Hot, Dry Weather Did a Number on Corn Crops

Plainfield farmers won't be harvesting the 180 bushels of corn per acre they reaped last fall.

We’re doing a late-summer crop check because, despite the development of the last decade, we still live in farm country. About 60 percent of Will County’s half-million acres are croplands.

“We’re not going to be getting those bumper crops we had last year,” said Mark Schneidewind, manager at the Will County Farm Bureau.

The hot and dry July is to blame for lighter grain yields this season, he said. The corn plants need moisture for pollination and to plump up the kernels.

Pollination happens over a two-week period in midsummer. For kernels to develop, the corn silks attached to the nubs have to emerge inside the ear, growing more than an inch a day until they are fertilized.

Drought stress slows silk growth so they miss out on the pollen and the corn does not mature. If dry-hot conditions continue over the pollination window, corn yields plummet.

Last weekend’s rain helped some, Schneidewind said, but farmers need another inch or so of precipitation in the next week or two just to come up with about 160 bushels per acre – still 20 bushels less than last year.

Fortunately, with rain in the forecast for the next three days, area corn might just get the thirst quencher it needs to fatten up kernels by fall.