Good Corn, Bad Corn. That Tale of the Tip

Harvest is an excellent time to look at your ears, your corn ears that is.

Bits and pieces of the entire growing season can be seen on the ears that are now heavy in the husk and waiting for harvest. One of the easiest stories to read is the stress that came during grain fill. Below are two ears from different hybrids from the same field. The ear on the left is a “good” ear for a flex type hybrid. I know it has some tip showing, but on a flex type hybrid that is to be expected. The ear on the right is a “bad” ear. Once again, it has a little tip just like the good ear, but it also has 4 to 5 kernels in each row that pollinated, but then shrunk back and failed to develop. This just screams stress to me – growing season stress in the last couple of months, to be more exact. This hybrid reacted to that stress by reducing the number of kernels it was going to feed. Do you see any yield loss potential here?

So what caused the stress? It could be any of a dozen things. I know the answer, but then I have scouted this field earlier in the season, so I was not surprised to see this stress come harvest. Do you want to know the answer? Drop me a note, we can talk corn.

Take a minute and look at your ears this fall;, they may have a very interesting story to tell.