When crop consultant Eric Rosenbaum visited a dairy farm in Womelsdorf, Pa., last week, he was pleasantly surprised at how nice the corn looked.
“The operation chisel-plowed in early April and planted during the early April planting window,” he says. “Germination and emergence was perfect; it was the nicest field of corn I saw all year. It handled the drought extremely well, and since rains returned, it grew from 3 feet to 8 feet in a period of two weeks.”
But as he walked more of the field, something unusual started to appear. And it was easy to see. Rows and rows of tall, green corn had fallen to the ground. The corn was lying down, lodged. Was a windstorm the culprit? Was too much rain to blame?
A little digging into the soil started revealing some clues.