By Randy Cavin
Press Writer
This year has been one most farmers would like to forget. They had a relatively mild winter and then a wet and cool spring, which caused some delays in planting. Then it stayed wet until mid-June. They will not soon forget the COVID-19, which has caused dairy farmers to dump milk, while cattle farmers have had to sit and wait to see if they were going to be able to take their cattle to market.
Now the calendar has jumped into July and with it comes an excessive heat wave. At least the crops got a good drink of water Sunday morning. Unfortunately, some of the cropland got too much rain in a short period of time.
“In places they got too much water,” Weakley County Ag Extension director Jeff Lannom said after the amount of rain some farmers received. “I live in Greenfield and we got an inch and a quarter of rain. I talked to some other farmers that had an inch and a half and up to two inches. I talked to David Oliver on Sunday. He lives east of Dresden near Como and they got five and a half inches. Across the river toward Gleason got five inches. The river got out there and I do not know how much damage there is. I do not know if anyone is looking to replant. This is this middle of July and it is getting awfully late.”
Farmers who received smaller amounts of rain on Sunday are most likely glad they got it. Today begins a long stretch of temperatures in mid-90s with little or no rain in the forecast until next week. This heat wave could not have come at a worse time as the corn is beginning to enter the silking and pollination stage.
“When it hits the silking and pollination stage, you have got to have some water,” Lannom said. “It uses a lot of water. The corn is using about a third of an inch per day out of the ground.”
Temperatures in the 80s during the day and mild nights are not harmful to corn when it reaches silking and pollinating stages. This long-lasting heat wave with high humidity the area is entering can put too much stress on the corn. This will have the farmers looking up at the sky, hoping for some afternoon thundershowers.
“When the temperature get up past 94 degrees, it starts really hurting the corn,” Lannom said. “When you start running past 94 degrees and it is pollinating, that is hard on the corn. We cannot get all of those grains pollinated that are on a cob. Part of the cob will make grain and part of it will not. High daytime temperatures and high nighttime temperatures, that is hard on corn.”
There are some farmers who have irrigation systems in their cornfields. They will be able to help keep the corn a little cooler during this important pollinating stage. The farmers who do not have any way to irrigate will just have to hope it rains a few times during this heat wave.
“Most places in the county have had about two inches of rain in July, and we are halfway through July,” Lannom said. “If we can get another two inches through the rest of the month, that will help immensely.”
It will not just be the corn that will be feeling the stress — livestock and pastures will be looking to get some relief every day during this heat wave. Pastures have thrived up until now with the cooler and wetter-than-normal spring. Sunday’s rain helped keep the pastures green, and livestock ponds received a good amount of water. However, the pastures will not take long to brown and water levels in ponds will rapidly dwindle without some relief from the blazing sun. That will put too much stress on the livestock.
“Cattle are going to be stressed, pastures are going to be stressed, and people are going to be stressed,” Lannom said. “It is going to be hard on all of us, but it is July. It goes with the territory. We cannot control the temperatures and we cannot control the weather. We just have to work with what the Lord gives us.”
The Link LonkJuly 16, 2020 at 05:18PM
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Crucial Time for Corn - Weakley County Press
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