News

Midwest heat wave raises concerns as corn enters pollination

A climatologist says excessive heat is expected to persist through next week across parts of the Midwest.

Justin Glisan is with the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship…

“We have had two heat domes set in. We’re currently sitting under one right now,” Glisan said. “We’ve had higher dew points and those help reduce some moisture stress on the crop given that there’s higher relative humidity.”

He tells Brownfield he’s concerned about the upcoming high temperatures as the U.S. corn crop enters pollination.

“If you look at this stretch of 90-degree weather continuing without periodic rainfalls, that’s where we’ll see soils dry out quickly,” Glisan said. “That can impact both corn and beans with leaves flipping over, pineapple corn, and leaves rolling to help mitigate moisture.”

Northeast Kansas farmer Brett Niebling says his area has been able to avoid extreme conditions.

“We’re always concerned with the heat in the summer,” Niebling said. “Fortunately, here in northeast Kansas we’ve had a lot of pretty good conditions with rain and cool evenings and not super heat. We’ll see what happens. We’re off to a good start and it’s kind of out of our hands now.”

Glisan says 90-degree temps are likely to continue over the next 7-10 days.

Justin Glisan: