Combines Harvesting Down Corn

Slow down, and watch for rocks. We had a bunch of down corn a couple years ago. Picked up more rocks with the corn head then the bean.

Did down corn with corn reel 2 years in a row.The reel pulled in a lot of roots with dirt and it will wear the machine out.If the dirt is wet it will cake up and have to be hammered out if it dries.Have seen people use bean head and run half width,don't know how much dirt it pulled in but wish I would have tried.I found out that it was not root worms in our corn.After digging roots(what was left)found lots of jap beetle grubs.Called our agronomist he didn't believe they could cause that much damage so he came down and found as many as 4 grubs per root ball.If you find these white grubs call your agronomist and let them know these things do cause problems.The years those things are bad they can cause severe damage.If your corn is goosenecked it may be wind damage

I did have a lot of white grubs at planting time but I am 99% sure it was rootworms as we had about 10 rootworm beetles per plant by mid July. All of the people in our area having rootworm issues. No major wind to speak of. Thanks, I will however keep a closer eye on those white grubs next year and if I see as many will be putting some insecticide down with my corn.

With only 80 acres of down corn my advice is get to it as early as possible. Combine standing corn in the morning then switch to the down corn in the afternoon when dews and frost are long gone. If the stalks still have some life in them it will go a lot better. I've also lifted up the outside snouts if the corn stalks are hanging up and combined 6 rows at a time instead of 8.