June Brings Nearly Perfect Corn Growing Weather

This is corn growing weather, with highs in the 80s and plenty of moisture. The forecast for Tuesday at almost 90 degrees is a little warm but not bad. Ideally, corn likes highs in the middle 80s and lows in the 60s. Corn needs the lower temperatures at night to convert sugars produced during photosynthesis into starch. Right now corn is entering the rapid growth stage. With weather like this, very soon corn will completely cover the soil or canopy.

This is a picture of Brad Spinler's field by Morristown. This was soybeans last year and Spinler strip tilled the field last fall. That means a narrow strip was tilled and fertilizer injected into the strips. This spring the corn was planted into the strips with no other tillage done. The idea is to have the benefits of both tillage and no till. With tillage, the soil warms up and dries faster in the spring for better corn development. But by leaving the rest of the field untilled you have more crop residue on the soil surface to prevent soil erosion. Strip tilling is a fairly new tillage system that seems to work quite well. At least the corn looks very nice to me!