With the soaring demand for field corn for ethanol, some farmers have been switching acreage from sweet corn to field corn, which should help those selling sweet corn, Peck said. The report didn't break down the sweet corn and field corn acreage, Despite higher costs in numerous areas, mostly linked to high petroleum prices, sweet corn prices will be the same as last year, both Eugster and Peck said. It's really going to be sweet this year because of the heat. Peck said his "tremendous"...

They want to keep corn prices moderate and supplies available for the livestock industry. If they were found to be using food feedstocks (corn, sugar, cassava, etc. It is my understanding that officials in China were checking upon plants under construction and currently operating that had gotten permits based on using non-food feedstocks, Tolman said. He said ethanol plants already in operation that have been approved will be allowed to move forward with production. by Myke Feinman,...

Today's lesson: The sweet corn we've been seeing in the market up to this point has pretty much been the imported variety from more southern states -- not our own Michigan sweet corn, one of the joys of summer. Selecting your corn: Unless you pick it fresh from the garden, you should look for fresh green husks with moist green stems and plump even rows of kernels when at the market. The fresher the better for sweet corn. In fact, there is nothing quite like the taste of...

There are some fields where the farmer for some reason must have been delayed in planting, or unable to water during a really dry spell. I sure hope the sweet corn keeps growing quickly so we all can enjoy that first ear of locally grown corn. There are so many good varieties of sweet corn now to choose from. Watching "Field of Dreams" you can almost imagine that those long dead baseball players could really walk out of the corn to once again play ball. Behind our house, the farmer used to...

Additionally, prices have been boosted as an incentive for farmers to keep planting wheat, rather than moving to corn, another crop that has seen its prices skyrocket in part because of the boom in ethanol production. But the Easter freeze in April, coupled by an over-abundance of rain, has had the opposite effect in the eastern two-thirds of the state, causing some farmers to chalk up this year's harvest as a total loss. Agriculture officials said 500 million bushels in 2007 had been...