Jerry’s Growing Some Nice Ears Of Corn

Late last week, Stephen came home from Pittsburgh for a few days. He wanted to go out to the farm and see grandpa and grandma. He also wanted to see the crops as he spent a lot of time driving tractor growing up. He and grandpa took the Gator and drove to all the farms. I have been quite busy so I have not been out checking my corn fields assessing the ears of corn. Stephen went into one of the corn fields and picked a couple of ears and brought them home.

I was not only pleased at the size of these ears but also their weight. They seemed very heavy. Each ear has 18 rows of kernels around the ear and is 44 kernels long. There is a formula that you can use taking the number of kernels on an ear times the population divided by the average number of kernels in a bushel. Doing the math, this corn should be well over 200 bushels an acre. The weight of the kernels affects the overall yield plus some parts of the field might not be as good as where you pulled the ears. However, it is an indication of what type of yield you might have.