About 15 years ago I had the chance to attend a session of the Farm Journal’s Corn College out in Illinois. The primary speakers that day were two well-known agronomists, Ken Ferrie and Missy Bauer. Although time has erased much of the event from my mind, there were two discussions that had been imprinted on me. The first was around the pros and cons of different tillage tools regarding corn root development, which we will discuss another day. The second was a one sentence statement from Ken. He said that soybeans are much more adaptable to stress, but corn can’t have a bad day.
I think that this statement has stood the test of time, and that the simplistic tips from 20 years ago still hold true today. If we want to do our part in helping everyday be a great day for your corn plants, we need to make sure we start with getting the seed in the ground properly. We know that uneven plant spacing and emergence will reduce yield potential in corn. The lower the plant population, the more critical spacing becomes. As a “rule of thumb”, we can expect yields to be reduced about 2 percent for plant spacing gaps of 1 to 3 feet and potentially 5 percent if there are gaps of 4 to 6 feet in the row. So, working to minimize planter skips is important.
Impacts of uneven emergence
Uneven emergence will generally have a greater impact on grain yield than uneven plant spacing. Uneven emergence affects corn performance because competition from larger, early-emerged plants decreases the yield from smaller, later-emerging plants. If the delay in emergence is less than two weeks, replanting increases yields less than 5 percent, regardless of the pattern of unevenness. However, if one-half or more of the plants in the stand emerge three weeks late or later, then replanting may increase yields up to 10 percent.
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Photo Credit:gettyimages-yasonya
Categories: Ohio, Crops, Corn, Soybeans