North shore of Lake Ontario | Pete I think we are in uncharted territory now. Any experiments to simulate frost damage have always involved mowing the plant off to a level that the frost would affect. Corn would have been still alive. This event was a real cold snap and I think froze the corn cells which killed some of them and set others back. No till ground was harder hit as well as corn planted shallow into really dry soil.
I would expect that those damaged plants will just be short but will put on a decent ear. Have seen that happen during drought events when the corn stopped growing and when it started to rain again it immediately fixed an ear. Ear was 4 or 5 ft off the ground with only 2 or 3 leaves above it. Yielded well considering everything
Time will tell and I guess we will take what we get. A promising start is slipping right away.
Edit 1 days difference in planting all it took to avoid frost damage. We started on May4 and those 2 field were hit fairly hard may 5 corn in knee high with no damage. Certain hibreds also faired better.On 5 plots they ranged from 3000 seed loss to 10000 seed loss.
Edited by Tompa 6/15/2015 19:02
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