Harvesting the Bounty

On a recent trip to South Dakota, I watched tractors and combines harvesting fields. Mostly corn, the later season "dent" variety is used for animal feed, tortilla chips, high fructose corn syrup, or corn oil.

We learned that the big piles covered with plastic sheets weighted down with tires were corn silage. The green corn is harvested, chopped up, and fermented for animal feed.

When I was a child, I remember fields being very tidy after harvest. Acres of bare dirt stretched across huge fields. The crop residue like corn stalks were removed. The current philosophy is that leaving crop residue is better for the soil. It provides a protective ground cover during winter, and returns nutrients to the soil.

Our trip was late in the harvest. We saw many fields of stubble. A few crops remained, like this photo of a cornfield in Willow Lake. 

Why am I talking about corn? Part of the action in my cozy mystery novel The Body in the Cornfield takes place in - you guessed it - a cornfield. It's late spring, and the corn is only knee high in Rose Creek, Oklahoma. It's still tall enough to hide a feral momma cat and her kittens from predators.
#cornfield
#cozymurdermystery
#SouthDakota

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