Open-Pollinated Corn Market Growing

Open-Pollinated Corn Market Growing CROPS New Crops Since the Borries family and their open-pollinated seed corn business first appeared in FARM SHOW 20 years ago sales have doubled from 1 000 to 2 000 bushels/year Gerald Borries who runs the business with his brother Leonard and their 91-year-old father Joseph emphasizes that the varieties are most suitable for silage fed as livestock grain or grown for wildlife The Borries raise their seed corn on 50 to 60 acres yellow varieties Henry Moore Reid’s Yellow Dent and Krug; and one white variety Boone County White Boone County can grow up to 16 ft tall and the others grow 12 ft tall The Borries handpick the best ears for seed to sell They use the same equipment they’ve used for years; Deere 60 and Farmall 400 tractors and two-row corn pickers They run ears of corn through a motorized sheller and size the kernels on a grader before sacking up the seed They have maintained the open-pollinated traits since the late 60’s At that time Joseph purchased corn from an elderly gentleman who had received seed corn as a wedding gift around 1920 and saved seed to plant every year When corn blight hit hybrid varieties in 1970 farmers took a renewed interest in old-fashioned open-pollinated varieties which weren’t affected by the blight We get lots of compliments on our silage which has higher protein lysine and trace elements Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Borries Farm 16293 E 1400th Ave Teutopolis Ill 62467 ph 217 857-3377

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