Nelson Zandbergen
BRINSTON — Out of the thousand acres of corn grown annually at Tibben Farms last year, a small and me- ticulously cleaned sample captured the champion shelled corn award at the Ottawa seed and forages show.
Family patriarch Ralph Tibben assembled the winning entry, which went into last month’s competition that again took place without an accompanying Ottawa Valley Farm Show.
“Dad always prepares the shelled corn sample every year. That’s his thing that he does,” explains Mark Tibben, Dundas County director with the Ottawa Valley Seed Growers Association and partner in the Tibben family dairy operation. “I believe he’s had the champion shelled corn entry six out of the last seven years.”
“Our neighbours the Westervelts stole his title last year, but the last time I got a look at the trophy, we had our name on there for quite some time.”
“He picks out all the cracked ker- nels and makes sure every kernel is the same size. It’s not a money-making process,” he laughs.
Tibben expressed pride at his county’s overall showing at the Carp fairgrounds — special pandemic site for the Ottawa competition — as Dun- das earned the highest combined point total for the past president’s award.
“Lanark took it over for a couple years, and Dundas got it back again,” he said. “Everyone that entered from our county had a good showing in Ot- tawa,” added the longtime chair of the Dundas Seed Show, the regional event that’s been getting a rst look at Tibben Farms’ entries for the last 25 years.
This year’s Dundas competition — a feeder event for the Ottawa show — took place as a socially distanced gathering of two judges and a handful of organizers inside a machine shed at the Tibben farm.
Tibben Farms also placed in the spring wheat, soft winter wheat and the chopped straw categories in Ottawa this year.
