Weather hurts corn yield
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Despite national predictions of a record corn crop, parts of Kansas may not have the predicted bumper crop because of wet weather and late plantings.
John Waechter of Emporia said Kansas is still going to have good corn and bean crops but they likely won’t match last year’s numbers.
“In this immediate area I don’t believe they are going to be as good as they were last year,” he said. “We got our corn planted later. You always want to plant it the last week of March or the first of April so you don’t have that pollination in that heat.”
This year’s corn did pollinate in the heat, causing bushels to be taken away, Waechter said.
“That pushes harvest back later,” he said. “I think we’ll be into October with harvest this year. It’s cool now and it’s wet now and we don’t have those heat units to mature those crops.”
Bottom line, it was just too wet this past spring.
“It ain’t going to yield as much,” Waechter said.
Another factor affecting “record” corn numbers is the amount of corn that is being planted.
“A lot of people used to plant milo instead of corn,” he said. “Because of the hybrids that corn has turned into and everything there’s a better demand for corn and better use for corn through ethanol and starch for corn and exporting ... hybrids will produce even on this poor ground and nobody plants milo anymore and we’re making more bushels of corn.”
More bushels of corn come at the expense of milo and a sharp decline of milo planting thus producing “record” amounts of corn, Waechter said.