When I was growing up, I loved the fall because I could hear the sound of the combine as Dad worked the fields. There was something comforting in that sound. It made me feel safe knowing Dad was out there watching in the dark. This may have had something to do with the number of horror novels I read as a young teen.

Living in town, this is a sound I miss very much. I often use a “white noise” app on my phone when I fall asleep. I generally just have a fan sound playing in the background, but now I wonder if there is a farming white noise app somewhere. I found several on YouTube, but they were mostly farm animal-related and I couldn’t find anything on the Google Play Store that was just machinery noise.

If you are a techie, this could be a revenue stream for you. Develop some white noise apps that are farm machinery sound-related. I can’t sleep with the farm animal sounds. I always wake up worrying about why I am hearing animal noises in the middle of the night.

I tried one of sheep in the rain and I kept wondering why the sheep were making so much noise, and I would wake up worried something was out with the sheep before I remembered I don’t have sheep – and I live in a suburb. So if you develop this app, think of me first and send me info at connie@farmworldonline.com

In the fall, Dad would send us into the fields to pick up corn left behind after the combine went through; it was for my horse. It wasn’t until I was an adult and read an article in a horse magazine that I learned corn could be dangerous picked up from a field if it contained mold. I was either lucky or I never fed enough of the corn to hurt my horse, as I never had an issue.

According to the website at www.thehorse.com “equine leukoencephalomalacia, or ELEM – more commonly known as moldy corn poisoning – is the most common mycotoxin-related syndrome in horses. It is the result of a fungus called Fusarium moniliforme, which often invades corn fields when crops are stressed by drought or when conditions are very wet at harvest.”

In searching for information on moldy corn and horses, I somehow stumbled across a YouTube video from Pioneer about measuring kernel loss during harvest. I love scientific things, so this fascinated me.

Pioneer field agronomist Joe Ailts roped off 10 square feet of ground in a cornfield after the combine had gone through. He then removed all the ground cover and counted how many kernels of corn were left.

In the video he had 42 kernels in 10 square feet. According to a math equation, he said 20 kernels in 10 square feet equaled a bushel per acre, so 42 kernels in 10 square feet would be 2 bushels of loss per acre.

Ailts recommended talking to the combine manufacturer if the loss becomes large, to see what can be done to curtail it. It made me want to run out and rope off some space in a cornfield and count kernels.

What are your favorite memories of fall on the farm? Send comments to me at connie@farmworldonline.com or via regular mail to: Connie Swaim, P.O. Box 90, Knightstown, IN 46148.