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North Central Illinois | Emergence was very good. Most of my stand loss is due to rotary hoeing. I think I should have been a little less aggressive hoeing post emergence, as I had about at least 90% of the planting population emerge, even with aggressive pre emerge hoeing. Hoeing between emergence and 3 leaves buries or half buries a lot of plants. Then I end up burying them the rest of the way with the first cultivation. The field with the worst stand was hoed aggressively at V1 and V3. Didn't want to hit it that second time, but there were 10+ velvet leaf per foot of row still, and I was getting most of them with the hoe. Last year is still fresh in my mind, and I almost didn't get dry enough conditions to cultivate at all. I am satisfied with a 25k+ population, as long as it's fairly even. I backed off from planting 37-38k last two years, as I had issues with standability.
The plants in the thinned out areas have stalks like tree trunks and are silking out 2 ears. 1 lb ears make up for less plants to an extent. I had a similar stand around 24k in an acre patch behind the cow barn in 2014 that did 210 bpa. That was with no applied fertility, just the legacy nutrients from being dry lot 10+ years ago. | |
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Organic Corn
