Assess Your Corn Crop Now in Preparation for 2013

(AgWeb) – Now is a good time to get a serious ear count in your corn fields, even if your crop faced significant drought stress this year, says Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal field agronomist.

One of the things he encourages farmers to determine is how big a drop they had from their planted population to their actual ear cont. It’s standard acceptance to expect a 10% to 13% drop from planted target to ear count. However, Ferrie says growers should aim to fine tune their fields to only a 5% to 6% drop.

“If we have a lot of barren plants out there, we want to make sure there’s nothing more than the drought that has contributed to them,” Ferrie says.

He adds that many farmers are seeing much smaller ears of corn than usual in their fields this summer, much of which occurred due to the rootless corn syndrome growers encountered earlier this season.

Listen here as Ferrie provides more agronomic insights about corn development issues this season as well as suggestions you can implement for 2013.