Stalk integrity key as corn harvest approaches
Key Takeaways
- •Moisture conditions have ranged from too much rain in parts of central and eastern Iowa to severe drought in northwest and west-central Iowa.
- •Witt said stalk rot may become a problem in both wet and dry areas as harvest approaches.
- •He advised farmers to inspect fields one by one and focus on stalk strength when deciding harvest timing.
- •Witt said harvest decisions should not rely only on planting date, relative maturity or the calendar.
- •Brownfield interviewed Witt at the 2026 Farm Progress Show near Boone, Iowa.
Preparing for a variable harvest.
Wyffels Hybrids area agronomy manager Mike Witt says moisture conditions have varied widely across the Corn Belt this growing season.
“Being around central Iowa and into eastern Iowa, there’s been a lot of rain, sometimes too much. But if we trend up to northwest Iowa and into west-central Iowa and places like that, we’re in a fairly severe drought.”
As harvest approaches, Witt tells Brownfield that stalk rot could become an issue in both wet and dry areas, making field-by-field scouting more important than relying on a fixed schedule.
“It can be different stalk rots, but at the end of the day that stalk integrity is really, really important. So for me if I’m looking at the dryer conditions, I have to look at which of my fields are standing. It cannot be a decision that’s based solely on planting date (or) solely on relative maturity. You can’t go by the calendar, you have to just go out and take it out.”
Brownfield interviewed Witt at the 2026 Farm Progress Show near Boone, Iowa.
