It Takes a Lot of Water to Grow a Corn Crop
by David Bennett (Southeast Farm Press) Last year, many Southern farmers found out just how much water a corn crop requires. “A good, high-yielding corn crop will use 22 or 23 inches of water,” says Emerson Nafziger, professor of crop production and Extension agronomist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “That’s the total water loss from the crop and soil during the season. When the crop hasn’t canopied, more water is lost simply from soil evaporation.
“Twenty-two inches of water is a lot. A 200-bushel corn crop uses about 600,000 gallons of water — nearly 3,000 gallons per bushel.”
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“It’s simple: In order to get carbon dioxide into the leaves — and air-borne CO2 is the basic feedstock for making yield — water vapor must be allowed to come out.”
There’s no good way for leaves to accomplish this other than the way it already is. Whenever the plant is turning sunlight energy into sugar, it’s using and losing water. READ MORE
