Back in 2021 April, Nick and Axel had the wonderful opportunity to be guests on an episode of Cowboy Dan Harrell’s Television program. They were able to promote agriculture education and show from seed to stalk to ear how corn is grown cared for and harvested. If you have never heard of Cowboy Dan I’d like to give you a quick summary of what his show is about. Cowboy Dan promotes agriculture education and daily learning through fun stories and music. He is an advocate for farmers and ranchers who believes in American agriculture. The way he defines agriculture is Food, Fabric, Fuel, and Forestry. While on the show April and Nick showed Cowboy Dan the beginning stages of corn as a seed that is coated in a powder that gives the seed the best chance to survive against bugs, fungi, and anything else that could harm it before it would make its way into a young plant. Nick gave a demonstration of how the corn planter works along with showing the different parts of the machinery that were being used. A few weeks later Cowboy Dan came back to the farm to see the growth of the corn plant. While being out in the field Nick explained how farmers are always looking to see what stage of growth the plant is currently in. The stage of growth the plant is in a few weeks after planting could be the V-4 or V-5 stage. V stands for Vegetative, this means the plant is still growing itself. Interesting with a corn plant to see what stage it is in you count the collars or sets of leaves starting at the base of the plant. Besides plant growth farmers are also looking to see if any damage has been done to the plant by bugs, fungi, or anything that could cause harm. Moving over to another field that was planted 2 weeks before the other field Nick tells Cowboy Dan that the stage this plant is in the reproductive stage. He explains how corn is a self pollinator and the tassels at the top of the plant hold the pollen. The pollen will be moved by wind to the silks and they will only pollinate when the silks are wet. Even though corn is a self pollinator it is best to keep corn in rows of 4 or more so that they can help pollinate their neighbors. Later in the episode, Nick shows Cowboy Dan 2 ways that Acres of Grace Farms harvests their corn crop. Not only does Acres of Grace harvest corn in a common way for the kernels, but we also use the entire plant chopped up and bagged, or packaged, as sillage to feed our cattle in the winter. Nick gives an in-depth explanation of the different parts of the chopper, wagon, and bagging machine and even shows Cowboy Dan how everything works. A few months later, in the fall, we get to see the harvesting of the corn kernels. Cowboy Dan gets to go for a ride and get a farmer's view of how the technology inside the tractor works. We hope you guys will check out Cowboy Dan’s Frontier episode called Where Does The Yellow Corn Grow!
