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Hog Barn Becomes Mushroom Farm, Pumpkin Theft & 3D Corn Robots | Daily Farm Brief · Farm Tales Unplugged - Daily Farm Brief

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Farm Nation, and Hello Truck City.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is FarmTales Unplugged Daily Farm Brief for Monday, October 5th.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Brought to you by World TradeX, empowering farmers.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rick Cardanova.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Coming up this morning, an Iowa family has turned part of an old hog barn into a mushroom business.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: We'll look at how they're giving the building a second life and finding new ways to sell what they grow.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Then, an Illinois family grew its first pumpkin crop only to have somebody help themselves to nearly 200 pumpkins.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's a rough introduction to the farm business.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And our high-tech moment takes us inside a cornfield where researchers are using a robot to build digital three-dimensional models of individual plants.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll finish off with the old farmer's almanac and a little work this fall that can pay off next spring.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So grab your coffee, fire up whatever you're driving, and let's find out what was happening while you were busy actually working.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: First up, a hog barn gets a second life.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: An Iowa family has given an old hog barn a completely different job.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: It now grows mushrooms.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: A report published Saturday revisited the story of 1100 Farm.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's 1100 Farm in Radcliffe, Iowa.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: The Faudborg family once raised around 8,000 hogs a year.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: After leaving that business, they began testing whether the buildings could support specialty mushroom production.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: This summer, they finished converting half of a 200-foot hog barn into growing and processing space.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Inside are rooms for growing mushrooms, space to prepare the material they grow on, and a kitchen for turning the harvest into products.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Their crops include oyster mushrooms and lion's mane, the shaggy-looking variety that almost looks like it needs a haircut.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the business angle.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: They're developing several ways to sell what they grow.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Alongside mushroom production, the family sells flavored salts, coffee blends, and hot chocolate blends.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: They also make their own growing blocks using soy hulls and hardwood pellets.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: The farm became a demonstration site in July for the Transformation Project, the nonprofit program helping with the conversion.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: That support matters.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: This took planning, construction, and outside funding.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: The project is collecting information on cost, labor, and product margins so other farmers can see what the change actually involves.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: For me, the interesting question is what an existing farm building might be capable of doing next.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: A barn represents years of work and a substantial investment.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Giving it another productive use can be a powerful idea, provided the buyers are there and the numbers work.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's what makes this worth following.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: The family has moved beyond a small growing experiment and into the harder job of building a repeatable business.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Same farm, familiar buildings, a very different harvest.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Story number two somebody harvested the pumpkins without buying them.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now to Capron, Illinois, northwest of Chicago.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: ABC 7 reported Saturday that nearly 200 pumpkins were stolen from the Myers family farm, according to the owners.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Vicky and Tyler Myers had planted pumpkins for the first time this season.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Their plan was to welcome families out to pick a pumpkin and enjoy the farm.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, they're planning to add security cameras.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: They told the station they hope to remain open through much of October selling the other produce they grew.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: I hope they do.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: A first season ought to give a family a chance to find out whether the customers enjoy what they've built.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're in the Chicago area, give them some support.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think they could use it.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's a particular frustration here for anyone who grows something to sell.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: The work happens long before the customer arrives.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: You put time and money into the crop and you plan around the chance to sell it.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Losing it near the finish line takes away that opportunity.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And nearly 200 pumpkins is a lot of somebody else's work to carry off.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: So again, for listeners near Capron, the report offers a simple way to follow the story.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Check whether the farm is open and see what the family still has for sale.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: A paying customer would be a welcome change.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And again, that's Myers Family Farm, Capron, Illinois.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Time for the high-tech moment, a digital copy of the cornfield.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, picture a robot moving through standing corn and turning the plants around it into three-dimensional digital models.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: A study made available online October 1st in the journal Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture describes a ground vehicle system using several synchronized cameras that capture both pictures and depth information.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: The researchers combine those views to reconstruct the crop in three dimensions.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Separate individual plants and estimate traits such as plant height and stem thickness.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's the basic idea behind a word you'll hear more often: phenotyping, measuring what a plant actually looks like and how it grows.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Think about the difference between photographing a room from the doorway and walking around it.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: The second view gives you much more information about what's inside.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: For a corn plant, having more than one camera angle helps the system deal with overlapping leaves and obstructed views.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: The research reported plant counting accuracy of about 94.5% under the field conditions tested.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's a research result and it belongs in that context.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a machine I'm telling you to order for next week's harvest.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: But imagine the breeding questions a tool like this could help answer.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Which plants have the structure you want?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: How do two varieties compare when you measure more than a few representative plants?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Where does the crop become uneven?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: My interest is in what better measurement could make possible.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: A breeder still has to decide which traits matter and test whether the next variety performs.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: The machine helps collect the evidence.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a useful direction for farm technology.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Give the people making the decisions a better view of what's happening in the field.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And as we wind down, the old farmer's almanac calls fall a good time to test garden soil.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: The appeal is simple.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: You have to understand the results and plan improvements before the spring planting rush.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Contact your local extension office for sampling instructions and information about testing.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: A useful sample starts with following the lab's directions.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the fall job with one more traditional reward: rhubarb.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: The almanac says established rhubarb can be divided when dormant in late fall or early spring.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: New crowns can be planted in late fall after dormancy begins.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Pay attention to the plant in your local conditions, of course.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: October 5th doesn't mean every garden in the country is ready for the same job.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Rhubarb needs good drainage and does best with cool winters and relatively cool summers.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Give it space and give new plants time to establish.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: The almanac recommends leaving the first growing season stalks unharvested.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: That takes some patience.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: But a healthy rhubarb patch can remain productive for 10 years or more.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's something satisfying about planting food that becomes part of the place.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: The garden comes back, the season comes around, and somebody starts talking about pie.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And there you have it, that's your Farm Tales Unplugged Daily Farm Brief for Monday, October 5th.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Rick Portonova, and we'll see you Tuesday morning.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you enjoyed this podcast, please give us a share, a like, a review.