This Blessed Earth Quotes

“On the farm, this is failure's best hiding place—smack in the middle of runaway success.”
― Ted Genoways, This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm

“Raised in the city, with only vacation trips to Scottsbluff and Bayard, it was easy to be nostalgic for a vanishing way of life when I didn't ever have to suffer through its hardships. Still, passing back through town, past all of the shuttered storefronts and abandoned buildings, I lamented aloud how sad it was to see Bayard dying this slow death.
"Is it?" Dad asked. He sounded somewhere between quizzical and professorial. "Maybe this town has served its purposed, and now it's time for it to fade into history.”
― Ted Genoways, This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm

“The plants mature according to the approximate amount of heat they receive, starting from planting. “It all goes by growing degree units, GDUs,” Dave told me. One GDU is added for every degree the average daily temperature exceeds 50°F. So, for example, a day with an average temperature of 65° would be counted as 15 GDUs. “And they know how many GDUs it takes for the female hybrid to get to pollination and how many GDUs it takes for the male to get to pollination, so that nick happens at the same time,” Dave said. “If you put them all in at once, your male could shed pollen before the female has started to silk, and you get no pollination. If that happens—and it has—you can lose a whole crop.” “That’s why weather is such a big deal,” Dave continued.”
― Ted Genoways, This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm

“Monsanto and DuPont Pioneer have grown into global seed giants, now controlling 45 percent of all the seed sold in the world. Short of going completely organic and dropping out of growing commodity grains, how is a farmer supposed to avoid raising corn and soybeans that have been genetically modified to withstand Roundup?”
― Ted Genoways, This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm

“The rise of the soybean in the United States is attributable to, more than any other person, Henry Ford.”
― Ted Genoways, This Blessed Earth: A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm