Friday, October 22, 2010

The Last Glycine max Post Of The Season

I had a different post planned for today, but it was going to involve a lot of manipulation of graphics, so I wound up not having time to work on it. Fortunately, they harvested the soybean field behind the house on Wednesday afternoon (Very dusty!), so I can now bring you the Exciting Season Finale of the Glycine max saga.




Technically, of course, there's more to the story than this: I could show you pictures of the empty field, which is the real end of the story. I figure it's better to end the story on the photogenic stuff. Or, you know, the more-photogenic stuff. I don't know how into soybeans everybody is, but I'm guessing you're probably more into soybeans than you are empty fields. Let me know if I've miscalculated.


12 comments:

Ginny Burton said...

I am definitely an ignorant city person -- I always assumed that soybeans grew underground, like peanuts! Thanks for the revelation.

Have I given you my Brandy Alexsoynder recipe? I know you and your husband drink a lot of soy milk. Take a glass of vanilla soy milk, put in a shot of brandy (or B&B), top off with a sprinkle of nutmeg. Dee-lish, and good for you!

Pat said...

A bunch of has-beans :0)

I eat a lot of soya product every week so I found it very interesting,

Paul said...

I'm more curious about than into soybeans. I'm used to seeing them processed or green (edamame). So would these be used for seed, fodder, green manure, or other? I'm clueless.

It is somewhat interesting to look at, though. I've never grown a legume into the end-stage, but I really want to eventually for limas or garbanzos.

Anonymous said...

Fuzzy beans! \o/

I like beans anyway, but fuzzy ones just take the cake. It's interesting they let them dry out, I always thought they'd be picked like green beans.

Anonymous said...

Very creative,I like it.

Kenneth Moore said...

Well, Paul and Sixwing, soybeans are very versatile. The plants may be just a rotation crop, to pump nitrogen into the soil of this field using N-fixing bacteria that grow in nodules in the plants' roots (Rhizobium, for example).

Soybeans can be eaten fresh and green, of course--but they may also be eaten dried, just like, say, black beans. You can roast dried soybeans (like I do with chickpeas) or do a ton of things to them on the consumer-product end. But, of course, they could also be used just as silage or whatnot.

And no, in case you were wondering, which you probably weren't, because it seems hella obvious, they don't grow as well indoors as they do in these photos. They are nice plants to grow--I have had better success with them than with some of the other legumes indoors!

Ivynettle said...

That middle picture is great! The soybean fields I see from the train every day are so full of weeds, you couldn't get such a picture there.

Pat said...

Don't forget the biofuel and vegetable oil.

Unknown said...

Lovely photos, Mr_Subjunctive. I like the light shimmering on the soybean pods. They hadn't been harvested in fields near here as of a few days ago, but I've been pretty close to home much of this week and am not sure whether they're gone now or not. Such an interesting crop.

Anonymous said...

Great posts, especially this one – thank you! :-)

Anonymous said...

this is sooo cool.

ABTEG said...

The photos you took where a soybean used for cattle. Farmers growing the EDIBLE soybeans (Glycine max) would have harvested the beans when they were smaller and still green and tender.