[AT] garden question; potatoes

[jtchall at nc.rr.com]

I've seen something in catalogs that bolted to corn heads that was supposed 
to help feed downed corn into the header. I can understand his problem, we 
used to raise a couple acres for harvesting with a picker to sell as ear 
corn. We got hit with a hurricane one September and it went pretty flat, but 
not as bad as to what you are referring. We had to pick it in one direction 
so it was leaning into the picker. If the snout ever got under the stalk it 
fed in just fine. Took forever to pick since we could only pick in one 
direction.

John


-----Original Message----- 
From: charlie hill
Sent: Saturday, June 22, 2013 7:49 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] garden question; potatoes

John,  I read an article recently about corn.
It seems that it is one of the most modified plants in agriculture.
It started out as what amounted to a grass with just a few grains
on it somewhere in Mexico or that area and has been selectively
bred over 100's of years to what we have today.  I don't know if it's true
or not but the article implied that  corn could not survive in the wild
without
continuous cross breeding by the seed farms.  It would revert to
it's origins and be useless as a crop.

Speaking of a tangled mess on the ground.  A few years back when I was
dabbling in adjusting Federal Crop Insurance a farmer near here who farmed
about 4000 acres had some flat planted (no rows) corn that got blown down by
an early hurricane.  He had I guess 100 acres like that or more.   He called
me
to look at it but he told me he was going to try to get it up.   When I saw
it
it was laying as flat on the ground as if you had cut the stalks off with a
cycle bar
mower.  Some of the ears of corn that were touching the ground were
sprouting.
He had new combines with some sort of head that would work right down on the
ground.
He called me later and told me he got it up and didn't loose enough to file
a claim on the
loss.   He ran both JD and IH equipment.  I think those combines were JD.

Charlie



-----Original Message----- 
From: jtchall at nc.rr.com
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2013 10:19 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] garden question; potatoes

I would think all seed have been bred for certain qualities. Back in the
'80's I ordered some open pollinated field corn from a place in South
Carolina. After planting it I can see why we prefer hybrids. Some of the
ears were 8ft up in the air and by the time it was ready to combine, the
stalks were so weak they were breaking resulting in a tangled mess and a lot
of missed corn.

John Hall


-----Original Message----- 
From: Richard Fink Sr
Sent: Friday, June 21, 2013 3:45 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] garden question; potatoes

I have what may be a real dumb question. In organic farming how is it
organic if using a hybrid seed. Or one that has been made to be better[
witch means to me screwed with]  Charlie ain,t that what is to fix any
problem throw money at it????????
R Fink
PA


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