Corn Planting

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  This week was corn planting time for the Mennonite farmers of Spanish Lookout. I spoke to a Kleine Gemeinde farmer who owns a field right next to the village of Duck Run 3.
  He said he prefers dry fertilizer over liquid, even though liquid does have certain advantages such as less refilling time, deeper and better soil penetration. We spoke of the different varieties of yellow and white corn planted by them. Pioneer, Dow, Syngenta, etc. are the names used here and imported via Midwest Steel Agro Supplies and other parties. In Belize, yellow corn is mainly used as feed while the white is used for human consumption such as flour, tortillas, tamales and so on. Another item grown by them is sorghum but only for livestock feed. Some have called it milo but that is inaccurate because the word refers to the grain sorghum used in other countries to make powder drinks and dietary liquids, whereas this one is forage sorghum because it grows about 12ft tall and has more stalk and leaves than grains, making it perfect for animal feed.
  Every couple of years, a soil test is done by the farmer to determine the quality of the ground. This test is done before the planting begins. By the way, Belize is a GMO-free country. Just so you know.
  Another note, there is a gentleman in Spanish Lookout who started a business of selling liquid fertilizer. Not sure how successful the store is because the majority of farmers use dry fertilizer which is made by Prosser, the country's biggest supplier of agro-chemicals.
  So that's a little bit of what I learned about corn crops. We also discussed beans but that is another article.

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