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Corn integrity watched closely going into harvest

The integrity of corn is being closely monitored as harvest gets underway.

University of Minnesota Extension integrated pest management specialist Bruce Potter says stalk rot could be prevalent this fall.

“Part of that is just due to excessive rainfall (creating) a lot of stress on that crop early on in some areas. We’re going to have to watch that, so guys should be out there looking right now.”

He tells Brownfield producers should be prepared to harvest certain fields earlier than they’d like.

Potter says corn rootworm pressure has also stressed crops.

“I’ve been in some fields over the past couple weeks where we’ve got a lot of northern adults out there. And in some of the continuous corn fields, western corn rootworm populations are actually a little bit higher than we expected them to be.”

He says making matters worse, certain hybrids are also struggling with aphid pressure in shanks.  Potter recommends paying close attention to both stalk strength and shank strength during harvest.