Most windblown corn likely to survive

Tens of thousands of acres of Iowa corn were flattened Monday by the storms and straight line winds that raced across the state, leaving many farmers to worry about potential yield losses.

Iowa State University Agronomist Mark Licht does not anticipate significant corn losses.

'I honestly think the corn is going to come back up more than we think,” Licht said. 'It was fairly early in terms of plant growth and the soils were still pretty wet. We may see some stalks breaking, but I think that will be fairly limited.”

Virgil Schmitt, ISU field agronomist in Benton, Linn, Johnson, Muscatine and surrounding counties, said the condition of the stalk will be critical to a corn plant's ability to recover.

'If it is snapped off below the growing point, it's done,” Schmitt said. 'Yield loss is directly related to the percentage of plants that are snapped off. If 10 percent of the cornstalks have snapped off, that's a 10 percent yield loss.

'If the plant has leaned over, but the stalk is intact, it will likely straighten back up and yield losses will be minimal if any at all.”

Schmitt said the challenge will come in about three months when farmers attempt to harvest windblown acres.

'It's going to be a real mess to harvest,” Schmitt said. 'I would suggest that people start thinking about any attachments or adjustments to their combine head to compensate for the condition of their crop.”

If there's any consolation to Monday's storm damage, Schmitt said it would have been much more severe if it occurred two weeks from now.

'The stalks become very brittle about a week to two weeks before the corn starts to tassel,” he said. 'This wind would probably have snapped the stalks, rather than just laying them over.”

Schmitt said corn and soybeans planted in fields with standing water can last for quite a while as long as the tops of the plants are not totally submerged.

'If the plants are submerged, but the water temperature stayed about 77 degrees, they can last for about four days. If sunshine causes the water temperature to rise fairly quickly, the time for survival can be significantly less.”

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