As drought conditions combine to form a devastating heat wave, area corn crops are nearly beyond rescue.
Leaves are curling and plants are turning brown. The air is hot and dry and no moisture is left in the ground.
“It’s simply too hot to grow,” said Ken Eck, Purdue Extension-Dubois County’s agriculture and natural resources educator.
Half an inch of rain has fallen this month and maximum temperatures have regularly reached above 90 degrees in the second half of the month.
Last week’s report by the U.S. Drought Monitor showed the west edge of the county in an extreme drought. Eck estimates that by now, the extreme drought will have spread considerably.
With every day of heat, the corn yield decreases a little more, said farmer Lee Gress, who grows corn and soybeans on about 1,500 acres west of Ireland.
“It’s not a very good situation,” Gress said. “There’s not a whole lot that I can do about it, that’s about the way I look at it.”
This is the worst drought that Gress, 83, has seen since the crippling dry weather of 1954. That drought came much later in the year, however. Droughts in 1983, 1988 and 1991 caused yield losses in corn of 34, 31 and 27 percent, respectively.
This year’s corn has had virtually no water for weeks, a precarious situation.
“Once (corn) runs out of water, it quits,” Gress said. “It cannibalizes itself, that’s what deteriorates it even more.”
Farmers throughout the county are still hoping for rain. There is a slight chance of precipitation this weekend, but the odds are greater for rain on Tuesday or later. The triple-digit temperatures expected in the next five days could wreak havoc on area crops.
“Our corn is just in desperate need,” farmer Mark Hochgesang said. He grows corn and soybeans and raises hogs on Hochgesang Family Farms south of Jasper, and he worries about whether his corn will be able to pollinate in this drought.
Sixty percent of area corn is starting to tassel and nearing the pollination stage, the most critical stage in relation to yield. Pollination, the aerial transfer of pollen from tassels to silks, requires cool temperatures and moisture to successfully spur kernel production. Drought stress can disrupt pollination and drastically reduce yields. In some fields, Eck said, pollination may totally fail.
Hochgesang, like many area farmers, has crop insurance that can partially reimburse him for failing crops.
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