Are Yellow Corn Leaves A Good Sign?

This weekend when I was out to the farm and I noticed some yellow leaves on scattered corn plants. The corn had a deep green color, which is a sign of a healthy crop. A yellow leaf scattered throughout the field was very easy to see even from the windshield. Normally a yellow corn plant is not a good thing. It can be a sign of nitrogen or other nutrient deficiencies. In the case of this spring it was a situation of being too cold and too wet.

The past couple of weeks we have had very good growing conditions. The corn has entered the rapid growth phase and is a nice deep green color except for a few yellow-white leaves. It was a few years ago I first saw these yellow-white leaves and I quickly called my agronomist. He told me the corn is growing so rapidly pushing new leaves out it cannot manufacture chlorophyll fast enough. In a day or two the leaves will turn green. Actually in this case, yellow white leaves is a sign the corn plant is growing very well!