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WAITING FOR CORN: The Corn Watch ’23 field will again include a study on emergence. A 1/1,000-acre plot is marked off with rope. Flags are ready. All plants that emerge within the first 24 hours will be marked with a white flag. Tom J. Bechman
Small colored flags stuck in a young cornfield are a more common sight today. If you see this while driving by a neighbor’s field, odds are your neighbor is flagging corn emergence.
“More people are realizing how important it is for corn to emerge uniformly,” says Dave Nanda, a retired plant breeder and director of genetics for Seed Genetics Direct, Jeffersonville, Ohio.
Seed Genetics Direct sponsors Corn Watch. Through this project, Nanda visits the same field in central Indiana several times during the growing season, making observations that could relate to other cornfields around the region. The 2023 season marks the third year for flagging corn emergence in the Corn Watch field.