I've always had an affinity for field corn.
My dad was a corn and soybean farmer in Hebron when I was a preschooler. I grew up sizing up corn crops in McHenry County by the "knee-high by the Fourth of July" expression, though the benchmark for a good corn crop has since become a chest-high measurement as a result of improved seed genetics. When I'm driving around the Rockford area in summer, I still find myself remarking to anyone in the car with me about the height of the corn in field after field.
So I was stoked to hear that on Jan. 1, corn became Illinois' official state grain, joining other state symbols that have been on the books for years, such as the violet, the Bluegill and the square dance.
I set out to find out more about the kerneled grain grown in rows and what others have to say about its official state symbol designation.
"It's just something fun," Ann Marie Cain, manager of the Winnebago-Boone Farm Bureau, told me of the crop getting crowned by the state.
Bob Mickey, assistant manager of Central Grain Co. in Belvidere, which stores about 5.9 million bushels of corn until farmers are ready to sell the grain, wasn't as hyped as I am, either. "It's nice to know," he said.
But corn is a really big deal in The Prairie State, even though Illinois as second-highest corn producer in the U.S. rarely beats out Iowa?
Of course, said Aron Carlson, president of the Illinois Corn Growers Association. "It's the No. 1-grossing commodity in the state as far as production of bushels, yield-wise," he said. In Illinois in 2016, 2.3 billion bushels of corn were produced compared with 2.7 billion bushels for Iowa, according to the USDA.
Locally, Ogle County is tops with 228,000 acres planted in corn, producing 49.7 million bushels; Stephenson County had 179,500 acres, producing 37 million bushels; Winnebago County had 83,300 acres, producing 15.5 million bushels; Boone County had 70,000 acres, producing 13.4 million bushels. Tops in the state is Bureau with 273,500 acres, producing 55.4 million bushels.
So where does all that field corn go? Carlson said typically the usage is split in thirds: fuel for ethanol plants; feed for cattle, hogs and poultry, as well as food for humans, such as for cereals; and exports. He said much of Illinois' corn exports go to feed lots in Mexico.
Field corn production isn't as big for Carlson as it used to be. Carlson of Winnebago said the last 10 years the profit margin on field corn has been low because "there is way too much corn in the world."
That has resulted in he and his partner, operating under the Cad Farms name, planting 60 percent of their acreage in corn — 2,600 acres out of 4,000 acres — compared with 90 percent in corn previously. The remainder is planted with soybeans. Cad Farms operates in Winnebago, Boone, Stephenson and Ogle counties and Rock County in Wisconsin.
By the way, virtually all the corn growing around here or anywhere else isn't the the kind we slather with butter: Sweet corn production nationally is "less than a half of 1 percent" of corn production, Carlson said.
And speaking of the edible grain, there's another form of it that Illinois has recognized since 2003: Popcorn is the the official state snack food.
Georgette Braun: 815-987-1331; gbraun@rrstar.com; @GeorgetteBraun