The thing about corn

Wayne Channell, head of the Lakeshore Farms operation drives his Chevy pickup down narrow dirt lanes hidden among expanses of planted fields.

Navaho…Charisma…Accord… Jackie…now here’s one new to me…King Arthur…mmm…wonder what it looks…? “The way to do it is to gently pull back the blanket at the top and have a peek inside and then put it back to bed,” a voice beside me says. It’s Sandra Roebuck. She works here and is re-stocking the bins of sweet corn that lounge under the awning at Lakeshore Farms Market in Wellington. Guess she pegged me as one who might lapse into old cornshucking habits. I mean there is a cob already shucked and on display as a sample for the curious and also a plain-as-day sign that reads: PLEASE do not shuck the corn, but Sandra is onto me. I’ve been busted. She smiles. “That way the next customer has a fresh cob to choose from,” she confirms. Customers like Megan Hicks who is running her fingers over the husks and grins as she listens in on the ‘shuck-notlearn- by-example’ playing out here. As a school teacher in Picton I can now see Megan going on to influence future generations of cornshuckers. Or at least get them to read signs. This is good.

Corn: flakes, oil, popped, as bread, tortillas; in a chowder or at a roast; it can be fuel’n feed…but when it comes right down to it, sweet corn in August is the Shangri-La. A fingers sweating butter—kernels between your teeth kinda Shangri-la.

Closely associated with various creation mythologies and a giant among the grasses, the mother grain of the Americas—corn—is the earliest of cultivars. Archaeological evidence for domesticated corn dating back 6,500 years ago was found in the valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. Closer to our neighbourhood the same evidence of domesticated corn has been found at the Augustine site in New Brunswick that dates to the time of the building of the pyramids. Discoveries have been revealed in sites of the mound builders of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys where city building agrarian societies of upwards of four million people lived some 400 years before Columbus set foot in the socalled “new” world.

The nutrition value of corn supplies 20 per cent of today’s world calories and, while heritage varieties are still popular, through its domestication modern corn has lost its ability to reproduce independently.

Field worker Oral Willson holds a sac of freshly harvested Lakeshore Farms sweet corn.

“King Arthur is straight yellow…the rest of the sweet corn we grow are different bi-colour varieties of peaches and cream,” Wayne Channell, head of the Lakeshore Farms operation tells me. We are driving in his Chevy pickup down narrow dirt lanes hidden among expanses of planted fields that frame the northwest town limits of Wellington.

“I was born right here,” Wayne shares. “Dad bought the farm in the 1950’s…Hillier gravel we call it. He sold his crops to the canning factories…mostly Baxter Canners in Bloomfield,” he adds. “When the factories closed, my son Tim and I started fresh market. We now have 500 acres in production, from soy bean to green corn to fresh market produce. Fresh market is labour intensive: everything is picked by hand,” Wayne explains.

“We have an irrigation system that draws from the lake…an insurance against drought,” Wayne points out as he drives: “Ten acres of strawberries over here…the plants are good for two years and then we replant… there’s peppers … two acres … tomatoes six…cantaloupe two acres … potatoes five…pumpkins five acres … squash three…sweet corn about ninety acres…50-60 thousand dozen is about the size of the crop..,” Wayne slows and gestures afar. “In the spring we get a head-start by putting plastic over about 25 acres and then seed our corn under the plastic.

We get about a ten day earlier crop that way. We stagger the plantings about ten days apart or in measures of heat units,” Wayne says. He stops the truck. “This is where they are picking right now.” We’ve arrived at a tractor-width corridor that disappears into an ocean of sweet corn. “We’ll drive down there,” Wayne tells me while putting the truck in gear. I ask about the field workers. “There’s Cornelius, Fritz, Frankie, Oral…Ferron; I think the youngest is 34, the oldest is 52…one runs a taxi and the others have small farms back home in Jamaica. A few come for May 1st planting then the others for June 1st strawberries. The men are like family…been working with us for thirteen years.”

The truck stops and I step out into a head-high forest of corn. I introduce myself to the crew and ask to take a few photos. The men work steadily and methodically…gently hand-picking corn and tossing it into the oversize tractor bucket that holds 200 dozen cobs at a time; down one way and up another, the men pick four rows at a time.

“Seven days a week, rain or shine; they start at 5:30 a.m. and work until about seven o’clock,” Wayne says referring to the field workers. We head back to the barns. “They like the hours because that is why they’re here. They live together in the bunkhouse on the property and take an interest in the farm. They survey the crops and will tell me ‘I think the cantaloupes are ready to pick’…they’re here every morning. If it wasn’t for offshore labour we couldn’t operate,” he continues.

Wayne tours me past the tomato washer and packing line; into the coolers where bushel baskets of Kennebec potatoes, apples, peppers and just-picked corn waits. “It’ll be twenty years next year that we started the roadside market on the highway,” he tells me. “We had a surplus of produce so we began sending out trucks and selling off the back of them…Belleville, Kingston,” he recounts. “When the trucks come in at night the workers go through the unsold produce and organize each new load in the cooler for the morning. The trucks leave at about seven and are back at about 6:30 at night.”

We talk about the historical backdrop of agritourism, the ‘roadside economy’ of the County. “The wineries have really made a difference to our business, drawing visitors,” Wayne mentions. “Along with our Wellington outlet and wholesale deliveries we sell at three locations and employ 16 people. My daughters Andrea and Sandy work at the Wellington roadside market and my wife Judy looks after the books. With our farm producing a 70 per cent output of fresh produce, we are one of the largest growers in the County,” Wayne considers. “The last crops to come off in late fall are soy bean and hard corn, which we harvest with a combine. We keep the roadside stand going until Christmas and then take a winter break to start all over again in April.”