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Rains aren’t enough for some MO corn

A farmer from central Missouri says the early August rains were too late to save the corn.

“They always say rain makes grain, but 2.5 inches isn’t enough to make a corn crop.”

Jay Fischer in Callaway County tells Brownfield the corn looks sad on his farm in the Missouri River bottoms.

“Most of the corn only got 4 to 5 feet tall and basically, just died,” he says. “If you pull the shucks back and look for pollination, I’ve seen ears with only 3 to 4 kernels on them. They were really small, not long or started to develop and the stalk itself dried up.”

Fischer says there is some corn that will make it to fall harvest near his farm, but farmers are trying to use the crop that didn’t make it in the drought.

“There have been several people in my neighborhood starting to chop corn for silage. I’ve heard corn appraisals from insurance companies where they’re chopping corn and it ranged from 25 to 40 bushels to the acre,” he says. “At my farm, we were going to try and mow up some of this burned up corn for hay.”

Fischer says there should be good demand for the hay, because forage supplies have been short in the drought.