You aren’t surprised to find ear mold during a wet season or when corn is stressed. However, you likely aren’t thinking about finding mold while walking a field of excellent corn in mid-September. Yet when Dan Quinn pulled back husks on an otherwise perfect ear, he found ear mold growing near the tip. Later, his cursory inspection tour turned up another ear with mold.
“Ear molds and mycotoxins that they can produce are an increasing problem in the Midwest,” explains Quinn, Purdue Extension corn specialist. “There are definitely weather conditions and environments which favor ear mold development, but we can find them in any field.”
The first step when you find ear mold is to attempt to identify it, Quinn advises. While it would take submission to a lab for confirmation, using an aid such as the Purdue Corn and Soybean Field Guide can often get you in the ballpark. Knowing which mold you found can help tweak management strategies to minimize ear mold and mycotoxin issues in the future.
“The mold on this ear [pictured above] was likely gibberella,” Quinn says. “It has a pinkish tinge, and it started near the tip, indicative of that disease.”
There is no way to tell by looking if an infected ear will produce mycotoxin. Testing grain samples for mycotoxins can be expensive. However, because gibberella can produce a mycotoxin called vomitoxin, the safest assumption is that it may be present until you know otherwise, Quinn says. Vomitoxin can cause performance issues if fed to pigs. You also will not know what levels of vomitoxin could be in your crop.
Managing mycotoxins
What can you do if you find even a small amount of mold in standing corn? “Mark it for harvest as soon as you can,” Quinn says. “In areas hard hit with mycotoxin issues, that is the No. 1 piece of advice. You don’t want it to remain in the field.”
If corn with ear mold and mycotoxin issues remains in the field, there is the potential for mycotoxin levels to increase. Weather conditions while corn is still in the field will partially determine whether more mold growth is favored.
If you are storing corn that may contain ear mold and potential mycotoxins on the farm, dry it to 15% as soon as possible. If it is going into long-term storage, most specialists recommend dropping moisture to 13%.
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