If you have corn in the ground, you may be wondering when it is going to come up! In Trumansburg, NY we have only accumulated 60 GDUs from April 10 to April 27. Corn typically takes 100 to 120 growing degree units to emerge and depending on the weather, timing for emergence can range from 4-5 days to 4 weeks! From Elmira to Geneva, and high elevation to low elevation, we are seeing very little difference in GDUs accumulated. And nowhere in our region are we seeing more than 100 GDUs yet. Some temperatures in the 60's are in the forecast, so hopefully we’ll see corn emerging next week with the increase in GDUs and warming soil.
All corn growth stages are dependent on GDUs, and using GDUs in connection with the corn hybrid, you can predict key growth stages to time herbicide and fungicide application and harvest dates. For more information about corn emergence, you can read The Emergence Process in Corn by R.L. (Bob) Neilsen from the Purdue Agronomy Department. And for more information on corn growth stages, check out Staging Corn Growth – Field Facts from Pioneer Agronomy Sciences.
Cumulative GDUs since planting are available in the Pioneer Seeds app. As soon as your planting data is in the database, you’ll start to have access to this information. Be sure to talk with us about how to get your machine data loaded, or if you don’t have machine data, we can show you how to use the Seeds app to input your planting data.
(Image courtesy of Pioneer)