Fast Growing Pre-Tasseling Corn is Vulnerable to Brittle Snap
“Rich on Agronomy” is an occasional agronomy column from PFS Account Manager Rich Larson.
It’s Monday afternoon. It was hot yesterday; it was warm through the night; and it is hot today. I just drove by many corn fields that are ready to tassel, and am having visions (more like nightmares!) of snapped corn if a big wind comes up right now! I’m nervous! A lot of corn is pushing a tassel out or is about to tassel. When we have warm temperatures both day and night, the corn grows 24 hours a day. This stage of growth is the most vulnerable to Brittle Snap (aka Green Snap) due to plant height, and because this stage is the last elongation of the stalk. Water pressure within the cells in the stalk joints is too high, and cell walls do not get a chance to strengthen fast enough when the plant doesn’t stop growing at night.
I walked into several of these fields in southeastern North Dakota and pushed on the stalks. Guess what…they snapped off super easy. And, while writing this post, a Sargent County grower called to inquire about brittle stalks in his fields. Crop scouting to check weed control turned into a diagnosis of Brittle Snap as the plants snapped whenever the farmer bumped into them.
With warm weather and the potential for high winds tonight, we have the perfect recipe for Brittle Snap. All hybrids are candidates to snap. Step into your fields and push on the stalks.
