Don't mess with someone on Sundays during the fall while they're watching their fantasy football points add up. It seems some get more wrapped up in fantasy football than they do the actual football games!

My son spends Sunday afternoons with his smartphone, checking on various games. But he's not checking so much on the score as he is what the players on his "fantasy team" are doing.

It gets so intense that some people actually gather before the season and have fantasy football drafts. There are leagues everywhere. It's just for fun – or so they say. Some people, including my son, seem pretty intent on playing. They even keep league records and the whole nine yards.

What does this have to do with farming? Plenty. "Fantasy farming" is all but here now. There are various farming games that you can play already. I think my wife is checking Facebook or email, and she's actually playing a virtual farming game. You can even play with other people, or so they tell me.

The topper was when I heard emails come into her phone when she wasn't around. I checked to make sure it wasn't important. It wasn't – at least not to me. She didn't agree. It was a couple of email messages sent by the game to her email account informing her of things that had happened on her "farm."

It's only a matter of time, if it isn't going on already, before several farmers or maybe farm kids who eat and breathe this technology get together and start a "fantasy farm." Maybe they will all be involved in one operation. Maybe they will each have their own farm and compete against each other to see who can raise the most corn, or make the most profit.

I probably shouldn't knock it since I haven't tried it, but I think I would prefer the real thing – real farming. I also prefer watching real football, so maybe I'm just out of the loop.

The only thing about "fantasy farming" is you wouldn't be investing and risking real money.

Nevertheless, if I see someone smiling and find out it's because a field of corn just made 300 bushels per acre, I think I'll err on the side of caution. Was it a real field in the real world? Or was it a virtual field in a fantasy land?