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Farmer’s parents started
growing popcorn in a garden at their house when he was just three.
When Farmer started growing popcorn, he said it was just for fun
with the hopes of using it for a project when he got older and
joined FFA.
In the fall, Farmer provided a virtual field trip of his popcorn
business on their East Ranch Acres Facebook page. To introduce
himself, he said, “Hi, I’m Henry Farmer and I’m 12 years old. I’m a
multi generational Farmer, both occupational and name, so I guess
you could that farming is in my blood. I grow my corn on 1/3 of an
acre on my family farm. This is the same ground that my great great
grandpa made his living with.”
For the virtual field trip, Farmer showed everyone around the East
Ranch in Beason, Illinois where his Grandma T lives. Farmer said,
“this farmstead was home to my great great grandparents. It’s a warm
and fuzzy feeling to be farming the same ground that 3 of my
grandpas have also farmed.”
Farmer said, “In May we prepared the soil for planting by disking
it. First we tried to pull my dad’s John Deere JB disk with my *new
to me* Allis Chalmers CA. Unfortunately, the hand clutch was
slipping so we ended up using my dad’s Allis Chalmers WC to pull
it.”
To get ready for planting the corn, Farmer said, “We went over the
soil a few different times in different directions to ensure it
would be the perfect condition to plant the seeds in. We wanted to
give them the best chance to grow. The rest was up to mother
nature!”
Soon it was planting day.
Farmer said, “my dad was able to borrow a John Deere 494 planter
from work and we used his WC to pull it. It was a challenge to find
the correct plates for the small popcorn kernels but after trial and
error at the shop my dad was able to narrow it down to B Sorghum
plates.” Luckily J.O. Harris in Alexander, Illinois had some in
stock. Farmer said, “the plates weren’t perfect, but they did a fine
enough job. I was able to do the planting, and I learned a lot that
day. It is difficult to keep straight rows without auto steer! We
checked the field regularly anticipating the corn sprouting up and
when it finally did we were all pretty excited.”
Though it had taken several nights to prepare the soil, Farmer said
it only took one evening to plant the corn.
As the corn grew, cut worms showed up. Farmer said, “All the work I
had done and the cut worms were trying to ruin it all for me! Our
field corn came resistant to these little critters, but
unfortunately our popcorn did not.”
Even worse, Farmer notes, “by the time we realized what was going
on, they almost snacked on my entire field. We made this discovery
checking the field one late afternoon in June, so we canceled our
plans and headed straight to Farm and Home to buy some insecticide
to take care of them.”
The family spent the rest of the daylight hours using two hand
sprayers and walking the field. Farmer said, “their snacking also
caused us to have to do some replanting. We used a small one row
garden planter for that. It took some time, but they say you get out
what you put in!”
At the end of September, Farmer said the corn was turning and the
family was getting anxious for harvest to start. Every week, they
were hand shelling some corn to take it to the elevator to assess
its moisture. Popcorn has to be dried down to the perfect moisture
or it won’t pop. It seems to be taking forever compared to everyone
around us to dry down, but as Farmer said, that’s what happens when
you get it planted later than most.
Finally, after weeks of waiting and testing, it was time to pick
corn, which as farmers know, is a long process. Farmer said, “we
don’t have a combine or a picker, so all of our popcorn is picked by
hand [and] tossed in a bucket. The bucket is taken and dumped in the
wagon and then we repeat [the process].” Harvesting the popcorn by
hand took many days.
Unfortunately, partially into
the harvest Farmer broke his thumb in P.E., so his “picker” was
broken down. Farmer said, “my mom, dad and cousin picked most of the
popcorn and I carried the full bucket out of the field then dumped
them in the wagon and returned the empty buckets” to the others.
Farmer’s bucket dumping job made it easier so the others didn’t have
to leave the field and stop picking.
On November 10, the family picked the last ear of popcorn. However,
Farmer said getting the crop out of the field was just the
beginning. It still needed shelled, cleaned and packaged before we
could get it to you.”
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To finish harvest 2024 at East
Ranch Acres, the Farmers used an Oliver model #2 picker to harvest
the rest of the field corn. Farmer said, after they brought the
Oliver home, “my dad and I worked on it most of the week to get it
ready to use. It had been sitting for quite some time so it needed
new tires, a lot of elbow grease, a ton of penetrating oil, some
chain guides and a new board for the elevator.”
Unfortunately, Farmer said the
Oliver “didn’t work as well as we were all hoping after all that
work and it was a little discouraging. It was shelling more kernels
off the cob than it should be.”
On the plus side, Farmer’s grandpa and Uncle Chase had come to watch
and Farmer said “with the help of them and my dad we got it tuned in
good enough to get through what we had left.”
After we got it dialed in, Farmer said, “my dad even left me harvest
some rows! Another day of learning and memories made today. It’s
hard to believe this was top of the line technology when this picker
came out.”
Finally, the popcorn was
transported from East Ranch Acres to the Farmer’s garage “a truck
bed at a time.” Farmer said, “we use a New Idea antique hand crank
sheller to take the kernels off of the cobs. This took some fine
tuning of the sheller to adjust it to smaller cobs.” After two
nights of using the hand crank, Farmer’s dad put an electric motor
on it.
After the popcorn was shelled,
Farmer said, “we cleaned it using a Clipper fan mill,” then
“packaged it up and put the labels on.”
For Farmer, it was quite the learning experience this past growing
season. As he said, “my family and I have spent a lot of time and
put in a lot of hours. It’s hard to believe that years ago this is
how all farmers farmed before they had such large equipment.”
This year, Farmer grew yellow popcorn and Becks field corn and said,
“next year I’m looking to expand my operation into different
varieties of popcorn, field corn and oats.” Farmer’s mother, Esther
Tomlinson, said they may plant one and a half acres next year plus
try growing Indian corn and do some crop rotation.
Over the past several months, Henry Farmer has been sharing his
bountiful harvest by selling his popcorn at various vendor shows
around Logan County. Farmer said he has sold roughly 350 pounds of
popcorn.
Henry Farmer certainly has an entrepreneurial spirit and strong
farming genes. He is already looking forward to expanding his
operations next year.
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