Cedar Rapids Weather
2009: Farmer Josh Gets Ready to PlantBy Josh Baynes, Meteorologist
Before planting corn, one must load a planter with seed corn. Farmer Josh recently did that with the help of local farmer Brian Lensch. Brian says that in a bag of seed corn, there are 80,000 seeds and 36,000 are used for one acre. For approximately 3 acres, we would need about 108,000 seeds, in other words, about 1.5 bags. To be safe, Brian had us load 3 bags of seed corn because he said there would be a lot of stopping and dividing up the seeds in the planter as we went if we did not. The leftover seed corn would be saved and used at another time.
The planter to be filled was a 24-row planter. This meant 24 boxes needed filled with seed corn. So, with three bags, one bag would be used to fill 8 boxes. I was told to give it my best guess when filling the boxes and try to even out the corn. I noticed the seed corn was reddish in color. I asked Brian why that was and he said it was treated with a fungicide to eliminate any funguses or secondary insects. He said the seed corn was also root worm and corn boar tolerant. Once the planter was loaded with seed corn, it was time to add some graphite to the boxes, right in the corn, to lubricate the machinery as the corn was planted. Obviously the planter is too big to drive down the road, so we had to fold it up. Brian showed me how to do that with the use of hydraulics. Once it was folded up, it was time to head to the farm. Stay tuned as I actually plant the corn! More Good Stuff |
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