Below are observations we are seeing throughout our geography. The pattern has been consistent from the Penfield area south to Newman. As all of you know some areas have received some rain in the last 7-10 days while others have had little to none. A very common theme throughout is hatchet root development and an open or exposed seed trench crack. Normally this condition is from planting in wet and less-than-ideal conditions. It is our opinion that the vast majority of the corn crop was planted in excellent field conditions and what we are seeing is the effects of “flash drying” after we received a very hard and heavy rain on May 7th . As far as what the effects of this root development will be is an unknown. We would certainly like to see a broader and fuller root mass. The corn planted later in May 17-20th isn’t showing near the same effects. Overall we are seeing some uneven or “ugly” spots in corn that is stressed the most, and those areas are confined to soil type, compaction, early ponding, and tillage passes. While present these areas are a small percentage. This week will tell us a lot more about the crop and where we go from here and as always please reach out to us with questions as we make sound management decisions going forward.
Center roots are deep though.
The larger plants in the above pics had very deep roots but were breaking off during digging.