Southern Indiana Corn Dying Prematurely
Southern Indiana’s early planted corn is being harvested, but the later planted fields may not make it to harvest. About a third of the corn in Southern Indiana was planted in April and is being harvested, but DuPont Pioneer Product agronomist Bill Meacham says yields are a bit disappointing, “From the growers we have talked to, the yields are down about 10% – 15% from last year. Most of this is due to the fact these fields just had too much water on them during the growing season.”
He said some hybrids, however, are doing surprisingly well, “Our best performer is P1197. It has been very consistent across many locations and has topped many of the test plots we have harvested.” He added that P1479 has also been a strong performer this year as well.
Yet, the big concern is for the later planted corn and whether it can stand until it is ready for harvest. “We had a lot of Southern Rust blow into Southern Indiana a few weeks ago, and that is really causing issues with stalk integrity,” said Meacham. “We are seeing a lot of this corn prematurely die at a very rapid rate.” He said fields that had been sprayed with a fungicide are holding together a bit better, but other fields are moving backward at a very rapid rate. He is urging growers to assess the stalk quality of their later planted corn fields to determine when to begin harvest.
Meacham says the story on soybeans is much better. There is some SDS but, for the most part, the yields are very good. “We are hearing some very good yields,” he stated. “One of our group 2 varieties, 25T08 is yielding every well. One of our farmers reported an 80 bpa field average on a group 3 variety P35T58.”
Listen to the complete DuPont Pioneer update under the crops tab on this web site.