News

What to expect from corn left overwinter

An extension agronomist says while he’s concerned about the quality of corn left standing this winter, yields could be a pleasant surprise.

Greg Endres with North Dakota State University tells Brownfield it’s possible around half the state’s corn acres won’t get harvested until spring at the earliest.

“Because of the high yield potential, and if you use a 10 percent yield loss for overwinter losses, we might be okay. We maybe are more concerned about quality because there’s a lot of low test-weight corn given a lot of it is high moisture.”

For farmers who could not get into fields to harvest corn this fall, Endres suggests some déjà vu could occur in a few months.

“Even physically getting to fields with all the rain we had late summer, during the fall, then the snow and the question of how much more (snow) we’ll get, all this will add up to accessibility being a real challenge. Just to get to the field, much less to do the work in the field.”

Endres estimates about a 10 percent yield loss for corn left overwinter, but says most hybrids have enough stalk strength to make it to spring.  And he expects ear droppage to be minimal.