“Knee-high by the Fourth of July”- that’s what Grandpa always used to hope for when watching that corn grow. Until we start growing more of the short-stature corn that may not get much taller than knee-high, I think we’ve all adjusted our expectations from Grandpa’s day. Purdue’s Dan ‘Corn’ Quinn says on the latest Purdue Crop Chat Podcast that most of us would prefer “over your head by the Fourth of July”, but that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

‘Soybean Shaun’ Casteel has been saying for several years though now that your beans should be green to the eye by the Fourth of July. He says as farmers plant soybeans earlier, the accumulated heat units and critical night length that we get before photoperiod pushes us into flowering, taking us from an 18-20 trifoliate noded plant to upwards of a 24-noded plant.

“Those are just great opportunities for more pod production. Usually that earlier planted crop is more compact, and it is a compact plant this year. So, you know, we’re ahead in terms of stand establishment, emergence and heat unit accumulation. But when I’ve been looking at these plants, their internodal elongation hasn’t been extreme. They’ve been very tight early on. And what I mean by that, the early ones, quarter to half inch on the lower ones, but usually by node 6,7,8, 9, I mean, we’re really stretching out. They’re still, I’d say, a good two inches instead of three- or four-inch internodes. That just gives me an indication that we’ve got a crop that’s noding well, but it’s not growing really tall, so it’s going to be a compact plant. It is flowering, so as long as we can get that thing closed, harvest that sunlight, that ‘green to the eye by the Fourth of July’, so we’re maximizing sunlight interception, solar radiation, all the things that we want to do to create the factory, to transition to flowers and pods. That’s what it’s about.”

Hear much more from Casteel and Quinn in the Purdue Crop Chat below or on your favorite podcast platform!