seed corn

So my corn is all flat this year. Ag supplier says its due to drought but my irrigated fields are flat too. Last year same thing. They said I needed fungicide so my corn got two applications . Still no good.
What brands do you all recommend for good standability.

What brand did you use? and where are you? What works in here in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania may be totally wrong for Nebraska or Minnesota.

time for a different brand

And a different seed dealer.

Time to get mean and get ahold of corporate. Your dealer is bending you over.

Timmycornpicker X2. You have to specify region. Why just in my region alone (eastern corn belt) within a 100 mile radius there must be 6 or 7 large scale seed suppliers/brands. Some good lodging, some good for tonnage, some good for maturity, blah blah.

A seed dealer or supplier is not going to tell you that thier seed is bad. Anything but that. The closest thing they'll tell you to that, is telling you that a variety that is discontinued and they no longer sell was a bad variety.
If I was having the trouble your having, I'd check with neighbors who are farming similar ground without problems, and see what they are planting.

If we wanted to grow corn on corn, we run into issues with root worm. Corn will look great till sometime after tassel, then the stalks start to bend about 3 inches out of the ground. And they will be flat by harvest time. We have to use a variety with root worm protection built into the plants genes. I would plant a triple stacked variety next year if I were you, and see how your results look, or do some crop rotation.

Time to switch brands and varieties. Around here in Western Illinois, Pioneer is famous for corn flat on the ground, but guys still plant it. Talk to your neighbors and find out what varieties stand and plant some on your ground. Is your fertility up to par?? Missing essential nutrients can weaken the stalks. Do you plant Non or GMO seed?? Have soil tests taken and talk to your fertilizer rep and make sure your soil has everything it needs and then get with some different seed dealers and try some different corn.

Look for speckles like somebody flicked a paint brush with black paint on the leaves. If it does it could be tar spot. Supposedly it will cause corn to go down after it comes on. It also depends on when you got it. According to my fertilizer rep, it can happen at different times of the season. According to him it will make corn continue to deteriorate till it is plowed under. I don't know if this is all true. It seems in MI I get many different tales about it. And can even spray for it. Sounds like once you get it it lives in the ground according to my rep again .Since it is new to MI I think they are not all that sure of themselves on it either.

Our sweet corn fell over year after year until I started chisel plowing the garden with a 15 deep single shank. Do you chisel plow? Corn grows taller and stands up.

In my area we were dry this summer as well. When the growing season is dry the corn plant will cannibalize the stalk in an attempt to finish off the kernels. The stalk dries out sooner than normal leaving it subject to disease and of course it just normally rots away. Having a few varieties rather than one gives some genetic diversity which may help in fighting off some diseases as well as spacing out the maturities. A big thing is to keep abreast of what is going on in the field. A couple simple tests can give you an idea of stalk strength. One is the pinch test done roughly a foot off the ground. Squeeze the stalk and if it easily collapses stalk integrity is compromised. Another common method is to push on a stalk about three feet up and see what happens. If the stalk snaps the variety must come out soon before the wind and rain gets it. Honestly I got caught with a variety that went down myself. It would have been taken out by now, but we received roughly 6 inches of rain keeping us out of the field the last two weeks. There never was really a driving rain, but it was windy and continuously wet. I started on this field Sunday. Never had I had such a mess. Big areas were broken over at about 6 inches above the ground. Many places only about 5% of the plants were standing. After one and a half days of 1/2 mph I am finally getting to some corn that is almost normal. I hope that continues across the remainder of the field. I cussed the variety, but honestly it needed to come out 2 weeks ago and who knew it was going to be wet all that time. I said I would never buy that number again, but when you realize that you are part of the problem (timing) I changed my mind. It has been one of my top producers. Even with all of the down corn the field is still doing short of 200 bushels per acre and on the good soil types the yield monitor will run 230 - 250 bushels per acre. It just needed to be harvested the middle of October. Starting Sunday was probably a day or two early, but I couldn't afford another rain on the field as I was afraid it would be flatter than flat on the ground. All I know is that I got most of the corn and that I ran a lot of wet dirt through the combine trying to get it. It is amazing what you can pull in if you can get the snouts under it. My biggest problem are the outside snouts where I should have a pair of Roll-A-Cones.

Nice looking dog!!!!


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