yesterday's corn should be tomorrow's beans

out and about this morning and it took me to the supermarket so i paid a visit to the neighboring field just for old time's sake...the poke weed had died back and pretty much vanished...an impermanent marker for the path i made out to where the feedstock was planted...the ground is thickly matted with spent cobs and discarded husks which will form a fair mulch on the soil as it compacts down with whatever sort of weather this winter brings ( tomorrow is the first day of winter and the weather, with one minor snowfall in november, has mostly been spring-like...unnaturally warm with bouts of rain )...this was a no til corn field last season and , if the monoculture rotation holds up ( and no construction equipment shows up ) it will be soy beans next spring...either way, industrial feedstock is the rule...at least it should be a no til industrial planting...i even found the two closely planted stalks from the plants i had been watching all season...they were so closely planted the ears were runts and their support roots interlaced...the last photo is just to provide some idea of support root diversity...

the zea family likes it support roots...these are teosinte...look around...lots of grasses have them...it's a family trait.