Different people handle various situations differently when making estimates in the field. When I helped Dave Smith, the Johnson County Ag Educator, count plants in a twin-row plot in Rush County in June, trying to get accurate population counts, we counted a double dropped by the planter, with two plants within two inches of each other, as one. He didn't want to give too much credit to the extra plant, because he figures one will turn out to be a weed.

When Jeff Phillips and I counted plots in the Indiana Prairie Farmer/Tippecanoe County Extension/ Precision Planting plots earlier this summer, we counted every plant, no matter what.. But our goal was somewhat different. We were testing factors relating to planting itself. If a planter dropped a double, we wanted to know. Later we came back and measured spacing between those plants to determine whether a certain combination of planting speed, pressure on the planting units, and planting depth did a better or worse job or not. Results from both of these tests will be available after harvest.

Meanwhile, at this time of year, what do you do when you're estimating yield in a field, and come across nubbins in the process? Bob Nielsen, Purdue University Extension corn specialist, doesn't use them in determining number of rows and number of kernels per row, unless they are representative of the entire field.

You're likely to run into ears that are 'pinched' toward the tip, with more rows of butt kernels that rows of kernels near the tips. That happens when stress develops during the development process. Heat, and in some cases dry weather, are the biog stresses for this year's corn crop in Indiana, or so it appears.

Count rows of kernels in the part that best represents the ear, he notes. Don't include extreme counts from butts or tips, in either direction. And don't count aborted kernels. The ear tried to give you all it had, but made the decision to pull those kernels. Chances are they won't add anything to yield estimates.

Finally, if all rows don't have the same number of kernels per row, use an estimate. This can happen when ears are deformed or abortion of kernels occurs on one side of an ear and not the other side.