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Heat could push up harvest dates for late planted corn in Missouri and Illinois

A field agronomist says harvest dates for late planted corn in Missouri and western Illinois might come sooner than expected.  

Dana Harder with Burrus Seed tells Brownfield historically his area loses about six-tenths of a point of moisture per day in September, but the last two weeks of heat have bumped that to eight-tenths of a point.

“And that is huge. If you think of that May and April planted corn, that is going to push harvest up about five to eight days and when we start looking at that June corn that is going to push it up two weeks if we are targeting 17% moisture.”

He says growing degree days are trending above historical averages for the last two weeks in September.

“It is looking pretty optimistic. We are not out of the woods, but a lot better than what we were going into early September.”

He reminds growers when calculating corn dry down, 6.8 GDD’s need taken away for every day the crop was planted after June 1^st.