Harvest Moonshine
Ethanol distilled from local corn

Photos by Charles Prince

It's harvest time for area farmers. Combines started harvesting corn and soybeans about five weeks ago. Most area farmers hope to be finished in another two to three weeks.

The process starts with a $350,000 plus combine mowing down rows of corn or soybeans. The combine separates corn from the husk and soybeans from the pod. Then the corn or beans are transferred to a grain cart, generally on the fly.The cart empties into a truck that hauls this year's bounty to the farmer's storage silo or directly to a commercial grain elevator.

Corn must be dried further, even though it appears to be dry on the husk. This corn will eventually end up in our gas tanks. It's headed to an ethanol plant in eastern Ohio where it will be distilled into motor fuel.

Here's an interesting fact: Each corn stalk has one ear of corn. It's bred that way so the dying stalk remains standing for harvest and the plant puts all its energy into one great ear of corn.