Good Ear, Bad Ear – Part 2

Once again, here are the same two ears from my last posting. Both ears came from the same field. So why did the ear on the right not fill out as well as the one on the left? The simple answer is compaction, but that simple answer is only where the story begins. As with most field problems, there will usually be more than one thing at the cause. In this case the compacted part of the field caught a break because there was more than adequate rain in the first half of the season. This helped make up for a poor root system and sustained the plants so early grain fill looked good. Dodged a bullet, right?

Not quite, because after pollination and early grain fill, the weather turned around 180 degrees and became dry and hot, very hot. With a poor root system from compaction, the moisture stress and heat caused the plant to stress. Did this cause the kernels to shrink back? Close, but still not the answer yet. The story only goes on from there.

Looking at the plants in the field you would have seen that the lower leaves had completely fired and died up all the way to the ear, and the leaves above the ear all showed classic symptom of a nitrogen deficiency. Are we finally to the end? Yes, ultimately this ear fell short of potential because of a lack of nitrogen caused by dry weather stress to roots r that had not developed because of soil compaction from a soil planted too wet. This was a long way to go to get to a short yield, but it is another good example of just some of the excitement you can find in every corn field.