Like most agricultural products, corn needs sufficient quantities of adequate weather, moisture, fertilizer (potash and nitrogen), and pesticides.
Key stages for the growth cycle, which for most corn hybrids is around 110 days for optimal yields, include:
Planting - this stage focuses heavily on soil moisture levels.
Germination - Adequate soil moisture and temperature are critical to ensure germination.
Growth to Harvest - Once the corn plant has been established, weather and insects have marginal effect. During the four week pollination period, the corn plant is extremely vulnerable to drought. Early frost can interrupt the kernel filling and drying stages while extreme cold affects quality.
Pests and Disease - Corn diseases include downy mildew, stalk and kernel rot, common rust, brown leaf spot, and northern corn leaf blight. Diseases are usually divided into four general groups according to the affected plant part; seedling and root diseases, leaf diseases, stalk rot diseases, and ear rot diseases. Corn plants naturally have effective genetic resistance to many diseases and controls include planting resistant hybrids, crop rotation, and fungicides.
Pests include European corn borer, rootworm larvae, and black cutworm. Again, select hybrids can be used in management as well as insecticides.
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