News

‘Edge effect’ seen in some Iowa corn fields

An extension agronomist says some Iowa farmers have noticed significant yield differences along corn field edges this harvest.

Meaghan Anderson is with Iowa State University. “Even though we had excellent field-wide yields in a lot of areas, we did see that edge effect issue pop up,” she said, “in particular in some of those drier areas.”

She tells Brownfield the cause is unknown, but… “I think one really good theory is there is increased evaporative demand on those edge rows, particularly on the southern and western sides of fields, but it just really depends on where the winds are coming from.”

Anderson suggests farmers could manage an ‘edge effect’ by planting more stress-tolerant hybrids and reducing planting populations along impacted field edges.