Some Illinois farmers are combining corn with fins and scales this fall. No, that’s not a fish story. The fins and scales are a result of poor pollination that occurred last summer, says Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist.
“In the real world, we like to see an ear of corn pollinated from butt to tip in three days—that’s fantastic pollination,” he notes. “But in this case, it indicates our pollination got stretched out, due to wet weather.”
Too much rain caused the pollen sacs to not open, and the domino effect was pollination dragged on for a series of days.
“This year, we saw 3” to 6” long silks, which tells you it took 10 to 12 days to get pollinated,” Ferrie says.
The result, as the picture shows, is some of the kernels barely grew. “These little white kernels are what got left behind,” Ferrie says, pointing to examples on the cob.
In this scenario, the plant aborted some of the kernels. At the same time, other kernels compensated for those that were aborted. While some yield loss occurred, Ferrie doesn’t believe it was significant.
Watch the video here for a full explanation of what transpired.
