US Corn Harvest Is in Trouble
- Crop tour showing mostly lower yields than USDA estimates
- Searing heat wave is killing plants as they are being surveyed
Corn on the stalk in Baxter, Iowa.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
Sagging ears just short of maturity, cobs half bare of kernels as if nibbled, earth so dry that deep cracks criss-cross the fields: The US corn harvest is in trouble.
The signs were already there in South Dakota. Scouts surveying fields there this week found what farmers call tip back, when corn kernels aren’t filled all the way to the top of the cob as a result of dryness and poor pollination. It leaves them looking half eaten.