2011 has been an interesting year for corn production in the Central Corn Belt.  The beginning of the growing season started with above average rainfall and cool temperatures, and then quickly transitioned into an extremely hot summer with a large area of drought stricken conditions.

Pollination and kernel fill puts a tremendous demand on the corn plant.  Fields that have suffered from heat and drought stress have a hard time keeping up with the heavy photosynthetic demands by the ear.  Plants that are unable to keep up with this demand will resort to pulling stored carbohydrate reserves in the lower stalk and moving these reserves to the developing ears.  This is usually referred to as stalk cannibalization.  Stalk cannibalization can be a result of many different factors.

Physiological Stalk Lodging to Stalk Cannibalization

Moving these reserves from the lower stalk tissue causes the amount of pith cells to be severely decreased and causes an overall deterioration of lower stalk integrity and strength.  This increase in physiological stress can lead to stalk lodging due to the overall lack of lower stalk strength.  One key feature of physiological stalk lodging is that it occurs in the absence of stalk rotting pathogens, meaning that the pith remains white.