Mark Gaalswyk envisions a future in which groups of U.S. farmers or cooperatives could add value to their operations by producing fuels or additives using small, modular processing plants. These miniproduction plants could, literally, be located on the farm.

Every shop has a set of go-to tools. They are the tools you spend all your time looking for--rarely are they where you think you left them.

Hemp is not just an option for producers in states across the U.S. these days, it's also become a state and national attention-getter in political circles.

You don't need a perfect spring in Central Illinois to have great corn and soybean crops. But JC Henrekin, of Deer Grove, Illinois, did. The result was waist-high corn on June 5.

A cool, late-spring day finds Enrique Ceja and Omar Orosco handling one of the many chores on HF Farms, near Ogden, Iowa. They cruise fields with an old tractor and cart to remove softball- to bowling-ball-sized rocks from ground soon to be planted to corn or soybeans.

With the number of row-crop acres growing and the number of forage acres shrinking, Midwestern beef producers are responding with more use of corn silage.

Computers have been taking over more chores and decisions for farmers for decades, and one of their next assignments could be determining how much nitrogen to apply to corn, and when to apply it.