Des Moines Register: A Texas company that uses cornstalks, husks and leaves to make ski, skate and surf boards plans to build a $15 million plant in northwest Iowa to make environmentally friendly shipping pallets. Corn Board Manufacturing, partnering with McMahon Associates, a Wisconsin engineering and architectural firm, says it will build a plant that will make a wood alternative from corn stover, the plant debris that’s typically left in the field after the crop is harvested. The patented product, called CornBoard, can be used to make pallets that weigh less than those made of wood but have the same structural integrity, the company says.