The 1997 corn producing game is almost over.  As with football, it's commonplace to analyze the game and recap the events that had an impact on the final score.  I can think of seven factors that help to explain the current condition of corn.  Most of them are weather-related.

 1.  A relatively dry April and May - precipitation was nearly two inches below average for these two months.  This allowed for early planting with most corn seed being in the ground by mid-May.  These early planting dates would prove to pay dividends as the season progressed but were tempered by a cool May.

 2.  A cold May - although corn was being planted during the early part of this month, most of it was done wearing a snowmobile suit.  Looking back at Fond du Lac weather records, 15 days in May had low temperatures in the 30's.  Only on five days did we reach 70 degree temperatures.  By month's end, we were over 100 growing degree units in the hole.  Needless to say, corn growth was slow to non-existent.  Some corn took four or five weeks to emerge.

 3.  Poor or spotty corn emergence - the cold May temperatures resulted in uneven corn emergence in some fields or parts of fields.  This was especially true on some of our finer-textured soils.  Where emergence was a problem, corn yields will obviously be impacted.  Nevertheless, many producers were surprised how well corn plants emerged considering it had been planted four or five weeks earlier.  This would probably have not been the case had we experienced BOTH a cold and wet May.

 4.  A June toad strangler - on the morning of Friday, June 20, the corn crop looked exceptionally good.  Some June heat had really picked-up the growth rate and all indications were that this was going to be an exceptional year.  On the evening of June 20 it started raining and it kept raining through much of the day on Saturday.  Some areas received as much as six inches of rain before it all ended.  Looking back, this weather event had a significant impact on the 1997 corn crop.  It followed a major rain and preceded a major rain.  Conditions stayed wet for several weeks during a time when weeds needed to be controlled and sidedress nitrogen applied.  The corn crop never looked as good following the rains of June 20th and 21st.

 5.  Nitrogen loss - rainfall in June was over three inches above normal (more in some areas).  Many fields experienced flooding and saturated conditions.  Nitrogen losses from denitrification became very evident in early-July and are still evident today.  Many fields have areas where corn plants are short, delayed in maturity, and chlorotic.  This will no doubt have an impact on yield.

 6.  Bugs - although no one insect pest caused the widespread economic damage that European corn borer did last year, there were still many insect species having their way in 1997.  Problems included corn rootworms, armyworms, stalk borers, and European corn borers.  In some fields, one or more of these insect species caused significant damage or limited yield potential.

 7.  A cool August - Much of the corn crop was silked by August 1st and it appeared that maturity would not be the major concern it had been in 1996.  That all changed during the month of August where we experienced 17 days with high temperatures of 75 degrees or below.  Corn maturity seemed to stand still and by September 1st there were few fields that had begun to dent.  The August weather of 1997 is largely responsible for the current delayed maturity in corn and what will no doubt make for a late harvest season even with friendly fall weather.