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Corn entering crucial reproductive stage

Most of the nation’s corn crop is running a good week to 10 days behind normal as it heads into the crucial reproductive stage.

Yesterday’s crop progress report showed that 16 percent of the nation’s corn crop was silking as of Sunday.  According to USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey, the average for mid-July is 35 percent.

“Just in the last week we’ve seen silking advance more than 20 percentage points in Indiana, and also in Kansas and Kentucky.  So you can see the silking—that entering of reproduction—creeping into the southern Corn Belt,” Rippey says, “and in the next week or two, we’ll see a lot more corn moving into the temperature- and moisture-sensitive reproductive stage of development.”

The latest national condition rating for corn was 66 percent good to excellent, down two percent from last week.