Estimating Corn Yield

I've been feeding the pigs a little bit of ear corn. They attack it with great vigor! I thought it would be fun to estimate yield from our little plot. The national yield this year is predicted to be 155.3 bushels per acre. This, of course, is heavily managed hybrid corn. Gene Logsdon got 110 bushels per acre from the Open Pollinated variety "Reids Yellow Dent." I grew Nothstine Dent as I outlined in this blog entry. I picked and shucked corn from a 125 square foot area, it filled a five gallon bucket.

The sacrificed area

5 gallon of ear corn

The best looking ear of the group

A couple were pretty...

The worse

A couple weren't...

Dent corn

Some were drier than others...













Now for the math to figure out bushels per acre. A bushel of shelled corn, corn that is no longer on the cob, weighs about 56 pounds. To get a bushel of shell corn from ear corn, what I have, you need 70 pounds of ear corn. That five gallon bucket weighed 23 pounds.

23 pounds of ear corn equals .328 bushels of shell corn.

.328 bushels per 125 square feet. 125 square feet is .00287 acres.

.328 bushels per .00287 acres.

Time for some algebra:

.328 bushels/.00287 acres = x bushels/1 acre

114 bushels / acre

Pretty respectable for open pollinated if this method of estimating is at all reliable. I imagine I am not acounting for lots of variables. How accurately did I measure the sample area? Not very... How does the moisture content of the corn play into this? I don't know...

Regardless, The numbers suggest this was worth doing. This means I will get about 11.5 bushels of corn. The price of corn today is 4.59 a bushel. Sweet! I raised $53 dollars worth of corn. Of course I spent about twice that on fuel, manure, seed and urea...

These folks a couple hours south me got 60 bushels / acre with Nothstine.

Now this is better corn than from the feed mill. Open pollinated is supposed to be higher in protein than hybrid corn. It is definitely non-GMO. The pigs enjoy it fresh. The nutrients and organic matter from the manure will benefit the soil for many growing season beyond this one. Since it is open pollinated I can reuse seed and I only used a small amount of the urea which I can save for future years. So we will call it a wash... Just like what they found in the movie King Corn! I need to sign up for my subsidy ;)

Maybe I will try this corn yield estimate on a different part of the field on a future date this fall.

On a different note I found this pile of poop near the corn. We have had a black bear sighting near our house recently. Is that what this is?

Bear scat?

Pigs eating corn

Threw the pigs some corn today. They love the fresh green stuff!

Tassel-ears

Went to the corn today to harvest some for the pigs and found this oddity.

Tassel-ear

That is an ear of corn that developed on the tassel at the top of the corn stalk. Apparently it's very rare and has to do with a hormonal imbalance in that plant. Read more here.

Corn

A load of Manure

 I have a flat area on my property that is about a 1/10th of an acre that I have always envisioned as a corn field to raise corn to help supplement feed. Last year I tried but failed miserably. I planted it too late and didn't add any nutrients to the soil. Did I mention it failed miserably?

Piles of Poop

So last spring I brought in 8 yards of cow manure from my local landscape supply. The trailer can handle 4 yards, so it took two loads. The landscape supply is not two far away so it was much more economical to do it this way than to have them deliver in one big load.

I unloaded it with the Yanmar's loader, dropped it off in these piles, spread it out with the front blade on the Farmall Cub, and then tilled it in with the 4' rototiller I have for my Yanmar. A great day of hobby farming!

Baby Corn

That was in April. In mid-May we had a warm spell and I planted the corn with my earthway seeder.

When the plants were having just germinated I ran my 1970's horse rototiller down the rows. I did that one more time while the plants were small. and left them for quite a while. When they were hip high I side dressed with Urea (40-0-0) at the rate of 1 pound per 100 feet of row. I tilled it in with the cultivator attachment I have for my Stihl Kombi-System and irrigated.

I used the kombi-system because it is much more narrow. I have read that at certain heights you have to be careful of how close you cultivate to the roots as not to cut the ones near the top that keep the corn from lodging (falling over). I recently bought a cultivator for the Farmall Cub that I found on craigslist that I look forward to experimenting with next year.
I only irrigated two or three times. Several neighbors were quite concerned with how little I was watering.

The corn is an old open pollinated variety called Nothstine Dent that is supposed to be well suited to our short growing season, drought tolerant and is know for its use as feed and corn meal. I plan on saving seed.

Weeds in corn

Well... We did get weeds but they are only in the rows. From this angle they look out of control. When you look down the row, it doesn't look so bad.

Weeds like my hair in 1992

But when you pull the weeds back you see that they are a mop top and it is bare soil beneath them. I wonder if the mulching qualities it brings out-weighs the nutrients the weeds steel from the corn? The plan is to feed this is as ear corn to the pigs and use the stalks as bedding. My son and I fed them several ears yesterday and they really went after them. It will be interesting when it is all said and done to see how much this helps the feed bill. Of course there is the cost of growing it... 8 yards of manure, 1.5 pounds of corn seed, fossil fuels, Urea...Experience of growing it, priceless.

The first post!

I made this blog a year ago, or so, and promptly wrote nothing...

The idea is to write about my hobby, farming. I do have a day job that covers 99.9% of my income and farming covers the other .1%. Definitely a hobby. I like the gear, I like the animals, but mostly I enjoy eating good food and hearing how much people enjoy the food I raise.

So what do I raise? Among my friends and family we are mostly known for our pork. Once a year we raise a set of weaner pigs to raise to market weight and sell to friends and family. We keep half of one for ourselves. We get pigs in 10-12 pigs in August and keep them until January or February.  This schedule works well with my professional life as I am out of town often in the summer, but rarely leave town starting in September. We are in Western Washington State.

Let me give you a quick tour of our ranchette. Each picture will prompt a further blog entry!

The House (when getting a new roof earlier this summer)

The house, getting a new roof.

Late 70's ranch style. Been here 5 years and slowly updating.

The corn "field". 1/10th of an acre of Nothstine Dent. I am growing this to feed the pigs and see if it will supplement feed costs at all.


If it doesn't, it has been a good experience growing it!

The long view

 

Compared to a 6' ladder. This is from August 10.

Next up: The fleet

Tahoe and Trailer. The Tahoe is our substitute for a farm truck. It does a good job pulling this 16' trailer and whenever we need to haul the whole family and lots of gear. It used to be a daily driver, but now is hanging around for its specific tasks.



I built these removable sides for the trailer. Great for bulk materials or young pigs.

Trailer with sides, when new

The tractors:

The fleet

The Yanmar 2210d was bought used, years ago for brush hogging and general utility, The Farmall cub has been in my family since it was new in 1950. The lawnmower cuts grass... Also in this picture you see the grain bin and hoop house. More blogs in the future about all of the above. Lots of other little pieces of gear.

The pigs:

Picked up the latest batch of pigs today, which prompted a blog entry. Pick up from a local farmer who is super small scale as well, but WAY bigger than me.

New pigs in hoop house

The hoop house is new and look forward to see how I can make it work with my variation on deep litter bedding.

The pigs live in a fenced garden area. Great fertilizer!

Garden from early June

That's all for now. More details in the future with stories on how we have done this in the past and how we got where we are! I have lots of pictures saved up!