According to a report from the Tribune Star, agriculture students, faculty and alumni at Ivy Tech Community College are in the middle of planting sweet corn that will eventually benefit food pantries in southern Illinois and Indiana.

"Students and staff completed a third and final planting of sweet corn on the Ivy Tech agricultural plot off of Davis Drive, property owned by Westminster Village.

"The project is expected to yield about 150,000 ears of corn for Catholic Charities.

"'We’ve farmed this ground about four years now, and this is the first time we’ve planted the entire six acres in sweet corn,' said John Rosene, Ivy Tech agriculture program chairman.

"The project enables agriculture students to learn about crop production, while those studying precision agriculture are learning about technology.

"The planting equipment is electronically controlled 'so that we can vary it as it goes through the field. In the old days, it was all done with chains and sprockets. There wasn’t a whole lot you could do to change the rate at which you were planting as you were going. This is all electronically driven through the computer on the tractor, controlled by satellites,' Rosene said."

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