Dan Foster has seen a lot of agronomic head scratchers in his career, but he witnessed a first in a cornfield near Sarnia, Ontario this spring.
On this episode of Real Agriculture Corn School, Foster, Pride Seeds market development agronomist based at Chatham, takes you to a field with rootless corn syndrome.
Foster describes how a combination of events – from a hard pounding rain; soil cracking; hot dry soil and shallow seeding depth – all contributed to dying nodal roots, leaving the plants anchored by only their seminal roots and flopping in the strong spring breeze.
In the video, Foster explains that many of the plants have made a comeback, growing new nodal roots to re-anchor the plant. There will be goosenecking and some yield loss but the field will recover, notes Foster who also reviews key agronomic rules that growers need to remember to make sure rootless corn doesn’t happen in their fields.
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