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McLeod County, MN | It was a sad day today as the death of the central, north, and eastern MN, and western WI corn crop has been confirmed. Cause of death appears to be lack of nitrogen, heavy spring rains, flooding, extreme heat and now severe drought. The crop fought courageosly until the bitter end, but it finally succumb to the blast furnace and complete lack of moisture over the last 40+ days. Symptoms displayed are very shallow kernals, extreme tipback, premature plant death, and dreadful test weight.
I was in all my fields today and it sure is ugly. Average is around 1/3 blacklayer and stalks dead brown from top to bottom on over 50% of remaining acres (undrown). The only place where it is remotely hanging on is in the 7.5+ OM areas. Harvest just got a whole lot uglier after walking those fields. Out of the 100+ cobs I pulled today I see now way test weight will make 50#.
Oh, and the ground is harder than I have ever seen it. Hopefully we can get a couple inches just for the sake of tillage. And the stalks are WEAK!!!!!! One finger with about 5# of pressure tips them right over. Variety and company DO NOT matter. Shanks are extremely weak, with most cobs pointed towards the ground already. I would assume full bore here in possibly two, and surely 3 weeks.
In 5 bean fields today too. Most pods I found on one plant out of about 20 was 36. 20-23 was about average. Most upper pods aborted. | |
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