I’m assuming it’s cattle corn, and not human corn, but every year I ask myself the same question. Why wait until November to harvest it?
I notice some fields are coming in now, but it’s getting close to freezing overnight, and the stalks look pathetically withered. Surely the cobs trapped in there can’t be in very good shape.
While we’re at it regarding crops. Why are farmers obligated to advertise the seed brand they’re using. At least that’s what the small (couple of square feet) signs seem to be indicating.
Several possible reasons, lack of storage probably being the main one. If you can’t store it or sell it immediately, there’s no point in harvesting it. Leave it in the field, it will continue to dry and basically store itself. Unless it is really damp outside, it’s not going to ruin the corn.
If you just haven’t sold it yet, then leaving it in the field as ground cover is fairly useful to hold the soil in place as well.
Oh, and the seed signs aren’t advertising that is what they’re using, it is advertising that this field is being used to GROW that seed. Usually a hybrid made from planting alternating rows of two different varieties in the same field.
I grew alfalfa, not corn, but I’d typically leave some in the field in the fall and turn the cattle and horses loose on it. It’s a lot cheaper to let them graze than to harvest, store, and feed. When the field was covered with snow, I’d bring them in and feed them. My neighbors who grew corn typically did the same. I’d see the stubble with a smattering of stalks sitting there after harvest, and then one day there’d be 100 cows chowing down on it.
The corn that is still in the fields in the fall can be used for animal feed, human food (processed into corn products - not sweet corn that you eat as is), or as seed for next year’s crop.
This type of corn needs to be dry before it can be harvested or sold. If it is harvested too soon, then the farmer needs to invest time, space, and energy to dry the grains before it is sold. In this case, drier is better, which is why the stalks look withered and sad.
Also, many farmers (at least around my state) grow both corn and soybeans. Ears of corn have a lot of holding power - they can stay on the stalk for a longer time. Soybeans, on the other hand, will fall off the plant if they are left in the field too long. Most farmers will finish their soybean harvest before their corn harvest - this will make sure that they have the least loss of their crop.
(Thanks to silenus for the link to my blog. I do a new Farm Equipment post every Friday, so come back to learn more about farming!)
Another reason that corn might be left in the fields for a while is the state of the ground. We had some heavy rains in early October, leading to rivers and fields being flooded. There is no way that the heavy combines could have moved around the fields. It’s much easier to wait for the ground to dry out, and mean while, the corn is drying out too.
There are also people who have really good crop insurance who will leave a lousy crop in the field on purpose, then harvest it whenever they get a chance and collect on the damages. But that’s not that common.
It was my understanding that the only difference between sweet corn and field corn is that sweet corn is harvested before the sugar turns into starch. Hence, sweet corn is harvested in August, but field corn (to be used for corn starch, animal feed, etc.) can stay until winter. However, somebody told me that a different kind of corn is used for sweet corn. Is that true?
Sweet corn and field corn are two different strains of the same plant. Sweetcorn was hybridized specifically to be higher in sugar content and lower in starches. This is the reason sweet corn is so soft. Field corn can be pulled off the stalk prior to maturity and made into “roasting ears”, but is much less flavorful.
Field corn was hybridized for yield, hardiness, and resistance to pests. Field corn is considered ready for long term storage at around 14% moisture content. Biting into harvested field corn is like biting into chalk.
This year No. 2 yellow corn is worth $5.00 a bushel. A good field will produce 200 bushels an acre (210 ft x 210 ft), a mediocre field will produce 125 bushels. At those prices no one in their right mind is going to leave corn in the field if they don’t have to. Some farmers will leave feed strips unharvested for deer, peasants, turkeys to winter over and some hunting clubs will pay farmers to leave feed strips standing. Generally these are strips, not whole fields.
If you see fields of standing corn in late November it means that the farmer doesn’t have enough storage, that there has been some financial or personal tragedy or he is just a bad farmer and will be going out of business shortly.
