When is corn ready to harvest? Planting for tips

 

When is corn ready to harvest Planting for tips

Fall is the harvest season when corn is about to mature, So when is corn ready to harvest?

Getting the right harvesting period for corn is an important part of increasing the thousand kernel weight of corn and improving the quality and yield of corn.

If you want a bumper corn harvest, getting the correct harvesting period for corn is an important production link to increase the thousand-grain weight to reduce losses and improve corn yield and quality.

First of all, let's understand the maturity stage of corn
Maize maturity generally requires three stages: lactation, waxing, and finishing.

Three stages of corn growth - ThumbGarden

1. MILKING STAGE
This is the period from the 16th day after pollination to the 36th day, which usually takes about 20 days; it is called the milky period because the corn kernels become milky white paste for a long time.

The most significant feature of the milk ripening period is that the seeds are pierced with a nail after the flow of milky white paste, if harvested at this time, due to a large number of nutrients in the plant is transported to the seeds, the seeds also contain a lot of water, drying will not only be time-consuming and labor-intensive, and drying after the thousand-grain weight greatly reduced, according to experiments, the milk ripening period harvest can generally reduce yields by 20% to 30%, and the quality is significantly reduced.

2. WAX RIPENING PERIOD
The wax ripening period generally takes 15-19 days, and the seeds turn from paste to wax, so-called the wax ripening period. When scratched with nails, only a scratch can be left on the seeds. If the harvest is received at this time, the total dry matter and volume of the seeds still do not reach the maximum because the moisture content is still as high as 50% to 60%, and the yield reduction is generally up to 10% to 20%, and the drying time is very long.

3. COMPLETE RIPENING PERIOD
After the wax ripening period is the complete ripening period, the seeds dehydrated and hardened, the water content dropped to about 25%, there is the inherent luster of the variety, the base of the seeds (below) appear black material, the lower and middle leaves of the plant turn yellow, the lowermost leaves dry, the stalk turns yellow, the cob wrapped leaves dry and loose, is the best time to harvest corn.

Corn growth process - ThumbGarden

TIPS
The best time to harvest corn is during the finishing period. If you choose to harvest on a sunny day, you will not only have the highest corn yield, but also the shortest drying time, and harvesting during the finishing period increases yield by more than 10% compared to harvesting during the waxing period.

After years of planting, some people have summarized the following points about when to harvest corn.

First of all, we need to learn to see: the maturity of corn generally need to go through the milky stage, waxing stage, the completion of the three stages of maturity, whether corn into the completion of maturity, can be seen from the appearance of features, the completion of maturity of the lower part of the corn plant leaves have become yellow, the base leaves dry, cob yellow leaves were yellow-white and loose symptoms, corn cob seeds milk line disappeared, the black layer appeared, hardened, and showed the inherent color of the species.

Secondly, the projection of harvest time, to determine the best harvest period of corn, in general, need to be extended by about 10 days of corn fertility to harvest better, we can also be based on the time of corn pollination to project, corn generally in the pollination after forty to fifty days or so, you can start harvesting, this time period of corn thousand-grain weight is generally the highest.


PRECAUTIONS
corn needs to be peeled and dried in a timely manner after harvesting, the harvest cannot be stacked, the harvest can be peeled and harvested on the tree or harvested with peeled and broken sticks, of course, can also be harvested using machines, or harvested and peeled using the king rice peeling machine, which can save a lot of labor.

Harvesting should be fast and timely. Look at the weather forecast in advance, arrange for a variety of preparations before pre-harvesting such as personnel and vehicles, and strive to complete the harvest at once.

After the corn threshing also needs to dry, generally just-harvested corn moisture content in about 30% to 40%, according to the weather conditions, drying in sunny weather, timely threshing after drying, threshing continue to dry, drying to the corn moisture content is 14% or less.


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Author: Ms.Geneva
Link: https://www.thumbgarden.com/when-is-corn-ready-to-harvest/
Source: ThumbGarden
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