Thursday, August 07, 2008

My brain hurts...

Aaron and I attended the first session of the Corn College.  You can read much more about it here at Margy Fischer's CC blog.  To sum up the experience, I think Aaron put it best, "Dad, I've been keeping track and I think we're doing only 2 things right."

That is an easy assumption to come to for us.  While our collective backgrounds in life sciences like agronomy or botany are , ummm - minimal, we have been growing credible crops.  The epiphany is the possibility of doing a whole lot better - and how to make it happen.  While there are no magic bullets or mystic wisdom to suddenly turn our farm into consistent yield winners, it is exciting to imagine if we could boost yields 10% or so on top of the things we have been doing to this point.

The sessions were long and intense, but I can't think of any better ways to impart that much information that fast.  I think participants at least will see some new communcations from FJ to help them put it all together and keep the memory active.  That will help many of us.

The new facility Ken has created to host these educational efforts is superb, and the organization was more than up to the task - including the windstorm that broke the central tent poles on the first morning. Best of all were the attendees - energetic and impressive producers whose questions alone were an educational experience.  The number of young farmers attending was refreshing as well - this was no Farm Bureau or annual coop meeting crowd!

While I am far from an impartial observer, it was one of the best professional group experiences I have ever had.  I'm off to the second to provide some light-thinking relief this evening. 


Put it on your schedule for next year.

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