Southwest Indiana farmers have had their usual share of problems related to weather during the 2018 planting and growing periods, but for many the corn crop is developing rapidly, and signs point to an early harvest. Matt Parmer, Technical Agronomist with DEKALB/Asgrow said it all turned with the month of June.
“Many places were three to six inches behind on moisture for the month of April and May, and then we turned the calendar date into June, and June was warm and very wet,” he told HAT. “I’ve never seen a corn crop that we planted in May that’s then flowering in June. In fact, if you planted around May first, we’ve progressed this corn crop about ten days quicker than normal just with our growing degree days accumulation.”
But the crop still is quite variable because of the cold April, dry May, and some intense storms in June. Corn is pollinating right now, and Parmer says it would like a break in the heat at night.
“Ideally this crop would love some cool nights to respire and repair damage, but we can’t change the weather,” he said. “So now we really need a strategy of stress reduction and disease management.”
And there are diseases showing up.
“I’ve been seeing some anthracnose leaf blight, Diplodia leaf streak, Physoderma brown spot, gray leaf spot, and GLS particularly loves this warm, humid weather. It’s progressing very quickly, especially in continuous corn fields. The thing about GLS is it has this long incubation period of several weeks before you even see the lesions.”
Parmer encourages growers to scout fields keeping in mind the disease tolerance of each hybrid you planted and have a plan you can act on as the corn and disease both progress. Of course, part of the plan will be to get set for harvest to start early. He expects it to begin by Labor Day with the potential for “good to very good” yields.
Hear more from Parmer:Matt-Parmer-July-18-corn-update