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Dale-OH 
Orange Level
Joined: 12 Sep 2009
Location: SW OHIO
Points: 901
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 Topic: Weird Crops to Plant
Posted: 11 Apr 2025 at 9:18am |
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I have a 6 Acre field for a front yard because i refuse to mow it. The past few years we have planted it to Wheat and harvest with our old combines. Problem is the weeds are getting stronger than the wheat. Brother and I have decided we want to plant some decorative corn, Popcorn and maybe some sweet corn. What other crops can we try? Sunflowers and Sorghum have been discussed, not worried about making money on it as a crop have a friend with a farmers market who said they can sell some if I want. More interested in making the neighbors ask questions and not have to mow. Looking for ideas i would like to have several different things growing, dont really need 6 acres of any of these at once.
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SteveM C/IL
Orange Level Access
Joined: 12 Sep 2009
Location: Shelbyville IL
Points: 8454
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Posted: 11 Apr 2025 at 9:28am |
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Mix it up with a variety of things? A row of giant sunflowers looks pretty cool.
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FloydKS
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Joined: 12 Sep 2009
Location: S E Kansas
Points: 8325
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Posted: 11 Apr 2025 at 11:30am |
maybe buy a packet or two of the 'mixed flowers' and add some color to the front...
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Holding a grudge is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die
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im4racin
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Joined: 12 Jun 2017
Location: Garrison ND
Points: 996
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Posted: 11 Apr 2025 at 12:15pm |
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Safflower should get them talking. Looks like angry dandelions
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jaybmiller
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Joined: 12 Sep 2009
Location: Greensville,Ont
Points: 24320
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Posted: 11 Apr 2025 at 12:24pm |
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How about buckwheat ? It'll kill the weeds ,bees LOVE it ! let a local bee keeper put 2-3 hives and get free honey.
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3 D-14s,A-C forklift, B-112
Kubota BX23S lil' TOOT( The Other Orange Tractor)
Never burn your bridges, unless you can walk on water
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Dale-OH
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Joined: 12 Sep 2009
Location: SW OHIO
Points: 901
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Posted: 11 Apr 2025 at 12:33pm |
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Some good ideas here, never heard of a Safflower till now. We had thought of Buckwheat and hairy vetch as a cover crop to buffer between the different kinds of corn. Not sure if I can get any more hives, have a couple next door at the parents and may be too close.
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JW in MO
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Joined: 16 Feb 2010
Location: South KC Area
Points: 2641
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Posted: 11 Apr 2025 at 6:59pm |
The trouble with planting popcorn, sweet corn and ornamental corn is, they are all open pollinators and will cross pollinate. If you can time the germination periods and stagger planting accordingly you could be ok. I planted some white and yellow popcorn one year, just chose an early variety of one and a late one of the other, still had a little crossover but it was all popcorn. I plant some Jimmy Red ornamental corn, coons got last years crop but still have enough seed for this year. Ornamental corn seed is expensive, I think I paid 10 cents a kernel for my original Jimmy Red, but saved the first harvest for next years seed and so on.
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Maximum use of available resources!
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Dale-OH
Orange Level
Joined: 12 Sep 2009
Location: SW OHIO
Points: 901
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Posted: 12 Apr 2025 at 6:47am |
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The field is long and narrow, maybe 300ft deep at the widest part in and around my house and old farm house. Planned to do corn on either end and middle and fill it with others to keep the corn as far apart as possible. We are most likely going to hand harvest so wont be planting a lot of any of the corns just trying to do something different and get some of the weeds under control. Will be back to wheat next year so we can play with the old combines and Roto Baler
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dr p
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Joined: 24 Feb 2019
Location: new york
Points: 1290
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Posted: 12 Apr 2025 at 7:45am |
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Zinnias would be fun. Can get seed in bulk and all crop will combine it
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jaybmiller
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Joined: 12 Sep 2009
Location: Greensville,Ont
Points: 24320
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Posted: 12 Apr 2025 at 7:50am |
Bamboo ? Wonder if it'd grow where you are ? be kinda neat and 'weird' !!!!
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3 D-14s,A-C forklift, B-112
Kubota BX23S lil' TOOT( The Other Orange Tractor)
Never burn your bridges, unless you can walk on water
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PaulB
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Joined: 12 Sep 2009
Location: Rocky Ridge Md
Points: 4915
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Posted: 12 Apr 2025 at 9:50am |
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Many localities are passing laws against Bamboo with fines for new planting or just having it. As it is an invasive non-native species. Once you have it, it is nearly impossible to get rid of it.
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If it was fun to pull in LOW gear, I could have a John Deere.
Real pullers don't have speed limits.
If you can't make it GO... make it SHINY
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Ray54
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Joined: 22 Nov 2009
Location: Paso Robles, Ca
Points: 4658
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Posted: 12 Apr 2025 at 12:49pm |
 im4racin wrote:
Safflower should get them talking. Looks like angry dandelions |
What kind of dandelions do you have.
 I have raised a lot of safflower, and harvested even more acres of it.  Very profitable at times.
You need a dry fall to harvest it for the best oil. But you are looking for a fun crop. If you would mow with rotary or flail mower at harvest time all seed eating birds would love you.
It would keep trespassing down. But good blue jeans do a fair job of keeping thorns out of you.  But those in shorts.
We always grew it with limited water so never over waste high. But did harvest some well over 6 feet. The only thing I ever cut with a Gleaner MH 2 and wished there was more header lift to cut less stem/stock. I sent a bit of time cleaning a spot of crop to crawl under the throat and close trap door.  A very careful process to clean feeder house out before closing the door. Never without good leather gloves.
I even have safflower harvest picture in the file manger here  if I only remembered how to get them here. 
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Dirt Farmer
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Joined: 15 Sep 2020
Location: Illinois
Points: 385
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Posted: 9 hours 25 minutes ago at 2:19pm |
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Sunflowers are fun and easy to grow. We get a 50 pound bag of straight Sunflower bird seed dump it from one bucket to another to fan out the fines then put it in the planter with corn units and plant the area then in a week or so come back and plant again to get a longer flowering season. We sell sunflowers along with our sweetcorn and the flowers go fastest on Sundays as folks leaving church get the flowers to share with their loved ones who they may be visiting. They do brighten up the day and bring alot of attention to our stand.
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