Drying Corn

Why is it necessary to dry corn? Why not let it dry in the field?. Living in Calif. no corn is grown near where I live, so corn drying is something I don't undrestand. Stan

When you live up North, there's not enough heat energy from the sun (growing degree days?) to get the corn dried (or, sometimes other crops, as well) before fall rains and winter weather set in. Where we are (near the Canadian Border), as the fall goes on, there is a heavy dew at night, and many days, especially if it's cloudy with no wind, the crops remain WET all day, and the cycle repeats.

So it's a race to get the crops harvested before bad weather sets in.

The high cost of drying is offset by having the crop off of the field in good condition, and ready to sell.

Of course, a bit farther south, things don't get tough as early in the fall. There's another reason, as well, to have the field bare and ready for fall tillage and fertilizer application to get the fields ready for next year's crop.

Because as the corn dries in the field the stalks get rotton and can drop the ear or the whole stalk. Sometimes a wind comes along and pushes over the whole field (Pioneer corn is famous in Iowa for that) and then harvest losses are enormous and harvest is very slow with much combine damage possible from inhaling rocks along with the corn.

With LP under 50 cents a gallon, and without corn with BT for killing off stalk borer, university research said picking corn at 21% was optimum to get the best yield. That the cost of drying was less than the loss of yield from ear drop and stallk rot. Today, with BT in the corn to hold off the stalk borer and the high cost of LP, I'm sure the optimum moisture is a little lower.

As the corn matures it takes nitrogen from the stalk to finish the ear and that makes the stalk weak. Heavy fall rains or early snow softens the stalk too. My corn did that nitrogen extraction last year and as I watched it I knew it was time to harvest, not to wait two days. It came in at just under 15% average which the elevator charged me for drying to 14, but didn't actually dry it except with air.

And then its known that the more days to maturity, the greater the crop, but extending those days in any particular latitude means most years the corn won't be dry enough to store (13% for long term storage, though putting in bins in the fall at 15% and blowing air without heat will get the corn down to 13% before spring) without drying. The added yield can pay the cost of drying and then some. Right now much Iowa corn is way too wet to pick and dry so it stands much later into the fall than normal because of a wet and cold spring that held it back or prevented timely planting. Parts of some fields were planted three times and still have lakes in them from later summer rains. I lost beans planted in July to wet ground from late July rains.

Look for ISU Extension on line and look for extension bulletins on profitable corn production for more details.

Gerald J.

Along with what every one else said,,,,

Wet corn gets less money at the elevator and will rot in the bin. People here were drying over a month ago. In that time the price has dropped about $2. Well worth that money to dry it. About one year in 4 about this time of year it turns off wet and rains alot. Running in muddy fields causes all kinds of problems. Every thing from soil compaction, to have'n to wagon grain 2 miles to the nearest black top road, to have'n to hook a chain on and yank around a 1/4 million dollar chunk of iron out of the mud, to haveing to make an extra pass of tillage the next spring.

It basicaly comes down to money and time, time is money so its realy all about the money.

Dave

They are talking about shelled corn from a combine. When picked in the ear form and put in a pile it could get enough circulation to dry. But a pile of shelled corn would be too dense to dry on its own therefore air is forced thru the pile to dry it sometimes with heat added. Shelled corn even in Calif if not dried down to 15% would have to have some sort of drying application.