Midwest farmers must now confront serious damages caused by the derecho, such as downed corn. Downed corn may lead to a host of problems, whether it be grain quality or volunteer corn.
Dr. Prashant Jha, associate professor at Iowa State University and Extension weed specialist with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, fears, “Moving into next year, one of the major challenges we will have is volunteer corn.” Jha encourages farmers to address this in a serious, yet proactive manner.
?Five-thousand plants on an acre is one volunteer corn (plant) for every three-and-a-half foot row. One-percent of the corn seed present (in) downed corn will result in more than 100,000 (volunteer) corn plants per acre,” Jha says.
Jha notes, “Volunteer corn densities of 5,000 to 13,000 plants per acre may lead to serious yield losses in both corn and soybeans – Up to 13-percent in corn and 54-percent in soybeans. Different management options include: Till or no-till, crop rotation, and weed management.
“With any kind of tillage, we will be enhancing the seed-to-soil contact. If someone uses a disc ripper, we might expect that there will be some fall germination of those seeds. During the month of September, the conditions are pretty conducive for volunteers to come out,” Jha says.
Planting soybeans next years is a “no-brainer,” according to Jha. Soybeans will offer more flexibility and options.
“We need to go to soybeans next year,” Jha says. “From a management standpoint, we have more options to control volunteer corn in soybeans compared to corn.”
A volunteer corn/weed management program will also be crucial.
“With that, we want to go with a pre-plant option of Gramoxone, to control the majority of volunteers. RoundUp Ready or LibertyLink before planting soybeans would be an option,” Jha says.
