BHollis - 5/8/2014 01:17

I checked 50 acres of corn today that I planted on April 24th.... Driving by, it looks great, you can row it well. This corn was planted on the morning of the 24th and got around 6 tenths of rain on it that evening. It's in sandy loam soils. Over a period of about 3-4 days, it got a total of 1.3 inches of rain. Of course the weather got cold in central IL after this rain. Anyways, I walked a little bit of the field, and have discovered that I have what I feel is a fairly significant emergence issue. I have plants that are V-1, maybe pushing V-2, and then there will be 2 to 3 feet in a row where nothing has come up. If you look closely, occasionally you will see a plant beginning to emerge in these bare spots.

I talked to a couple neighbors in the area and they are experience the same problem. Everyone is saying because of the cool weather after the rain. I saw one guy headed down the road with his rotary hoe (I assume he has the same issue and is trying to rescue his corn). Everyone I have talked to has told me to avoid the rotary hoe, and that the 3 tenths of rain we have forecast for tomorrow night should solve my problem. Temps were in the upper 80's today and will be in the 80's again tomorrow.

Should I be worried? The plants that are up look great, but those gigantic bare spots have me pretty concerned.

Thanks for any advice/opinions.