Grain corn ear molds can lead to yield loss at harvest. If mycotoxins are present, grain may be toxic to animals and ultimately unusable. It’s important to understand environmental conditions that lead to diseases and how those diseases affect grain.

Contrary to some studies, dry matter losses after blacklayer are not overwhelming. Still, growers should carefully manage their corn harvest timing to minimize loss altogether.

The key to a successful growing season is advanced preparation. Early hybrid selection and ordering helps to give the best hybrid selection and maximize the yield potential on your farm. Agronomist Jon Erickson offers seven steps on selecting the right grain corn hybrids for your acres.

Factors that stress corn throughout the growing season can lead to stalk rots, which can lead to yield loss due to premature plant death or lodging. Understanding stalk rots risk factors and management practices are critical.

A successful harvest depends not only on crop conditions but also on properly functioning equipment. While you can’t eliminate all harvest losses, you can identify the source and adjust harvest equipment for optimum performance.

Corn growers often mistakenly correlate test weight (TW) to yield. Understand why the two measures are only marginally related.

With so many Bt trait offerings on the market today, it can be challenging to determine which package best fits your farm. Each package contains different combinations of traits with different levels of effectiveness against specific pests. Understanding best management practices is critical to ensuring control options for years to come.

The optimum time to select corn hybrids for the next season is often in the fall, shortly after harvest is complete and your observations from harvest are still fresh in your mind or can be reviewed in your records. Additionally, early ordering often can help ensure availability of hybrids and seed sizes that best fit your farming practices.

Fertilizer programs should begin with accurate soil testing. Growers who can self-sample reduce costs and better understand their soil situations. Review best practices so your samples lead to more reliable results and more educated management decisions.

Harvesting corn for silage leaves little plant residue on the ground to help control water runoff and soil erosion. A cover crop either interseeded before or planted immediately after silage harvest will help protect the soil from wind and heavy rains. An established cover crop also helps improve soil structure and uptake of nutrients.

It can be difficult to schedule irrigation, herbicide application and harvest if you don’t have a good handle on corn maturity. Identifying the milkline and blacklayer will help gauge the stage of corn growth and estimate physiological maturity.

Early frost at harvest can lead to high or uneven moisture, low test weights and increased foreign material. Careful planning and management of drying and storage can help maintain yield.

Many factors contribute to how early frost in the fall will affect corn harvest and the expenses associated with drying and storage. Damage severity will depend on the stage of the crop, the duration of freezing temperatures and subsequent plant damage.

Corn rootworm is one of the most damaging pests in the Corn Belt. Don't let corn rootworm rob your yields. Scout for the pest by digging for larvae. Jeff Housman, Mycogen Seeds customer agronomist, walks through how to do root digs to find corn rootworm to evaluate the damage in your fields.

Palmer amaranth is a resilient weed with increasing herbicide resistance and territorial expansion that could harm your crops. Through identification and precaution, you can maintain your plant health and yield potentials.

Heavy wind and rain late in the growing season can dramatically affect corn. Flooding, downed plants and disease are just a few of the potential management challenges related to extreme weather. Consider your options for recovering as much value as possible and take precautions when storing and feeding damaged corn.

Nitrogen (N) can be lost from the soil between application and crop uptake. By managing applications, you can maximize yield by making sure N is available when corn plants need it most.

Growers can protect their investment in Roundup Ready^® crops and maximize yield potential through the use of a residual herbicide, such as SureStart^® or Sonic^® herbicide. SureStart delivers consistent, broad-spectrum weed control during early stages of corn growth and offers application flexibility. Sonic provides broad-spectrum foundation control of tough broadleaf weeds to reduce competition for emerging soybeans.

Sunflower growers have many choices when choosing sunflower market segments that best fit their farming operations. Understanding the risks and benefits of each market will help a grower decide which can be the most profitable in any given year.