Crop/Residue Management After Floodwater

Jun 10, 2011

Crop/Residue Management After Floodwater

Most crops in fields inundated with floodwater for a week or more will likely die. However, early-planted corn that attained considerable height before the flood could live, if water does not submerge plants. Prolonged flooding will likely stunt growth and severely reduce potential corn productivity, depending on the duration of flooding, air temperatures (high temperatures increase stress), and corn growth stage.

Ear size determination begins during mid-vegetative stages, and grain yield is extremely sensitive to any stress during pollination. Considerable root damage will likely occur, which may further jeopardize plant health when soils dry.

Large corn or wheat that remains after water recedes could restrict fieldwork and replanting of subsequent crops. Live or upright corn stalks could be mowed and allowed to dry for several days.

Dry corn, wheat, or other residue remaining in fields could then be burned, if necessary. Burning would promote quick, efficient planting of another crop, particularly for dryland fields that may not require tillage or raised-bed reconstruction. It also could save valuable soil moisture, compared to multiple primary tillage operations, such as disking.

All weeds should be killed with either herbicides or tillage before planting.

Source: Mississippi State University

Video: Seeing the Whole Season: How Continuous Crop Modeling Is Changing Breeding

Plant breeding has long been shaped by snapshots. A walk through a plot. A single set of notes. A yield check at the end of the season. But crops do not grow in moments. They change every day.

In this conversation, Gary Nijak of AerialPLOT explains how continuous crop modeling is changing the way breeders see, measure, and select plants by capturing growth, stress, and recovery across the entire season, not just at isolated points in time.

Nijak breaks down why point-in-time observations can miss critical performance signals, how repeated, season-long data collection removes the human bottleneck in breeding, and what becomes possible when every plot is treated as a living data set. He also explores how continuous modeling allows breeding programs to move beyond vague descriptors and toward measurable, repeatable insights that connect directly to on-farm outcomes.

This conversation explores:

• What continuous crop modeling is and how it works

• Why traditional field observations fall short over a full growing season

• How scale and repeated measurement change breeding decisions

• What “digital twins” of plots mean for selection and performance

• Why data, not hardware, is driving the next shift in breeding innovation As data-driven breeding moves from research into real-world programs, this discussion offers a clear look at how seeing the whole season is reshaping value for breeders, seed companies, and farmers, and why this may be only the beginning.