Missouri Farmer Discovers Startling Reality of Drought: Entire Cornfields Never Pollinated This Year

Drought is creating a dreary outlook for Missouri farmers, but it wasn’t until mid-July that some of them realized just how bad it was. Farmers in pockets of severe drought now say they have a huge problem: entire fields of corn that didn’t even pollinate.

What held the promise as one of their best crops ever quickly diminished in central and eastern Missouri, especially as the waiting game for rain played out the majority of the summer. Kyle Samp, a farmer in Cairo, Mo., says some of his family's fields have only had a few inches of rain all year.

As you take a drive across his area, a view from the road gives glimpses into production problems Samp has experienced.  

“Looking at these outside rows, this is what I would expect for as dry as it's been where the plants don't have a good color and all the bottom leaves are burned up. That's what I’d expected to see,” he says.

Pollination Problems Pop Up

The outside rows look OK, but when you walk a little deeper into his fields you realize their appearance is deceiving. The corn inside the fields are lush and green, which gives the impression that Samp’s corn crop was able to weather the drought this year. But as Samp peels back the husks on the hears he grabs from those stalks, it’s evident the drought did extensive damage to his corn crop.

“We've got an ear here where you can see we have a lot of misses on part of it. We have plants right next to it that you know the silks are starting to dry up,” says Samp.

As Samp checks ear after ear in his field, it’s clear the drought is diminishing Samp’s outlook for harvest.

“We have four plants in a row that are going to be kind of the same thing where we have a few kernels on this ear, but by and large, we didn't pollinate at all,” says Samp.

Probably just needs fungicide. pic.twitter.com/XFo4yBWsU8 — Jon Robnett (@JonRobnett) July 24, 2023

Samp says entire fields that didn’t pollinate this year are a widespread issue in his area, and as you travel farther east from his farm, he says the problem is even worse.

“Some fields didn't pollinate at all. We've got barren plants, and then some fields where we're going to have some zipper ears and just some misses,” says Samp. “We'll still have some corn, but it's definitely hurt.”

Drought Is The No. 1 Culprit

Samp says last week’s heat could cause some ears to abort more kernels, but the pollination issues he’s seeing weren’t caused from the heat.

“It just hasn't rained,” says Samp. “I mean, a lot of these fields, we haven't had three inches of rain on them since we planted them. And some of them have had less than two. We can't grow corn if we only have two inches of rain.”

According to USDA’s weekly crop progress report, Missouri is home to the worst crop condition ratings this year. USDA says 25% of the corn crop is rated good  to excellent. The Missouri soybean crop is rated 28% good to excellent. Those ratings are much lower than the national look, as USDA shows 55% of the corn crop is good to excellent across the U.S. and 52% of soybeans are in the top two condition rating categories.

A Post-Fungicide Discovery 

He says since it wasn’t hot earlier this summer, the plants stayed fairly green. So, Samp didn’t know how bad his pollination problems were until the middle of July.

“It's probably about 10 days ago, we started kind of checking a few ears to see what we had out here. And I was like, ‘Man, this doesn't look good.’  I started checking more, and before it was all said and done, we were out in every field kind of seeing what we had. Ten days ago was kind of a bad day here,” Samp explains.

Since he thought his crop still had potential, Samp said he didn’t spare expenses on inputs, making the realization even more painful.

“We were one good rain away from having some corn, and we went ahead and had already put fungicide on it. The forecast looked good for some rains that never materialized, and we just hit some dry weather at a really bad time for this corn,” says Samp.

Hope Turns to Soybeans 

Samp knows his corn crop won’t yield much at all, and his hope is now turning to soybeans.

“It's going to have to rain, which kind of seems like a long shot, but if we get some timely rains, I think we can have a pretty good bean crop still,” he says.

He knows 100 bu. per acre yields will be a long shot for soybean yields in his fields, but with rain, he’s hopeful the soybeans can still make 60 to 70 bu. per acre. About an inch of rain fell last week, adding to his optimism for soybeans.