there are now several generations of van groningens working together at the farm, including dan's 86-year-old dad. in recent years, the family has diversified the farm and has 4,500 acres in production of a variety of crops, so now when the sun goes down on the melon harvest, work just begins on the other big crop, sweet corn. >> yeah, we like to do it at night, uh, because the corn's cooler at night, and we-- it takes less to get the heat out of the corn at--at night. uh, if we harvest during the day, there's way too much heat in the corn, and the corn will go into a starch. >> after harvest, the corn is kept cool at the packing shed and is quickly sorted and boxed up on ice. dan says he hopes to harvest more than 19,000 ears of corn per acre, and with 1,000 acres planted, that's a lot of kernels, to say the least. but luckily they've got a lot of loyal customers, like the cattlemens restaurant chain of northern california. >> we get it here. we, uh--we prep it, get it--we wash it real good. we get it ready for the pot. i-it's in the pot, i would say, no more than 20 minutes. soon as