Follow the Field 2020 Update #12

How is it already the end of July?? I don’t have a huge update to share today, but I do have a handful of photos that I snapped real quick before it started to pour down rain. (The last place I wanted to be was standing in the middle of a bean field among plants that are up to my hip.) Unfortunately for me, it had been raining on and off all day yesterday (yay for consistent rains!), so I ended up soaked after wading into the bean field.

Exhibit A:

July 31, 2020 Update

Soybeans (100 days)

The soybeans must’ve really liked the weather over the last week as they added quite a bit of height. It’s getting harder and harder to walk through the field as they get taller and the plants branch out between rows.

It’s like a sea of green!

This is the very top of a soybean plant. Flowers are blooming at the very top node and soybean pods are beginning to form at the node just below. And the plant is still adding leaves.

It’s hard to get a picture of an entire soybean plant because of how close all of the plants are in the field, but you can see most of a plant here and all of the soybean pods that are forming at each node.

Corn (79 days)

Not a lot of exciting things happening in the corn field this week, either. I gave up on the ruler since the corn plants have reached their peak height for the season now that it’s entered pollination.

Many plants seem to think that they might be able to put on 2-3 ears. We would prefer that the corn plant would focus on one good ear. Fortunately, that’s how corn plants work. They will put all of their effort towards filling out the top ear and if there’s extra resources, they’ll focus on the next ear down. Corn plants can’t just add ears throughout the season like beans can add pods because pollination is a one-time event. It’s almost guaranteed that the plants will abort the third ear and pretty likely that they’ll abort the second ear in favor of filling out the primary ear.

See how the silks have captured pollen coming from the tassel? The silks that have turned brown are connected to kernels that were pollinated. The entire set of silks here should be all brown by next week.

Here’s a look at what’s happening inside the ear. Kernels are formed and are beginning to fill.

See the water droplets on the leaves? I didn’t get soaked walking through the corn field like I did walking through the bean field because of how corn leaves are structured. The leaves funnel rain towards the stalk, directing the water to the plant roots. Plus, corn isn’t quite as bushy as soybeans and is spaced in 30-inch rows rather than 15-inch rows, like beans.

The sky looked like it could open up and downpour on me at any minute, which is why I was literally running through the field to grab a few photos for this update last night.

It was worth soaking my jeans in the soybean field last night since I was able to snap this photo of a monarch butterfly. The leaves were blowing around and the monarch held on like it wasn’t even a struggle. It didn’t even fly away until the second time I walked by. My dad has milkweed plants not too far from here, so we see a lot of monarchs around.