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Tip back could knock top off yield projections

A field agronomist with Burrus Seed says concerns regarding tip back in the 2025 corn crop are increasing.

Dana Harder, who covers Missouri and west central Illinois, says poor grain fill and aborted kernels result from stress on the plant, especially around pollination.

“These elevated night-time temperatures are kinda throttling back some of these ears.”  He says, “Sometimes when we’re in drier conditions, you can tell where those kernels all pollenated, but they kind of dried up.  Some areas we’ve had quite a bit of rain and we’ve seen some nitrogen, some fertility loss there.”

He says other causes include uneven emergence and limited photosynthesis due to foliar diseases.

“Foliar diseases are really bad, particularly southern rust.”  He says, “Even if you did spray fungicide, we’re seeing it come in later after that residual. Then when you lose your tissue that makes photosynthesis that will stress the plant, and it will throttle back that grain fill.”

Matt Bennett, co-founder of AgMarket.net, tells Brownfield that he’s hearing enough tip back concerns that he expects it to impact overall yield projections.

“They feel like what they reported for the August report for USDA; they’re significantly below that now.”  He says, “I’m not saying we’re going to drop back 5 to 10 bushels, anything like that, but I do think that 188.8 is probably the biggest number we’ll see though.”

Harder says hybrid selection and good management practices, like fungicide use, can help manage tip back to some degree, but ultimately environmental factors are the primary variables.

AUDIO: Dana Harder – Burrus Seed