Many corn fields in the southwest are currently looking conspicuously dried up. A farmer explains: That’s the way it should be. Nevertheless, the corn is harvested earlier than usual because of this year’s drought.
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – The currently quite conspicuous, dry and often brown corn plants in many places in the country have not spoiled or been forgotten by the farmers in the fields. “The corn is there on purpose,” says Jürgen Maurer from the State Farmers’ Association. It is so-called grain maize, where only the cob is harvested to make feed for pigs and chickens. Because of the drought and the many hours of sunshine this year, the corn ripened earlier than in previous years. Maurer assumes that the harvest will take place in the next 14 days – which is unusual: the farmers last harvested the maize so early after the hot summer of 2003.
Grain maize has to stay in the fields for a long time. The better it dries there, the less energy the farmers would have to expend to further dry the grains and thus make them ready for transport.
According to the plant production expert, there is a second type of maize in addition to grain maize, so-called silo maize. This is harvested a few weeks before grain maize and processed as a whole plant. Above all, it is used to generate biogas. The silage maize was also harvested earlier than usual due to the dry summer – in August instead of at the end of September.
