At the Farm...The Crops

<Zeke>

What crops do the farmer Greens grow?
There are 2 types of crops - Summer and Winter.  We have grown sorghum and mungbeans over this summer, but change crops each year.

A description of the different crops:

Sorghum (Summer) - little red ball seeds.  Used for stock feed mostly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunflowers (Summer) - grey stripe seeds are used for bird seed, black seeds are used for people food & sunflower oil.  The black seeds have too much oil for birds and too much will make their feathers fall out.



 


Corn (Summer) - most corn grown near the green farm is for animal feed, cornflakes and corn chips
Sweet corn is a different variety and popcorn is another type with a round ball shape grain.

This is some corn flake corn with the plant nearly dead and ready for harvest.

 

Mungbeans (Summer) - These are used for making bean sprouts and pastes.



Soybeans (Summer) - Used for soy sauce (fermented, like wine) and soymilk if it is crushed and squeezed




Millet (Summer) - used for bird seed
 


Canary (Winter) - like its name, used for bird seed.




Wheat (Winter) - Main Winter crop right across Australia.  Used for flour, weetbix, stockfeed




Barley (Winter) - used for beer, milo, malt, cereals

 

Black Barley (Winter) - the seed is not harvested.  This crop is just grown for the cows to graze in.


Oats (Winter) - used for porridge after it is shelled and rolled.  Also grown for the cows to graze in.




Chickpeas (Winter) - used for chickpea flour or for tins.




Linseed (Winter) - used for oil.  It is the oil used to oil cricket bats & furniture, some breads have the grain in it




Canola (Winter) - little black seeds like poppy seeds.  The seeds are slippery and smell like broccoli (this is a cousin plant of canola).  Canola is used for margarine, cooking oil, stock feed and dog food.






The soils is very thick and black here which is good for growing crops

 

Do you have hay?  How is it grown?
Hay is made from the left overs of the grain plant after harvesting or from a specific hay crop and cut before the seeds grow on the top.

Here is a picture of a paddock with the hay all baled up.  Guess how many bales their are?