The hybrid I'm looking at has long ear shanks that drooped  some ears during that hot dry week somewhat prematurely, but probably as much from just plain running out of moisture. Because of the long ear shanks it seemed to affect the bigger better ears more than the smaller ears in thinner stalks. A lot of them didn't just drop straight down but still a slight outward "hang" thus why I called it drooping vs dropping. 

I've come to the conclusion that there was damage done to ear fill but not as severely as it would've had it not rained several days later. The drooped ears were about 1/3 further advanced in the mst line receding then the upright ears so it did pinch some vascular tissues in the ear shank but not fully, as even now the drooped ears still have not black layered. What I've noticed is when I break off 1/2 of the ears and let the other 1/2 still attached to the plant, that the detached part quickly dries out and the kernels get loose. the same still attached ear slowly recedes the moisture line at normal pace now that it has adequate soil moisture again.

The only difference between the upright ears and the drooped ears is the slightly advanced dry down pace which leads me to conclude some ear weight was lost due to ear drooping but the rain came quickly enough to mitigate the losses to some extent. Now I'll still need to check the fewer ears yet that hung straight down and lost all green husk color because from past experience those kernels usually get loose quickly just hanging there meaning that all vascular tissues were pinched off and shut down any transfer to the ear. Not nearly as many of my ears did that so I'll need to go look for those to see if that held true this yr too.

I now wonder if it would be better to pick hybrids that have shorter ears shanks and that hold the ear tight to the stalk? Would that perhaps be a more drought proof hybrid?