I was wondering if anyone could tell me what the average yields are for field corn raised by the Amish in Pennsylvania and Ohio. I'm talking about the ones who farm only with horses and I assume they don't use any type of commercial fertilizer. Do they use "brand name" seed corn or do they save and clean their own seed year after year. And one more question. On average, how many acres of corn will one Amish gentleman usually raise by himself.

-- monty (monty@bayou.com), September 08, 2001

Answers

Hi Monty, We just came back from a trip to Amish Ohio. Absolutely wonderous there! And I thought I had chores!! We were wondering the same thing but never did ask anyone. Hope someone out there knows!

-- Karen (db0421@yahoo.com), September 09, 2001.

The Amish are as diverse under their clothes as the rest of us. Even though they are required to farm with horses, they are not required to abstain from chemical fertilizers. Some of them are organic in persuasion, and thus use no chemicals, but others pour the chemicals on jsut like their tractor-driving counterparts. Within the same church, you could have opposite ends of the spectrum of opinion on orgainic farming. I would suspect the organic yeilds could also vary greatly among those who farm organically among the Amish, as there are different ways of managing organically. You probably should look for your statistical information from more reliably controlled studies and researchers.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), September 09, 2001.

The amish in our area use their tractors to pull commercial fertilizer spreaders. These amish are relative newcomers to the area, and travel on farm tractors with pickup bed trailers loaded with women and children tied behind. On Sundays they revert to the horse and buggy.

-- Paul (hoyt@egyptian.net), September 14, 2001.