Wind storms, hurricanes, derechos and the like can wreak havoc with corn stalks knocking them over and killing the yield. But a short corn developed by Bayer Crop Science is being tested on about 30,000 acres in the Midwest with the promise of offering farmers a variety that can withstand powerful windstorms. Eastern Iowa corn farmer Cameron Sorgenfrey has been growing newly developed short corn for several years now…

“It’s a lot lower on her short corn, which is where most of the weights at. So that’s keeping us a lot less chance of green snap or lodging, especially late season, we feel a lot more comfortable with this hybrid out in the field, a lot longer, compared to this big, tall, lengthy one.”

He says that event four years ago was a real eye-opener for a lot of farmers.

“When we had the derecho come through in 2020, it changed a lot of people’s lives the next morning when you woke up, or that afternoon, when you saw it and drove around. It was a real mess, lot of stuff destroyed, and most of the corn crop was pretty well flat. And Nebraska had an event last year where their short corn was pretty much 90 to 100% stand, and the tall corns beside it were 30 to 40.”

The short corn’s smaller stature and sturdier base enabled it to withstand winds of up to 50 miles an hour, and the smaller plants also let farmers plant at greater density. Sorgenfrey likes the results he’s seen.

“I feel like the last two years it’s been some of the better looking corn out of the gate. It is so much more denser with extra population that you know it helps, helps on that. And not only that, it grows the same till row close. So it helps with weed control too, because you have more plants out there and less sunlight hitting the ground.”

The smaller stalks could also lead to less water use at a time of growing drought concerns. Sorgenfrey thinks short corn is the wave of the future.

“We’re in a real low corn market. I think, you know, some of our our best yields are probably going to come off of our short corn, where we push that envelope a little bit more on fertilizer and on population. We just have more years out there, which is going to be great, because you drive across the Midwest, you know, maybe in another seven, eight, 10 years, you’re gonna see a lot more of this out there.”