by CLARE KINLIN
It was a chilly day at the end of May when I got a call from Bert in Glengarry County. He suspected frost damage in his corn crop. “We’ve had some pretty cold temperatures. I thought we’d be OK, but some of the plants in my field are turning white,” he said.
I agreed to go out and assess the frost damage on his seedlings. These calls typically involve me working with growers to evaluate whether replanting is in order. But what I found when I got to the field isn’t at all what I had in mind.
Bert’s stand was definitely thinning. The crop, which had reached the three- or four-leaf stage, had non-uniform emergence. But a closer examination of the affected plants told me that frost wasn’t a factor.