I drove by 20 miles of newly planted corn fields here in NC yesterday to get to the grocery store for some things. One of the first items I viewed in the produce section was a package of three small, maybe 6 inch long, ears of corn. Price $3.75. I would assume they are still there on the shelf.
Last night, on our local news, the talk was about using pine trees, and scraps resulting from cutting and milling for ethanol. We have lots of pine trees in E TX - the Piney Woods area.