April Fool’s Day – farming style

Apr 01, 2015

Farming has seen its fair share of mischief

It’s April Fool’s Day.

The day where the truth is stretched, news is made up and everyone seems to take themselves a little less seriously.

Every industry seems to participate in April Fool’s antics.

In 2011, Virgin Group announced Sir Richard Branson purchased the planet Pluto, while in 2009 Hotels.com announced it was selling hotel rooms on the moon.

Farming and agriculture are no exception to April Fool’s pranks and Farms.com has found a few pranks related to life on the farm.

Spaghetti Tree Hoax
In 1957, the BBC produced a segment about a Swiss family completing their spaghetti harvest. Women were seen on TV taking strands of the pasta from trees and leaving them to dry in the sunlight. With Richard Dimbleby, a legitimate broadcaster providing the narration, people were calling the BBC with requests for spaghetti trees.

According to Dimbleby, the end of March is a crucial time for spaghetti because the winter’s frost can affect the taste.

Lard from live pigs
In 1921, Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung did a story about a German farmer from “Schleichegrieben” who figured out how to get lard from live pigs.

The farmer would remove the rashers, put bandages on the pigs and let them heal. The farmer said the operation could not be done more than three times a year.

People were astounded by the finding but concerned about the welfare of the animal.

Upon further investigation, not only did the city of “Schleichegrieben” not exist, it also translated into “sneaking bacon”.

Marshmallow farming
Channel 9 news from Iredell County produced an undated video about North Carolina’s marshmallow crop and its danger due to rain.

A farmer is seen in the video standing in front of marshmallow trees talking about the struggles of the crop.

“It takes four years from the time that you get the tree planted before you’re going to get your first harvest,” the farmer said.

Join the conversation and tell us of any other farming-related April Fool’s pranks you know of. Did you play any on someone today? If so, what was it?

Video: New colours and more durability for Case IH RB6 round balers

Farmers will see a new look and more efficiency and durability from Case IH's RB6 Series variable chamber round balers for model year 2026. In this report from the Farm Progress Show in Decatur, Illinois, Case livestock product specialist Brian Williams notes that the first thing farmers will notice is a new colour scheme. "For the tailgate, the frame, and also the pickup, we've changed to our Case IH red colour. One of the really nice things about changing that colour scheme is that you're able to see that crop flowing into the baler much better from the tractor." There's also changes to the pickup with the addition of a second roller. "On the 566 model, you can get it with the double windrower roller," says Williams. "For our customers that are baling corn stalks or large windrows, it helps to push that windrow down to let that feed into the chamber, so that they're able to bale a little bit faster, because everyone's looking for better efficiency." There are also modifications to the rollers in the bale chamber — the stripper roll and the fixed roll have been combined into a one-piece roller. "There's no welds on those rollers, so the dependability is going to be far greater than our previous model," adds Williams.