This year’s 10-acre corn maze is a tribute to Ankeny based Casey’s General Store. The maze includes the Casey’s logo, homemade to go pizza in a box, coffee and donut. There’s also a rooster, fence post, sunrise and DEKALB seed corn logo. Growing Family Fun also offers weekend hayrides, firepits for groups to reserve and a pumpkin patch.

Also included with this year’s corn maze admission are three other maze activities. There are pedal karts and a hop-a-long activity for children and adults, trikes for tykes and corn in a new corn bin.

Special events at the farm include the Maze for Marfan Fall Fest on Oct. 8-9 and the Harvest Moon Walk on Oct. 11-12.

Geisler Farms will be one of the farm stops in Polk and Story counties participating in the fall Farm Cruise on Saturday, Sept. 10 from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Other livestock and produce farms will be hosting open houses that day. For a map and description of the farms, please visit www.farmcruise.com/.

Geisler Farms is open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to last admission by 8 p.m. Sunday hours are 12 p.m. to last admission at 6 p.m. during September and October. General admission is $7.00 per person. Children age two and under are admitted free. Growing Family Fun promotional partners are DEKALB, Casey’s General Store and Van-Wall Group.

Fred Howell of Cumming was elected president of the Iowa Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association during the 2011 conference. Howell is the owner of Howell’s Pumpkin Patch and Howells’ Dried Florals and Greenhouse. Kathy Hohl of Kathy’s Pumpkin Patch in Donnellson was elected vice president. Serving as secretary/treasurer is Richard DeMoss of DeMoss Pumpkin Farm of Ames.

New board members elected during the meeting include Eric Franzenberg of Pheasant Run Farm, Van Horne, and Mike Penick of Penick’s Sweet Corn of Carlisle. Other board members include Scott Wilber of Boone and Maury Wills of Adel.

The next IFVGA annual conference will be January 27-28, 2012, at the Iowa FFA Enrichment Center in Ankeny. For IFVGA contact information, visit: http://www.iafruitvegetablegrowers.org/.

Iowa has 92,400 farms. Land in farms covers 30.8 million acres.

Iowa raised more than 2.15 billion bushels of corn in 2010, or 17 percent of the total U.S. corn crop of 12.4 billion bushels. 

Iowa raised more than 496 million bushels of soybeans in 2010, or 15 percent of the nation’s 3.3 billion bushels in 2010.

Iowa has 6 hogs for every person in the state. There are nearly 19 million hogs being raised in Iowa. Iowa producers marketed nearly 30 million hogs in 2010.

A hen lays an average of 269 eggs per year. In 2010, Iowa’s egg producers had 54 million layers producing 14.6 billion eggs.

Iowa is ranked second in the nation in red meat production. Iowa ranks fourth in the United States for cattle on feed. As of January 2011, Iowa had 1.38 million cattle on feed.

There was an average of 209,000 milk cows on Iowa farms during 2010. A cow will produce an average of 6.3 gallons of milk each day. That’s more than 2,300 gallons each year.

Iowa ranked 10^th in the United States for the number of sheep and lambs on farms. As of January 2011, Iowa had 200,000 sheep and lambs.

Iowa ranked third in the nation for milk goats. As of January 2011, Iowa had 31,000 milk goats.

Iowa ranked seventh in the United States for turkeys marketed with 13.2 million turkeys in 2010.

Iowa’s 40 ethanol plants have a combined annual capacity of 3.7 billion gallons of ethanol annually, more per year than any other state. Iowa produces nearly 30 percent of the nation’s ethanol.

Iowa’s total cash receipts for farm commodities in 2010 totaled more than $23 billion – the second highest in the United States.

Iowa’s total agricultural exports for fiscal year 2010 were valued at more than $7.0 billion, ranking Iowa second in the nation in agricultural exports. 

Information sources: National Agricultural Statistics Service, Economic Research Service, Dairy Farming Today and the Iowa Corn Growers Association. Compiled by Malinda Geisler, Growing Family Fun at Geisler Farms www.growingfamilyfun.com/.