Corn…Corn….and more…Corn!

So far everything out here in Lockeford has been wonderful! I am really falling in love with the area and I really am enjoying what I do out here! I never would have thought about agricultural jobs before but that is such a big part of what the PMC does, and its fascinating and fun and a lot of hard work but I Love it! I’m now thinking about grad school for agronomy and I would love to stay here in the central valley to do it 🙂 hopefully that works out, because I have always been passionate about food and where it comes from and connecting people back to their food and this seems like a perfect way to fuse that interest with a career. I’m so thankful that I got this position!

The last several weeks here have been all about…you guessed it! CORN! We are part of a national soil health study and here in Lockeford we chose to grow sweet corn as a commodity crop to follow different blends of cover crops. It’s been really interesting and we have some cool data that has turned up already, but we will know even more in a few years as the study is repeated over the next 3 years. Its a big push to get people and farmers to start considering the soil in all of their actions because it is so critical to healthy ecosystems and a thriving agricultural industry! I am really hoping this can be an aid to farmers across the country. Until then we have aided a lot of the less fortunate in the surrounding community with all the corn we grew. We have spent hours and hours in the field picking the corn by hand since we don’t have a harvester. All that hard work went to help remove the grain and send it to several local food banks and nonprofit organizations who were in need and willing to use the corn. It was beautiful corn though, grow totally pesticide and herbicide free so it was healthy as well! In the end we donated over 2500lbs of corn and unfortunately we had more but didn’t have the man power to pick it all. Next year we are hoping to get people lined up a bit earlier to help harvest so we can get all of the corn harvested and sent out to people who need it most. I’m really happy all that hard work went to such good causes and I feel really fortunate to be a part of it.
Besides corn we have been planning out our fields and planting strategy for the fall planting coming up which will be super busy, so wish me luck! And the week after next I am going to Yosemite to collect seeds! I’m super stoked! It will be amazing!!!
Until the next time!

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