It is that time of the year to start paying attention to our emergence of our corn. This year we will be doing flag tests again to mark out when specific plants emerge compared to others next to them.
We need to pay attention to emergence to maximize our yield that will be going into our bins this fall. We like to see everything come up within 24 hours of each other. Many studies have been conducted showing that plants that emerge on Day 2 of emergence can have a 10% yield loss compared to the first plants that emerged. Plants that come up on Day 3, the yield decrease can be close to 40% and those that emerge on Day 4 can have a yield loss of over 80%. The reason behind some of these yield losses is because those bigger brother corn plants will have the opportunity to take more water and nutrients away from the smaller brothers because they were able to get established sooner and they do not leave much for the runts to thrive on.
It is so crucial that we make sure we are doing everything in our power to allow these corn plants to emerge at the same time. Are we going through our planters well before we hit the fields to make sure the disc openers and scrapers are in optimal condition? Are we making sure we are doing tillage and planting into optimal field conditions and not pushing soil moisture and soil temperature? Are we adding some sort of starter to help those plants get out of the ground easier? Are we looking at the closing systems on our planters to make sure we are closing the seed trench well? These are just a few things to be mindful of when we are thinking about emergence. Let’s get off to a good start and fill our bins with as many bushels as possible this fall.
Make it a great spring and be safe!
