The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
By DAVID GRIMES for The Quill
Can there be a more beautiful sight than the sun and clouds working together to create just the right balance between light and shadow on a field of brilliant yellow sunflowers beginning to mature?
Rick Evans doesn't think so.
"They were in full bloom the first weekend in August," Evans said of the 7-acre plot of yellow-petaled 4-foot-tall flowers behind his rural Lomax house. "And they were beautiful."
The sunflowers' short height doesn't indicate stunted growth; it's just about the maximum height for those sunflowers whose seeds will eventually be sold to a Quincy buyer for use in wild bird seed.
"These aren't the tall ones that produce seeds for ball players to chew on," Evans said. "Those are the ones you mostly find grown in Minnesota and the Dakotas."
Evans got the idea to sow sunflowers as an alternative crop in addition to his alfalfa, corn and soybeans from his neighbor Mike Pence who first tried growing sunflowers four years ago.
About 22 acres of Evans' 160-acre family farm is blanketed in yellow this year.
Evans purchased 3 bags of Pioneer oil sunflower seed this spring at $164 per bag. Compared to the cost of seed corn - anywhere from $100 to $140 per bag - sunflower seed might seem a bit high priced.
But sunflower seed and seed corn kernels don't weigh the same and sunflower seed covers more area.
"There are 80,000 kernels in a bag of seed corn, but you get 200,000 seeds in a bag of sunflower seed," Evans said. "And a bag of sunflower seed covers 8 acres, while a bag of seed corn covers only 3 acres."
Evans' farm is sand, but, unlike farmers around him, he doesn't irrigate.
"Sunflowers tend to thrive best in a hot, droughty environment," Evans said. "It seemed to me like they'd do pretty good here."
But 2004 has been anything but normal, weatherwise, regardless if you farm on the sand or the high ground.
"It hasn't been that hot and we got all that rain earlier this summer," Evans said.
Planting and cultivating sunflowers are pretty much the same as for corn or soybeans.
"I planted them around the first of June, in rows 30 inches apart," Evans said.
Shortly before planting Evans applied anhydrous ammonia and cultivated the plots when the stalks were about 5 inches high.
But harvesting sunflower seed brings a bit of a twist with it.
"Your harvesting equipment needs a row crop head in order for the sunflower heads not to be detached from the stalks.
If you lose the sunflower head, you've lost the crop," Evans said.
He expects he and Pence will either lease or buy a head to accommodate harvest of October's crop.
Just what price Evans will receive for his time spent growing sunflowers won't be known for sure until closer to harvest.
If this year's crop produces a good yield, Evans said he may try the alternative crop again in 2005.
"Three or four years ago they were bringing between 12 cents and 15 cents per pound," Evans said. "That doesn't sound like a lot, but maybe they're paying more by now.
"Farming's all a gamble anyway."
Rick Evans, rural Lomax, looks over his new crop of sunflowers whose seeds will eventually be sold to a Quincy buyer for use in wild bird seed.