The same year that the Elders gathered in Snook, Texas to consume chicken fried bacon, a terrible wildfire scorched Bastrop State Park (September and October 2011).
The Bastrop County Complex fire was a conflagration that engulfed parts of Bastrop County, Texas, in September and October 2011. The wildfire was the costliest and most destructive wildfire in Texas history and among the costliest in U.S. history, destroying 1,696 structures and causing an estimated $350 million in insured property damage. An exceptional drought, accompanied by record-high temperatures, affected Texas for much of 2011.
Wikipedia / photo By Tim Patterson – https://www.flickr.com/photos/timpatterson/6118388499/sizes/o/in/photostream/, CC BY-SA 2.0, By NASA – http://lance.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/wms/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16352833 By The National Guard – Flickr: Texas National Guard fight wildfire, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16385072
The Drought
The 2010–2013 Southern United States and Mexico drought was a severe to extreme drought that plagued the Southern United States, including parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, and Oklahoma; the Southwestern States, including Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona; as well as large parts of Mexico, in a three-year pattern from 2010 to 2013.
The worst effects were in Texas, which experienced the brunt of the drought and its driest August–July (12-month) period on record from 2010 to 2011.
The drought caused billions of dollars in losses throughout the state economy. Farmers and ranchers were among those hardest hit. The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service estimates that Texas agricultural producers lost nearly $7.6 billion due to the drought.
Drought and unprecedented heat made 2011 the worst year for wildfires in Texas history.
Jeff Goodell, in his book The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet, talks with a south Texas farmer about a drought-ravaged corn field:
But there wasn’t much corn, however pathetic and scraggly it may have been, for Dineen to harvest. The stalks were only five feet tall at most, compared with six to seven feet normally. “Yields are fifty percent of an average year,” he said. “We might get fifty bushels per acre,” which was far below the usual 100 to 110 bushels.
The Heat Will Kill You First / Magic Valley / Page 119
Rapid adoption of double-cross hybrid corn by American growers began in the late 1930’s, in the waning years of the Dust Bowl and Great Depression. Within a very few years, the national yield statistics indicated that the first “miracle” of corn grain yield improvement had occurred. The annual rate of yield improvement, which heretofore had been about zero, increased to about 0.8 bushels per acre per year from about 1937 through about 1955. This dramatic improvement in yield potential must have seemed like a miracle to American farmers.
The second “miracle” of corn grain yield improvement began in the mid-1950’s in response to continued improvements in genetic yield potential and stress tolerance plus increased adoption of N fertilizer, chemical pesticides, and agricultural mechanization. The annual rate of corn yield improvement more than doubled to about 1.9 bushels per acre per year and has continued at that steady rate ever since, sustained primarily by continued improvements in genetics and crop production technologies.
The University of Kentucky has a straight-forward chart of the basic economics of corn farming. Note that the chart uses an optimistic yield and price per bushel.
How much corn is in a bushel?
2150.42 cubic inches
1.24446 cubic feet
56 pounds (standardized)
Farmers once sold their corn by filling bushel baskets, but now use an agreed-upon standard of 56 pounds/bushel.
A bushel of corn typically contains about 70 to 80 ears of corn. However, the exact number can vary depending on the size and variety of the corn, as well as how tightly it is packed in the bushel.
When corn is harvested, the cobs and husks are usually chopped into smaller pieces and then thrown back onto the field. This process is done by modern combines, which strip the husks off each ear and remove the kernels from the ears. The cobs and husks left in the field can help maintain the soil’s fertility and structure, similar to how compost and mulch do in gardens. They also protect the soil from erosion and return plant matter to the ecosystem.
Google AI
The Nebraska Corn Board has a pretty cool web site, which includes Corn 101.
It’s an entertaining and educational site, and these folks have a real passion for the potential of corn. They encourage innovation for long term sustainability.
Corn Harvesters
First: How Much?
This is Texas. We go big or we go home.
Separator Hours
Elder G: “Separator hours” refer to the amount of time a combine harvester’s separator has been actively used. The separator is a crucial component of a combine harvester that separates the grain (like corn kernels) from the rest of the plant material (like the stalks and husks). This metric is important because it indicates how much work the machine has done in actually processing crops, rather than just the total time the machine has been running (which would also include driving between fields or idling).
We submitted a purchase order for the John Deere corn harvester, but our buzz-kill CFO suggested that we look for a more cost-effective option.
A little research showed that there are actually many options under $200.
Elder G Joins the Fun
WLBOTT Ministry of Virtue and Vice
Elder G has always been a perfect gentleman/gentlewoman, but we had to fuss at Microsoft’s CoPilot:
