A cute bassett hound with droopy ears might be endearing, but corn hybrids with drooping ears before black layer are a dog of a different kind and costly.
“I saw too many corn ears hanging down in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois fields, and man, that is a hybrid failure in my opinion,” says Randy Dowdy of his experience evaluating corn crops on the eastern leg of the Pro Farmer Crop Tour in late August.
He ponders that, perhaps, a genetic attribute in some hybrids helps counterbalance long ear shank weakness, such as drought tolerance or disease resistance.
“There’s likely some characteristic that got that hybrid advanced to be part of the [company’s] production lineup,” Dowdy tells David Hula during their recent Breaking Barriers With R&D podcast.
“The seed companies are aware there is no perfect hybrid for every year, for every occasion, in every environment. It doesn’t exist,” Dowdy adds.
There can be several contributing factors beyond genetics that cause early drooping of ears, including drought stress, high temperatures, poor root development and planting population, according to Aaron Nygren and Jenny Brhel, University of Nebraska Extension educators.
Keep Nutrients Flowing To The Ears
Dowdy likens the problem of drooping corn ears to getting a kink in a garden hose you’re depending on to deliver water to garden vegetables. When a kink occurs, the water can’t move through the hose and get delivered to the plants. The same scenario exists when corn ears drop prior to black layer.
“You need all the starch, all the sugars, all the nutrients that you can possibly muster to drive yield, and if that ear shank is getting long, then that’s a problem,” he says. “No. 1, you didn’t maximize the weight of the ear, then you can lose it to wind or in the harvesting process — just because the long shank made the ear vulnerable.”
Many farmers associate drooping corn ears with crop maturity and drydown. Those are OK things to see in the field but only after black layer and just prior to harvest, notes Hula.
“We do want those ears to come off the stalk really easy, just not before we pick it or if a wind event goes through,” he says.
Check Hybrids In Preparation For 2026
If corn ears droop prematurely or fall to the ground during the harvesting process, growers are leaving yield – and money – in the field.
The timing of the onset of droopy ears determines the magnitude of the expected yield loss, according to Bob Nielsen, Purdue University professor emeritus and former Extension corn specialist, in an online article.
If grain fill is totally shut down at the full dent stage of grain development (milk line barely visible at dent of kernels), the yield loss can be as much as 40%, he writes in an online article. If grain fill is totally shut down at the late dent stage of grain development (milk line halfway between dent and tip), Nielsen says yield losses for the affected ears can equal about 12%.
One of Dowdy’s concerns is how prevalent droopy, long-shanked ears were in the corn crops he evaluated while on the Pro Farmer Crop Tour. “I saw it in probably 50% of the fields I was in,” he says.
“I told all the scouts on [my leg of the] tour, ‘I hope you will never be able to unsee this problem. I want you to go out and be looking for this as part your yield assessments from now on,’” Dowdy adds. “After I said that, man, I had pictures being sent to me left and right and people coming back to me saying, ‘Man, I had no idea this is a problem.’”
Because each leg of the tour went through at least four states, Dowdy believes the issue of long shanks is probably in a range of hybrids. He encourages growers to look for the issue now, as they start evaluating and selecting seed corn for next season.
“Go look at some of these variety plots and strip trials that the seed companies are doing and see if some of those hybrids are having this problem. Maybe avoid them next year,” Dowdy advises. “You don’t want to be the one buying that hybrid, in my opinion, even if it is the highest yielder in the field. I just don’t see a win with that longer shank. It’s just too risky in my mind.”
David Hula talks with Chip Flory on AgriTalk about how the use of fungicides this season preserved corn yields for many growers. You can listen here:
You can watch this episode of Breaking Barriers With R&D on YouTube.
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