Corn Cam Part II

We are entering what I have started to call the CORNTASTROPHE phase of 2012.  There have been some extreme temperatures; one day during harvest it was 115 degrees outside.  We are also about 4 inches behind on moisture for the year.  It was so dry during corn planting season that we didn't plant any dry land corn.  The below pictures were taken on a neighboring farmer's field.  

As you can see this corn isn't going to make it

At this point in time most of the dry land corn in this area is going to be tilled into the ground or cut into silage.  Silage is used to feed livestock and essentially is just chopped up plant material.  The problem with using this corn as silage is it can be high in nitrates that actually kill cattle.  So the dry land corn out here is pretty much a bust. 

We do have a decent amount of irrigated corn and I've got some pictures below.  The corn is about six feet tall and most of it has reached the V15-17 stage of corn growth.  Water is very critical at this stage and we are running our wells as much as possible to keep our corn growing.

The finger looking things coming out of the bottom of the corn plant are called brace roots.  They help to pull nutrients from the top layer of soil as well as you guessed it... brace the plant.

Because the drought that is hitting us is actually hitting the corn belt as well, corn prices have risen dramatically in the last month.  I heard a report that stated that the USDA has dropped expected average corn yield for the United States by 15% in the last week alone.  After driving around North West Kansas I feel like they should have dropped it more than that. 

If anyone reading this is taking orders for rain.  I would like to put in an order for about 4" of rain over the course of the next week, and then have temperatures of less than 90 degrees until the corn is ready to harvest.   Thanks!

-Farmer Ryan