Seed production on pace with tech boost

Oct 19, 2023

As corn has been picked out of the fields, the seed for next year is getting packed up. Despite drought, production hasn’t been an issue in central Iowa, leading to no concerns about supply next spring.

“We’ve had some fairly timely rains that has helped,” said Jake Pantry, field production lead at the Bayer Corn Production Facility in Grinnell, Iowa. “We aren’t seeing any concerns on yield. (At the start of October) we still have a third of the crop to bring in the door, but there are no concerns about drought impacting things.”

With the yields expected to come in, it should be a typical year for the facility, receiving nearly 140 trucks per day and producing nearly 2 million seed bags annually, 70% of which are for the DEKALB brand.

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Video: A chain harrow is a game changer

Utilizing a rotational grazing method on our farmstead with our sheep helps to let the pasture/paddocks rest. We also just invested in a chain harrow to allow us to drag the paddocks our sheep just left to break up and spread their manure around, dethatch thicker grass areas, and to rough up bare dirt areas to all for a better seed to soil contact if we overseed that paddock. This was our first time really using the chain harrow besides initially testing it out. We are very impressed with the work it did and how and area that was majority dirt, could be roughed up before reseeding.

Did you know we also operate a small business on the homestead. We make homemade, handcrafted soaps, shampoo bars, hair and beard products in addition to offering our pasture raised pork, lamb, and 100% raw honey. You can find out more about our products and ingredients by visiting our website at www.mimiandpoppysplace.com. There you can shop our products and sign up for our monthly newsletter that highlights a soap or ingredient, gives monthly updates about the homestead, and also lists the markets, festivals, and events we’ll be attending that month.