ElO-Gom Talk, Lancaster Farming, Saturday, October 18, 2003 Frost-Damaged Corn Greg Roth Professor Of Agronomy Penn State Many areas of the state ex perienced a killing frost on the night of Oct. 2. This ended a roller-coaster season to grow com here in Centre County. Later-planted com in many areas had not completely ma tured. At our Rockspring Re search Farm, a 109-day hybrid planted on April 28 had reached black layer but the same hybrid planted on May IS was only at the half milk line stage of maturity. The same hybrid planted on June 1 was only at one quarter milk line. This late maturity was due to several factors: a cool growing season, a full season hybrid, and delayed planting. What will happen to this com and how should we man age it? Generally, frost will cause a rapid drydown of si lage com and will need to be harvested quickly to avoid si lage that is too dry. Sugars On-Farm Program Working To Get Answers Greg Roth Professor Of Agronomy Penn State A relatively new program in the College of Agricultural Sciences is the On-Farm Re search Program directed by Ron Hoover. Hoover works with our agents and pro ducers to develop effective on-farm research trials that answer some timely questions. Al though Hoover works with a number of dif ferent crops, com research is an important part of his program. He has been working to evaluate the ef fectiveness of zone till relative to no-till pro duction with some farmers, and also com paring zone till to conventional tillage with other farmers. Hoover has tillage demon strations on four farms this year in Susque hanna, Fayette, Wyoming, and Erie coun ties. Hoover has also been focusing this year on a multilocation evaluation of the new com rootworm Bt hybrids. He has coordi nated seven trials around the state in Brad ford, Centre, Lycoming, York, and Lancas ter counties. At each of these sites, com rootworm damage has been assessed and yield data is being collected from farm scale plots. Preliminary indications are that not all sites had severe rootworm damage, but in general the transgenic, hybrids provided ex cellent control. We are finding damage on the roots of some of the transgenic plots and are trying to determine the conditions where this damage is most likely. As a result of Hoover’s efforts, in conjunction with our ex tension agents and some of our colleagues in industry, we should have an excellent data set on this issue to share with producers this winter. If you have questions on corn production that you think could be developed into an effective on-farm project, contact Hoover at (814) 865-6672. Hoover can network with our agents and specialists and may be able to help develop some funding opportunities for good projects. Hoover can also help to make sure you get some meaningful results with a minimum of hassle associated with conducting the trial. Will also be expressed from the leaves and can be lost from the plant with subsequent rainfall events, lowering the quality of the silage. If com is very immature, and not even dented, then it may still be too wet for silage and harvest will need to be de layed. This is another situation where moisture testing is crit ical. Immature com often has a bit more frost resistance and may not be completely killed by the first frost. This can complicate the situation and make moisture estimation more difficult. The potential for these frost damaged crops for grain de pends on the stage of maturity and the intended use of the grain. Estimates of potential grain yield loss because of frost/freeze injury at the soft Producers that anticipate dough stage are about 55 per- significant amounts of low test cent if the whole plants are weight corn should plan now killed and 35 percent if only for alternative marketing the leaves are killed. At plans and later harvest of full-dent stage, when a kernel ' these crops. millk line is just noticeable, loss figures are estimated to be 41 percent and 27 percent for a Ml and partial kill respec tively. At the half-miik-line stage, losses are reduced to about 12 and 6 percent for the same sit uations. (Carter & Hesterman, 1990). Com frosted at half milk line can still produce reasona ble quality grain, but often there will be a extended dry down period. Com that is killed prior to half milk line can experience some signifi cant reductions in test weight This lower test weight com can be discounted in grain markets, but can be utilized effectively as high-moisture com or as dried shelled com that is fed to dairy or beef cat tle. (Continued from Page El) Hampton Inn, Chambers burg, thru Dec. 18, (717) 840-7408. W> 't I Hi" .d.iy Dim i 1! 1 1 1 11 ■ i 111 Ag Service School, Somerset Oakhurst Tea room, con tact Don Fretts, (724) 438-0111. Tom Murphy, (570) 433-3040. Lancaster Farming Check out our Website! www.lancasterfarmlnq.com ORN TALK Farm Calendar State College, thru Jan. 20, contact Lisa Ciytser, (814) 865-2543. I i .i l . ty mu i y ,-;i ' Pennsylvania Com, Soybean, and Tillage Conference, Grantville, contact Lisa s, Crytser, (814) 865-2543. [essional
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