Wind and hail damage on corn

Assessing hail damage to corn and making replant decisions can be difficult. You’ll need to consider many variables when deciding whether to replant or maintain the existing stand.

The yield potential of hail-damaged crops depends largely on the remaining plant population, the type and severity of damage and the growth stage when damaged.

More guidance: Evaluating recovery and managing damaged corn

Assessing crop survivability

Examine the growing point

To determine whether a corn plant will survive and regrow following damage, split stalks and examine the growing point.

The growing point remains below the soil surface until the V5 stage (five collared leaves). When large hailstones land on soft soil and freeze around a plant’s base, it can damage growing points located at or below the soil surface.

In the mid- to late vegetative stages, the growing point is at the base of the tassel.

A healthy growing point will be firm and white to yellow. If damaged, the growing point will be watery and orange to brown. Plants with damaged growing points or stalks broken below the growing point will not recover.

Stem bruising

When hail bruises stalks, it limits the plant’s ability to translocate water and nutrients. It also reduces standability. If your plants have stalk bruising, split them open to determine the severity of the bruising.

Plants with damage extending beyond the leaf sheaths and into the pith either will not recover or likely will have large reductions in yield. If your fields have severe stalk bruising, harvest early to avoid significant losses from stalk lodging.

Whorl damage

In corn with whorl damage, it can be hard for new leaves to emerge through damaged tissue, and they can become tightly bound in the whorl.

Plants with leaves tightly bound in the whorl can sometimes break free after about one week of growth. However, many of these plants can’t recover. This makes it hard to assess the final plant population just a few days after hail.

Root lodging

When the soil is saturated, strong winds can cause corn plants to lean over because they pull the shallow roots. Within a few days, root-lodged plants typically straighten upright, and stalks appear curved.

Wisconsin researchers simulated root lodging in corn by saturating the soil and pushing stalks to a 20- to 30-degree angle from the soil. Most plants straightened upright within three days, and the yield loss depended on the growth stage when damaged.

Yield reduced by less than 5 percent when damaged at the V10 to V12 stages, by 5 to 15 percent when damaged at the V13 to V15 stages, and by up to 30 percent when damaged at the V17 stage or later. Grain moisture at harvest was unaffected.

Stalk breakage

Strong winds can also cause stalk breakage, often referred to as green snap. It’s most common between the V10 stage and tassel emergence, when plants are undergoing rapid vegetative growth and stalks are brittle.

Yield loss depends on the percentage of stalks broken and the break’s location. Plants with stalks broken above the ear can produce grain, and unbroken plants next to broken plants can partially offset yield losses because there’s less competition for light.

Concerns about inadequate pollination arise when stalk breakage causes the plant to lose its tassels. However, individual tassels generally produce more than two million pollen grains.

Assuming 800 silks per ear, this corresponds to 2,500 pollen grains per silk, indicating great potential for neighboring plants with lost tassels to adequately pollinate.