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00:00:01This tells us that the cessation of nutrient outflow
00:00:05from the plant into the cob itself has already begun. In principle,
00:00:08everything that has formed, has formed, and can be harvested for grain.
00:00:12Generally, close attention is paid to the development of domestic breeding, and it's understandable, because providing
00:00:15for one's own seeds is not only import substitution but also a matter
00:00:19of food security. At the field of the Zhodino Scientific and Practical Center,
00:00:23about a thousand hybrids are grown, both imported and
00:00:26domestic, and technologies are being perfected. compare this little cob, where
00:00:31the milk flows, right, and this one, where the milk doesn't flow,
00:00:34I can't squeeze it out, that is,
00:00:38you understand, for grain it's unprofitable, it increases moisture,
00:00:41but it doesn't increase the yield, it's better to have one large
00:00:44cob,
00:00:48if you take European hybrids, then they, due to
00:00:51rapid moisture release, rapid accumulation of dry matter in
00:00:55the grain, that is, there is an outflow of nutrients from
00:00:59the leaf-stem... we have a cob and the cow at the feeding table starts
00:01:02picking out the grains, the stem that is already coarse, that is not
00:01:06nutritious, she doesn't want to eat it, Belarusian hybrids do not have
00:01:10such qualities, they do not pump, for silage this is an advantage,
00:01:14today we set the tasks of obtaining grain. In Belarus,
00:01:17about 200 hybrids are sown annually, 55%
00:01:21of them are domestic, and there are 17 in the register. The novelty of this
00:01:25season was Vevalent 1322. The main
00:01:28advantage is rapid ripening. resistance to weather whims,
00:01:32as Belarusian scientists claim, in terms of productivity, domestic
00:01:35breeding can compete with more than thirty foreign
00:01:39companies. No other crop has such an indicator, but it is worth
00:01:43noting that the work on creating any variety lasts about
00:01:4610 years, and breeding in Belarus began only in
00:01:50ninety-three. The seeds of hybrids are always more expensive than
00:01:53the seeds of varieties. In order to obtain the parental
00:01:57form, it takes many, many years.
00:02:00self-pollination, and we get these
00:02:03cobs at the output.
00:02:06The yield of the parental form, of course, is much lower than that of hybrid
00:02:10F1, but nevertheless, when crossing two parental forms, we get
00:02:14a heterotic hybrid at the output,
00:02:17which demonstrates high yield and high
00:02:20grain quality.
00:02:22In Belarus,
00:02:27three corn calibration plants produce hybrid seeds,
00:02:31purchase parental forms, grow them in the field, and obtain
00:02:34F1 hybrid, a familiar cob to our eyes. In total, they are
00:02:38capable of producing up to 30,000 tons of corn
00:02:41seeds, which is almost 70% of
00:02:43the need.
00:02:49When our film crew arrived at the site, the territory of the plant was already
00:02:53bathed in the glow of the setting sun, but the production lines
00:02:56inside continued to move. Corn calibration
00:03:00in Vovotsevichi works 24/7 during the hot season
00:03:03from August to April. The start is always with the laboratory. A car
00:03:07arrives, we go, select cobs,
00:03:10weigh 70 pieces,
00:03:13separate the leaves, weigh the leaves, then
00:03:16a laboratory assistant comes here and calculates the impurity
00:03:20and moisture content here using a formula. We also need
00:03:24to check for brittleness along the cob, two or three
00:03:28rows, and bring it... here and do a second
00:03:31analysis. In the receiving department, the corn is cleaned of
00:03:34leaves and goes to the sorting table, where it is manually
00:03:38refined, residues and atypical cobs are removed, and
00:03:41complete cobs go to the drying department. At this
00:03:44stage, the cameras are being unloaded after
00:03:48drying. These cobs are dried to
00:03:51a certain moisture content,
00:03:5313%, ready for shelling
00:03:56the grain. The cob arrives on this belt.
00:04:13In November, the plant begins calibrating seeds, separating the planting material into fractions of the same size, weight, and
00:04:17volume. All this is for uniform germination in the fields.
00:04:21This year, nine
00:04:22hybrids were grown.
00:04:28As reported, this season, corn was supplied with
00:04:32moisture in most of the territories, only in the southern
00:04:35regions did it partially suffer from soil drought. As for
00:04:38global trends, Brazil increased corn harvesting to 115 million
00:04:42tons and ranked second in the world in exports. According to
00:04:46Eurostat, the Garden of Eden this year faced the worst corn
00:04:50harvest for grain in two decades. The gross
00:04:53harvest was 12% less than in 2025.
00:04:57The reason is extreme drought.
00:05:03The land is not always generous with harvests, but in Belarus, even sandy soils
00:05:07are made to work for food security. This is
00:05:10confirmed by a large-scale experiment: at the experimental field of the
00:05:14Dzerzhinsky agro-combine, it was divided into six plots, and different
00:05:18combinations of fertilizers were applied to each, comparing the yield. The best
00:05:21was where organic matter was mixed with sludge,
00:05:25which is waste from potash fertilizer production. This waste
00:05:28gives results, which means there are useful
00:05:31substances and not a few for plants, so I
00:05:34suspect that maybe these mountains will be taken away for free
00:05:38and applied, especially in the south.
00:05:41starting with less fertile land. And if the question arises
00:05:44why so much attention is paid to corn, here are the facts: in
00:05:47June 2026, the average daily milk yield in Belarus first
00:05:51exceeded 20 liters per cow. Our country is the largest
00:05:54player in the global dairy market, and the level
00:05:58of self-sufficiency in "white gold" has reached 300%.
00:06:01Such indicators are partly due to the development of fodder production, so
00:06:04it turns out, partly thanks to corn. It occupies a large part of
00:06:08the diet of cattle in terms of cost-effectiveness, energy
00:06:12nutritional value, and potential yield, the queen of the fields
00:06:16surpasses all fodder grain crops. And these are already shots from the southern
00:06:30part of the country. Pinsk district, Pochapovo farm,
00:06:33peat-bog soils, ameliorated lands,
00:06:36corn was sown on more than 1,800 hectares,
00:06:39about 100 for grain. To please the queen of the fields, every year
00:06:42an unspoken agreement is signed with the heavenly office. We have
00:06:46little moisture for 2 years, precisely here in Pinsk, so
00:06:50peat bogs, of course, in terms of their moisture supply,
00:06:53win in comparison with mineral
00:06:56soils, so this year our yield of corn on peat
00:07:00bogs is significantly higher. If we take an average of
00:07:04about 210 centners, here on
00:07:06these types of soils it's 300-350
00:07:10yield. In the diet of livestock, corn occupies about
00:07:1340%, the main source of energy and starch,
00:07:17which are necessary for high productivity and rapid weight
00:07:20gain. And also, the farm has developed a formula: the cow gives more
00:07:23milk if corn is combined with alfalfa. With the help of this
00:07:27line, we create these granules, which are
00:07:30added to corn silage
00:07:33and fed to cows. We bring here an average of
00:07:3720 tons of alfalfa per day.
00:07:40At the output, 50-60%, that is, plus or minus 10
00:07:44tons of already prepared compressed
00:07:48feed, which can be stored for a year.
00:07:52This year, our task is 40,000 tons of high-quality
00:07:55silage. Corn comes from the field here,
00:07:58we prepare silage according to technological
00:08:01regulations, we fully observe everything, cutting length,
00:08:04grain crushing, tamping,
00:08:07covering.
00:08:10Here we have a mixture of haylage, silage, concentrates,
00:08:13herbal granules. With the use of herbal
00:08:16granules, we increased milk yield over the past year by
00:08:195%. In Belarus, sweet corn is also grown, this
00:08:23year about 150 hectares in the territory of canneries
00:08:27and farms. It is a familiar product in stores, as well as
00:08:30a subject of
00:08:32dispute.
00:08:4925 years ago, to prepare corn, one had to
00:08:52perform a whole ritual of taming the queen of the fields
00:08:55with boiling water. Today, the recipes are simplified and
00:08:58suggest boiling corn for 15 minutes, grilling it
00:09:02for five, or simply salting young corn
00:09:06and eating it raw. But has corn really changed,
00:09:09or is it something else? The answer is...
00:09:13This corn is sweet corn, and in
00:09:16the Soviet period, we ate fodder corn,
00:09:19which is now given only to animals. The corn that
00:09:23we have growing in our fields now, if you boil it, it will also
00:09:26boil for more than an hour, because
00:09:30there are
00:09:32different varieties, different directions of use.
00:09:36We still use corn for
00:09:38obtaining fodder and succulent feeds for...
00:10:12In Moldova, a thick porridge made from cornmeal, Mamaliga, is a national
00:10:16dish. Its analogue is the symbol of northern Italy,
00:10:19Polenta. In African countries, cornmeal puree replaces
00:10:22bread. In Belarusian restaurants, golden grains are served
00:10:26as a side dish. We have a lunch menu, they serve
00:10:29grilled vegetables, so there's corn, and pepper,
00:10:33and some zucchini. A good combination is spices, that's
00:10:36when sweet paprika is used, some spicy
00:10:40pepper, and for example, with a little lime
00:10:43juice. Raw materials from the golden crop are used in the production
00:10:46of starch, groats, flour, biofuels. Corn
00:10:50silks and stigmas are widely used in medicine. Also, based on
00:10:53the queen of the fields, paper, glue, alcoholic
00:10:56beverages, oil, sugar substitutes, flakes,
00:11:00and sweets are made.
00:11:07The main gastronomic delicacy of several generations, corn
00:11:10sticks, has been produced in Lida for over 50
00:11:14years. New flavors appear, but the technology has been preserved since
00:11:17sixty-seventh, and to get the familiar sweetness from
00:11:20corn grits, the raw material goes through several stages. Before
00:11:24the start of production, the grits are sieved and
00:11:28magnetically separated. The prepared grits are mixed with water
00:11:31and salt and fed into the heart of this section,
00:11:34the extruder. In parallel with the preparation of the semi-finished product of corn
00:11:38sticks, the preparation of sugar
00:11:40syrup takes place.
00:11:44A certain amount of semi-finished product, sticks,
00:11:48is fed into each coating drum, the syrup is mixed with
00:11:51the sticks, and warm air is supplied here for drying
00:11:55the finished product, which then goes to
00:11:58packaging.
00:12:05We produce quite a lot of corn sticks, in one shift we get
00:12:09about 17
00:12:12boxes of crispy snacks. An interesting fact, if you stack
00:12:15these boxes one on top of the other, then in one shift it will be approximately a 100-story
00:12:19building. The assortment includes 19 types of products made from
00:12:22corn grits: sticks, snacks, popcorn. In 2000
00:12:26and six, we shipped corn sticks
00:12:30and popcorn to 14
00:12:32countries for export. The main markets are the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan,
00:12:36Azerbaijan, Georgia, Uzbekistan,
00:12:38Turkmenistan. There were deliveries to Germany, Canada,
00:12:42the Kingdom of Bahrain. And yet, despite the convoluted paths,
00:12:45Belarusian farms, together with scientists, are finding a way out of the agricultural
00:12:49labyrinth. Thanks to the dictatorship of technology and love for the land,
00:12:52corn today is gold in the fields, which not only
00:12:56provides feed for livestock, but also helps to ensure
00:12:59food security.