Corn crop catching up

Manitoba's corn crop is slightly behind schedule.

Morgan Cott is an agronomy extension specialist with the Manitoba Crop Alliance.

"Most of the crop in the province is about V5 to V6 or so," she commented. "There's some I think that is a fair bit larger but generally I think an average across the province is probably about that V6 stage. Some of the corn has reached knee high, so that's great but certainly not province-wide or even across individual farms. It's not uniform but there is some crop that's looking like it's on time but generally I would say we're on average two weeks behind in the province with corn."

Cott says growing conditions have been ideal so far this year.

"It's growing fast when it grows. We're getting a little rain and then we're getting some hot sun. The plants are growing quite quickly. We're seeing a little bit of rapid growth from that quick vegetative growth. Just curling of the whorls or the bright yellowing, the chlorophyll is just not catching up in time, so we have lighter plants and you can see that from the road but that catches up quite quick so it's good growing conditions for having to put the crop in late in many situations."

She notes at this point farmers should be scouting for European corn borer.