Crops Showing Signs of Heat Stress

By Marcus Mack

Hot weather has been affecting crops in negative ways recently.

Iowa State University Extension Field Agronomist Mike Witt says that the recent extreme heat has caused some stress to both corn and soybean fields. He explains that beans are “turning gray,” meaning that the leaves are turning upwards in an attempt to conserve the little moisture they have, and that corn is showing some premature senescence, along with having stalks and leaves turn a pale green color, signaling low moisture levels. Witt tells Raccoon Valley Radio how this affects the fields.

“That will accelerate some of the maturation process that we are looking at out there, which whenever that sort of activity occurs, it can be detrimental to some of the yield that’s out there. I don’t know quite to what extent that it’s going to be at that level yet, but farmers are going to start to go out looking in their fields. We have a lot of fields that are going to be dented already out there, so farmers are going to be out there looking at those ears, seeing how much tip back they have, and really starting to do some of those yield verifications out there in the field starting pretty soon.”