Wow did the weather change! After a month or so with little to no wind at all fall, came blowing in with a vengeance. After writing two weeks ago about the ever-constant threat of combine fires, I was literally on edge each day with low humidity and strong winds.
A neighboring farmer had the fire department hosing down his field after a bearing sparked a fire in the cornstalks behind his machine. The day prior had seen very low humidity and 25-plus MPH winds. That night it did rain about 2/10ths of an inch, and the ground and field residue were still damp which may have saved the field of corn. Had that fire happened one day earlier the results could have been catastrophic.
Do you like cornbread? How many cornbread muffins could you bake with an acre of corn? How about 120 acres? How does cornbread suddenly appear in an article about the risk of fire during a farmer’s harvest? Well, it turns out that cornbread soothed my anxious mind while I harvested corn today with a gale force wind blowing and making me worry about fire.
I have always employed a strategy in each corn field I harvest. If it is dry or windy and fire risks seem high, I try to start combining in my field farthest from the direction of thewind. This way I will not burn a standing crop if the wind fans a fire. Hopefully, this will give the fire department a chance to extinguish it quickly and possibly prevent an insurance claim. I know how serious the risk is. About 5 years ago I did have a field fire that the fire department was able to douse without any damage.
This led me to become inquisitive about what kind of insurance coverage I had in the event of a fire. If my memory serves me right, there was a $100,000 limit. This has concerned me greatly this fall. Here is an example: Let’s say my neighbor has a 120 acre corn field next to mine. If I burned his entire field, would it be covered? 120 acres x 210 bushels per acre x $6.82 per bushel for corn is $171,864. Oops, maybe I need to make a phone call and raise my insurance limits. The USDA has estimated that the Illinois state average corn yield will be 210 bushels per acre, and the December corn price is currently $6.82. This wasn’t a problem when corn was yielding less and $4 two years ago.
Today after dark my wife delivered some warm corn bread muffins while I was in the combine. They were delicious. This got my mind temporarily off worrying about fire as the wind blew corn residue all around my combine and I ate the tasty nuggets made from corn and other ingredients. I am harvesting 220 bushels of corn every time I cross the field; how many cornbread muffins would that be? I drooled at the answer. Using 140 cups of cornmeal from each bushel and 12 muffins per recipe, the answer is… 369,600 muffins. 140x12x220=369,600. Double check that; I am getting old.
Just think about that for a second. If I did accidentally burn my neighbor’s field, that would be 42,336,000 muffins that would be overcooked and going to waste. That is a scarier thought than some of the costumes we will see next week.
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