Harvest is rolling across central Illinois, but the story on corn isn’t pretty, says Farm Journal Field Agronomist Ken Ferrie.
“For the most part, it’s kind of depressing,” he says of early results. “For a lot of growers, it’s 20- to 40-bushel under a year ago.”
Ferrie says most growers are chasing dry grain and targeting fields most likely to lodge at this point. That’s pushing attention toward early-planted corn and stressing the need to scout and sort fields to harvest by stalk quality day-by-day.
“Everybody’s trying to find dry grain and then pick the highest candidate for going down,” he says. “That earlier April planted corn is where guys are focusing their effort right now.”
Soybeans are a different story. Yields are closer to last year’s results, but the finish has stretched out.
“In the last two weeks, especially, they’ve slowed down a bit,” Ferrie says.
A Thousand Paper Cuts Sliced The Corn Crop
Ferrie ties this year’s yield drag in corn to a season-long string of stresses. It’s a point he discussed with AgriTalk Host Chip Flory on Tuesday.
“It’s not one single thing that you can point at is it?” Flory noted. “During crop tour we talked about it being death by a thousand paper cuts on this corn crop.”
Ferrie agreed and provided a quick recap of the agronomic issues that have impacted the Illinois crop, starting in early summer:
- June water cost both yield and standability. “The water in June took out a lot of good ground, and at the same time brought in the stalk rots.”
- July heat knocked back kernel set. “We got larger pockets of the heat in July throwing that tip off,” Ferrie notes.
- Crown rot and ear position are now compounding grain quality concerns. “Because of the crown rot, we have 10% to 15% of the ears hanging down, and they’re real rubbery, but it’s still salable grain.”
The combination of problems — tip abortion, sprouting on the ear and compromised stalks — sets up potential storage issues Ferrie doesn’t want farmers to underestimate.
“With the amount of sprouting we’ve got, unfortunately, it’s going to give us some mycotoxins, I’m afraid, as this harvest goes on,” he says.
Moisture Helps Some Cornfields, Hurts Others
Recent rains have been a mixed blessing. Ferrie says May-planted, full-season corn, especially fields planted between May 15-20, can still benefit because much of it isn’t yet at black layer.
“This moisture is probably a plus for the later-planted, full maturity corn,” he says.
But the same pattern is working against compromised, early-planted corn that’s already under stalk and grain quality pressure.
“Some of this corn is just going to have to come out wet,” Ferrie says. “You’re not going to get a point and a half a day like we were getting two weeks ago.”
His message: be prepared to dry and handle wetter grain if that’s what it takes to get vulnerable fields out before they fall apart.
Combines Must Protect Both Yield and Quality
With more sprouted, rubbery kernels on the ears, Ferrie says growers will likely have to tighten combine settings to capture salable grain, and then manage the fallout in the hopper and bins.
“Normally that sprouting at the end of the ear is not a real big issue; you can blow that out the back of the combine,” he explains. “But because of the crown rot…we’ve got to set the combines tighter to get corn off the cob, to get it in the tank, and we’ve got to keep an eye on how much air we’re putting to the back of the combine.”
“When guys are checking the settings on their combine, a lot of times they just go to the back end and look and see what’s getting thrown out the back,” he adds. “You’ve got to check the hopper, too, to see what’s getting in.”
Tighter settings and weaker plants also mean more foreign material will move through in the grain stream.
“If you want to get some of those plants that died early with the crown rot, if you want to get some of that grain off, you’re unfortunately going to have some foreign matter in the tank,” he says. “If you’re taking it to town, that’s not really a problem. If you’re taking it to your own bins, it’s something you need to pay attention to.”
Evaluate Fields To Determine Harvest Priority
At this point, with stalk quality fading fast, Ferrie is telling farmers to not quit scouting. Ten days is long enough to turn a decent-looking field into downed corn.
“You can go from feeling pretty good about it to the stalk is trashed in that time,” he says.
His prescription is simple and aggressive:
- Run push tests and pinch tests every four or five days.
- Prioritize fields with poor stalks and “old-looking” canopies.
- Get to fields that look more like late October than late September corn sooner than later, even if the calendar says they can wait.
In some areas, diseases such as southern rust and tar spot are accelerating the decline.
“It’s a situation where there’s a combination of top kill and then southern rust and tar spot moving in on those fields, and it brought them to a screaming halt in as little as 10 days,” Ferrie says. “They just changed color almost overnight, and stalk quality will be quick to fade on those as well.”
His bottom line: if the tops are already dead, those acres jump to the front of the harvest line.
Storage Strategy: Dry, Core and Move Problem Grain First
Ferrie says farmers should assume some corn lots will be higher risk going into storage because of sprouting and foreign material.
His checklist for managing those problem bins:
- Dry corn. “Take the moisture down to 14%,” he advises.
- Prioritize where grain goes. “Prioritize your grain movement as well. Decide which bins to clean first for that stuff or get to town first.”
- Core bins regularly. “Don’t be afraid to core those bins as you go along to make sure we don’t get anything growing in there that’s going to give us trouble.”
You can hear all of Ferrie’s recommendations in his conversation on AgriTalk, available at the link below:
