together someday and put them in a separate category on this blog’s sidebar. I hope today is calmer around these here parts, yesterday was a dilly in our county. Gunfight at our court house. But the gunman is no longer with us in this life. And years and years of the culture of death’s struggle to get every kind of vice in our county came to an abrupt halt yesterday by the bullets of our sheriff, a deputy and a trooper. To us this is huge news and once the powder cleared our hearts were joyous that none of our family’s friends were hurt or killed! Thank you Jesus!
June 25th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Brent,
I don’t have a farm. I only rent a garden plot on a local small farm and it is in the process of being sold off to developers. Therefore I don’t use much seed. I’ve got an order for a pound of Krug to be mailed off today so there is no need to trade krug seed this year. I’ve got some Golden Glow growing for seed right now, which is an early variety. Due to lack of a place to plant it away from my other corn, I couldn’t get much planted. I’ve got only 27 plants of it in the flower bed in front of my shop. I’ve also got more Golden Glow seed to be planted still. Next year I can get more planted some place and get some good seed. If you want some after I get the seed supply up we can trade then. The idea is to start with a small sample of good seed and several years later you got all the seed you would ever need and by then it is getting aclimated to your local conditions. Golden Glow was a popular OP variety in Wisconsin and Michigan. The only other early variety I have in sufficient amount is Nothstine dent. It is however very low yeilding and is therefore not suitable for grain or silage, though that is what the old farmers east of the area of Traverse City Michigan used to grow it for. However it is a very sweet corn and makes excellent corn bread. Sometimes I mix it with Hickory King corn for bread. We have a longer season and so Hickory King does okay here. I do have Hickory King if you are interested but it is supposedly a 120 day corn. You would have to get it planted early and it’s a little late for that this year. Nothstine is the sweetest smelling field corn I’ve ever found. And it tastes good in bread.