'Floppy corn'

[John_Walter]

New story (full report) from Illinois reports on issues related to corn root development in the dry weather, including incidences of "floppy corn," which have been seen in western and northwestern parts of the state as well as in southeastern Iowa. The problem occurs when the nodal root system fails to develop adequately.

“Given the better-than-average planting conditions this year, this was not a problem that we expected to see,” said University of Illinois crop sciences professor Emerson Nafziger.

Another root issue seen in Illinois corn, according to the story, is high crown syndrome, in which of the base of the stem is perched above the soil or at the surface.

Anybody seeing root development issues?

John

[jeffclimatecorp]

One of our guys in Winnebago County, Iowa is reporting that this is fairly prevalent in his area.  Two pictures below:

Normal roots from a field on one side of the street: http://twitpic.com/9p5gst

Rootless syndrome from a field on the other side of the street: http://twitpic.com/9p5h73

[farmandfire]

We are in Winnebago County, Iowa. I was out sidedressing today and we have roughly a 3-4% stand issue with floppy corn. It does seem that some varities are holding better than others but over all it is pretty prevailant in our fields. We need to get some steady moisture to get the nodes setting. Fields are cracked and very dry on the upper 4-6" range. 

[idalivered]

I'm just west of winnebago and have been hearing about this. Particularly in southern minnesota. Even heard of 2 cases of replanting. Many have said that it was planted too shallow, but a seed dealer told me that some was planted plenty deep, just too little soil moisture. I sidedressed part of my corn last week and saw just a very occasional plant. Last night's nice rains should help.

[Nebrfarmr]

Same here, I saw a plant here and there flopped over, or missing when side-dressing.  Not a big deal, but probably took away the top couple of BPA from my yield.  Where I am in Nebraska, we always seem to get something to take the top few BPA away, whether it is a dry spell, hot spell, or whatever, so it isn't anything out of the ordinary.

[mspencerfarms]

Heard several in Mo. complaining about this.  I have about 260 ac. of corn on gumbo soils in the river bottoms that is showing symptoms but from what i see it is sidewall compaction.  That is the problem with no-tilling in moist soils.

[GHBob]

I am seeing a lot more of it than I would normally expect through central Illinois, predominately north of Bloomington, IL.  Aside from the normal shallow planting or seed slots opening up that would typically cause this issue, it is showing up where neither of those two issues are present.  Planting the week after Easter looks pretty good but as you get into late April planting we had moisture to get the corn out of the ground but had been very dry since then.  Nodal root development has ceased in many of these fields since there was no moisture for the root tip to develop in.  Many root tips are dry and desiccated and will likely not regrow with moisture.  In some severe cases only the mesocotyl was anchoring the plant to the soil and in the heat and high winds last week many of those snapped off killing the plant.  We got 1" to .5" of rain through most of the area yesterday so hopefully we can get some nodal root development going again.  Cultivation and throwing as much dirt as possible around the base of the plant is about the only thing you can do besides pray for rain.