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Heat and lack of moisture impacting corn in western Kansas

A western Kansas farmer says corn is being challenged by a lack of moisture.

Clay Schemm tells Brownfield…

“I’ve been seeing a lot of fields of corn getting plowed under and they might go back in with wheat on,” he says. “We’ve got a few fields that corn got to a decent height, we even tried to plant later and even those crops are having areas burn up. It’s kind of kind of depressing to see. We’ve got a lot of corn burned up, Milo that, I’m not sure it’ll head out, just with how dry and hot we’ve been.”

According to USDA’s weekly conditions report, corn is 46% good to excellent in the state, with 95% silking, 78% in the dough stage and 32% dented, all ahead of the five-year average.

Schemm says the region could desperately use a good rain.

“In previous years, we would have a little bit of a soil bank of moisture that those plants would be able to draw on, but over the past two years, we’ve just been so dry that that bank is kind of gone,” he says.

Soybean conditions are rated 60% good to excellent with 86% of the crop blooming and 56% in the pod-setting stage. Sorghum is rated 45% good to excellent, with 70% of the crop headed and 20 percent coloring, both well-ahead of the five-year average.

Photo credit: Whitney Larson