AIS-Lmcaster Fanning, Saturday, September 13,1986
Va. Corn Growers Field
BY JULIE GOCHENOUR
Virginia Correspondent
BEALETON, Va. - Nearly 600
farmers turned out for the Virginia
Com Growers Association’s field
day at Wilbur Ritchie’s Inglewood
Farm near Bealeton, Virginia, last
Friday. In addition to viewing
dozens of test plots and more than
40 exhibits, the com producers
toured a nearby ethanol plant and
heard reports from both the
National Corn Growers
Association and the U.S. Feed
Grains Council.
Morning activities during the
field day included horse and wagon
rides to outlying test plots on the
1800-acre Fauquier County farm,
as well as a soil compaction
demonstration by VPl’s Extension
agronomist, Dr. George Hawkins.
Farmers also had the opportunity
to study the Ritchie operation,
meet visiting Trade Teams from
Taiwan, North Korea and the
Republic of China and to visit the
exhibitors show.
Many producers were par
ticularly interested in the ethanol
facility, Virginia Solid Fuels.
According to Bill Kovarik, with the
Virginia Ethanol Fuels
Association, Virginia ethanol
producers will use four million
bushels of com this year and a
projected eight million bushels in
1987. Nationwide, he said, ethanol
producers added ten cents per
bushel to 1985 corn prices. Yet
“agriculture in the energy
business” as Kovarik calls ethanol
production, is politically con
troversial and he urged corn
producers to support and promote
the use of ethanol.
VPI Extension agronomist Dr. George Hawkins (right)
found himself in a hole during a soil compaction demon
stration held in conjunction with the Virginia Corn Growers
Field Day.
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At nearby Virginia Solid Fuels,
plant manager Frank Whitlock led
farmers on a tour of the ethanol
“drying” facility. There the proof
of the com alcohol is brought from
194 percent to 199 percent making
it suitable for fuel. The plant has
been in operation since December
of last year and has the capacity to
dry six to seven million gallons of
ethanol. Tax incentives, however,
place a three and a half million
gallon cap on production, Whitlock
explained, adding that without tax
incentives there is no profit in
ethanol production.
Rich Watts, Director of Field
Services for the National Com
Growers Association, also ad
dressed the subject of ethanol
when he spoke on new uses for
com. Although livestock feed is
still the single largest use for corn,
two hundred and forty bushels of
corn was used for ethanol
production in 1985, a 40 percent
increase in the 1984 figure. Most
ethanol is used as an octane
enhancer in gasoline, he reported,
with Virginia blending 17 percent
of its fuel with ethanol to make it
fifth in the nation.
Even more impressive, Watts
continued, is the 500 million
bushels of corn used to make high
fructose corn sweeteners. Fur
thermore, Staley Continental has
come up with a crystalline fructose
that should increase the use of corn
“by a couple hundred million
bushels,” he said. Watts also
called the National Corn Growers
Association’s search for new
products “our reason for existing”
and outlined the work by the
Association’s new starch
Prices
Day Highlights Marketing
utilization committee.
The work of this committee, the
director of field services ex
plained, is to investigate some
13,000 patents for starch utilization
and to promote the development of
the most likely. Three strong
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