Today we have a guest post from Indiana farmer, blogger Brian Scott (Facebook, Twitter). Brian does a great job of explaining difficult questions about farming operations, how crops are grown, and the management decisions surrounding growing Genetically Modified crops. Brian blogs about growing corn, soybeans, and popcorn at TheFarmersLife.com. Today he addresses dying corn left in farmer fields
I am always intrigued by the questions people ask about agriculture. What might seem like a silly question to me at first is really a great question from someone who has not been around a farm very much if at all. Apparently, people have been asking Agriculture Proud why farmers leave their dying corn in the field. I imagine this question is spurred by the idea many people believe when they drive through areas of the country, like Indiana where I farm, they are looking at endless expanses of sweet corn. This is not so.
The vast majority of corn spotted in rural America is not sweet corn. And when I say majority I mean like 99% of it is not sweet corn. Not always but more than likely the corn in question is yellow dent corn. Dent corn feeds livestock, fuels cars, and makes plastics, starches, adhesives, and a huge array of other products. Sweet corn is harvested at what would be considered very early in the season for a farmer like me. The plant is still pretty green and the kernels are of course juicy and sweet. I do not want sweet juicy corn on my farm. My corn goes through a juicy stage after pollination although the sugars are more starchy than sweet.
Why leave dying corn?
Well to me it’s not dying it’s drying. After pollination kernels appear. Sweet corn is harvested shortly afterward. When the kernels are formed and full of liquid it’s called the milk stage because if you squeeze a kernel the stuff that squirts out has a milky consistency. After milk, we go to dough where the kernel gets a bit more solid. Eventually, we hit black layer, which signifies physiological maturity. Black layer refers to a, you guessed it, a black layer at the tip of the corn kernel. So now, the corn is physiologically mature and dent corn is maybe a month further along than harvested sweet corn. Time for harvest, right? Nope.
Corn drying process
Corn can be safely stored for long periods at 15% moisture. The black layer is around 35% moisture in the kernel. 15% is a level at which the risk for developing storage issues is very low, and it’s no coincidence grain purchasers base their pay schedules on 15% moisture. Higher than that number of corn delivered to the elevator and I have part of my pay taken to cover the elevator’s drying cost. But there’s no premium for delivering under 15% moisture. Fair enough. Not all farmers have dryers on their farms, but many do.
Dryers are generally powered by propane. Our dryer actually looks like a normal grain bin, but the top section has a floor to hold wet grain to be dried in batches. A large burner fan pumps air, sometimes over 200 degrees F, to dry the corn. Traps in the floor open after a specified period of time, and another batch enters.
Why corn needs to dry
So if wet corn costs me money to dry, whether doing it on-site or upon delivery, why not leave corn in the field until it dries all the way down to 15% moisture in the field? We tend to start harvest at just over 20%, maybe up to 25%, normally. We plant various maturities of corn so the drying process is spread out. Sometimes farmers can get a break on drying costs. The local ethanol planted wanted corn early in 2011. In early September, they took corn deliveries for one week while covering the drying cost up to 25%. We harvested about 40 acres near 30% and didn’t harvest anything else until 3 weeks later. Corn starts to be ground up and damaged a bit when it’s that wet running through the combine.
We dry most of our corn ourselves because we have the capacity to store most of our own crop. During harvest, lines at the grain elevator are usually long, and I can’t keep the combine running if there isn’t an empty truck waiting on the roadside. Since corn is in greatest abundance at harvest, the price may be relatively low as well. Storing means we can hold on to grain while waiting for higher prices. Pay or pricing can be held back upon delivery to an elevator as well, but you’ll be charged a per bushel storage fee for the time between delivery and sale.
Why leave dying corn in fields?
2013 was a wet and cool year overall except for August. Our average harvest moisture was 20% across the whole farm. If we let corn dry all the way to 15% (maybe pushing into December with 2013 weather) in the field we would likely lose more money in grain loss than what we’d pay for drying. I believe this is where the idea of dead corn comes into play. Fields full of browning plants sitting in fields for weeks as compared to green sweet corn. I want the corn to look dried up, but when the time is right, I want the corn out of the field as fast as we can harvest.
The plant is dying and drying right along with the kernels. Stalks become hard and brittle, and ears might start dropping on the ground. Once they hit the ground, my combine isn’t going to pick them up. The last thing I want to see coming at dry corn stalks is a strong windstorm. The wind is bad enough on green and growing corn so it won’t have much trouble knocking down dead corn. The ground also needs to be dry for harvest to limit the risk of soil compaction and for ease of operating equipment.
Now you will know the next time you see acres of green corn that has turned like fall leaves on trees that in the farmer’s eyes his corn is not dying but drying!
Like what you see here? Sign up for my newsletter to be notified of future stories and weekly headlines. Click here to sign up.
