Oh no....

Just when everything was looking really good in our area we get another challenge from mother nature. If you guessed too much heat you were right. As of today we have not seen a whole lot of stress to the plants, but with the forecast for continued heat it will not be long unless we can get a good soaking rain. How much damage can be done? Time will tell, but once the plant starts stressing it will start to abort some of the kernels on the ear. Night time temperatures are more important than day time ones. When night time temps fall below 70 degrees it allows the plant to slow down and rest. When temps stay above 70 at night then the plant is forced to keep working which diverts energy being used by the plant from filling the ear to survival mode. I am posting a link to a video done by one of our agronomists last year that describes how the corn deals with the heat. http://youtu.be/3vHS6yeRaBc