Friday, July 5, 2013

As High As An Elephant's Eye?

"The corn is as high as an elephant's eye 
And it looks like it's climbing clear up to the sky."

Our corn may not be "elephant eye" level, as the song from the musical Oklahoma! goes, but some of the first-planted fields are as high as my favorite farmer's eyes.
It is sure different than it was when I took this photo in May. These days, some of it does appear to be climbing clear up to the sky.
Notice the silo in both photos.
I first started keeping track of the corn's progress across the road from our house on June 6. Here's what it looked like then:
June 6, 2013
Here's the corn (and my trusty human measuring stick) at the same location almost a month later:
July 2, 2013
All our corn is dryland, so it could use a rain. However, last week's moderate summer temperatures were certainly more welcome than the triple-digit thermometer readings from a year ago. Still, we are beginning to see some stress on the corn plants because of a lack of moisture. My brother (who really is a corn farmer) says we could use an inch of rain right about now. If only we could place an order and a delivery date!

Some of the corn is tasseling. A corn tassel is the male flower of the corn plant. The tassel is a group of stemmy flowers that grow at the top of the corn stalk.  Each corn plant will grow this tassel on top when it is time for the ears of corn to begin growing.
Some of the tassels are polinating (see below). The pollen is what causes the ear of corn to grow and ripen. The pollen falls off of the tassel and is blown by the wind to reach the silk of the ears.
The silk is the female flower of the corn plant. Some of the earlier-planted corn is starting to silk (below). The more silks that are fertilized, the more kernels there will be per ear.
 We are starting to see some ears form. 
Corn growing is a new venture on The County Line. This is the first year since we've been married that our crop rotation doesn't include milo. We'll hope that song from Oklahoma! plays out in the end, "I've got a beautiful feeling. Everything's going my way." Just like everything else on the farm, time will tell.

8 comments:

  1. I can remember my Dad saying that you could literally watch the corn grow. Each year we could see a change from day to day. Always enjoy your "life on the farm" perspective and sharing it with those who grew up that way and explaining it so well for those who didn't! Love your pictures too!

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    1. Randy and I have talked about the same thing this year. It literally appears to grow overnight sometimes! Thanks so much for your kind words. I appreciate you dropping by, and I especially appreciate you taking time to comment.

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  2. Kim,
    Our corn is a little shorter than your July 2nd picture. Also, I am guessing my Rancher is a few inches shorter than your Farmer, lol!

    Our corn is doing good. Like yours, it needs a drink soon.

    We are a long way off from tasseling. Great job explainig the polinating process. I am from the heart of corn country in the Cornhusker State, but have very little farming knowledge.

    We had a flat back tire on the baling tractor and hope to be back to haying in the morning.

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    1. Randy baled yesterday AM, then swathed a lot more hay yesterday. He planned to bale again this AM (Saturday) but we got 0.25" rain. We'll see what the day brings.

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  3. Came across your blog from another blog. Great info about corn. I had no idea that that it pollinated that way! There are some corn fields out here. But they are irrigated. Most of the wheat out here is dry land though. You can see the corn grow over night. Or at least when we go to town every so often! Have a great weekend.

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    1. Thanks for commenting. I post a link to my blog on Facebook, and several people made a similar comment about how corn appears to "grow overnight." We definitely see that, too, especially when we were getting cooler weather and a little moisture. We could use some rain right now. Our temperatures are going to go up this week to more seasonable temps, which will further stress the dryland corn. Where are you located?

      Again, thanks for taking time to comment! I appreciate it!

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