How long can growing corn go without rain?

Being a weekend farmer/ farmer for wildlife I often over analyze and worry about our crops making it. I'm sure our state has seen dryer Junes but the lack or rain combined with the high temps. has me concerned. We planted our corn in mid May and up until last week it actually is doing well (going back up tomorrow to so I'll check it then) but just curious how long it can survive with out rain.

I don't think there has been a drier June in my lifetime in Perry Co, and May was almost as bad. I planted 2 acres of RR corn on May 11, and had decent soil moisture when I planted it. It came up good, but its had less than 2" of rain on it since planting. It was showing big time stress this past weekend, but would have still made a decent crop if it had started raining then. With no rain in sight the next 10 days, I don't think it has any chance now. I'm planning to bush hog it and disc the ground and keep it free of weeds until mid October, then throw some clover seed out. Maybe it will get some of the benefit of the fertilizer I wasted. At least I had enough sense to not put any ammonium nitrate on it.

It looks like our weather patterns have become similar to those of Israel in biblical days - get rains thru late fall and winter, and then its completely dry. Looks like winter crops will be all I can grow. Of course, ya'll get a lot more rain in west and north AL than I get.

Mine will last about 1 more week

It took me a long time to get to this point, but don't worry about it raining. That won't make it rain.

My corn is stunted some (short in height), but it hasn't tasseled yet. It won't be more than a week or two at the most before it does. As dry as it is, with the heat that's coming, if it does tassel and doesn't rain, it won't make diddly squat.

checked ours yesterday. It looks healthy but probably isn't as tall as it should be. Planted it 2nd and 3rd week in May and it's anywhere from 3 ft. to 5 1/2 feet but isn't close to tasseling yet. I've seen a lot of other fields where the base of the stalk and lower leaves are turning brown from the heat. Ours is not going this so maybe that's a good sign. We have two spring fed creeks that run through our place. I'm not 100% sure if those creeks cause it but we have a tremendous amount of dew every morning. I've always speculated that this provided enough moisture to prevent a crop failure but I could be way off. We'll see I guess...

I had to go to Eufaula yesterday and all the corn fields I passed by looked bad. For wildlife I think you would be money ahead to buy feed most years.

don't know...I might be eating my words if we don't get some rain soon, but at $15 a bag plus fertilizer and fuel we only have around $75 per acre total cost. We planted close to 12 acres that should provide enough corn to last until the end of January or even later.

However, if very little rain is an annual issue during the summer (usually isn't for us) I would spend my money on planting clover in the fall.

Our got some rain in St. Clair Co. last night and today

Quit bragging! LOL Mine no getta da rain. It'sa all twisted up.

I may make some corn after all. We got .9" of rain last night and that field got at least .1" this evening. The corn looks like it's grown a foot since yesterday. It hasn't tasseled yet. The stalks are now 4-5 feet tall. The stalks are thick too, not spindly like drought corn. Some are as big around as my wrist at the base.

Sounds good. We some good sized ears growing now. We have had 4 substantial rains on ours since last week so we should be ok?

Yep, your's will probably make a nice crop. I posted a picture of mine in the trail cam and photo section. Mine won't make without more rain, but it's got a good shot now.

A lot of mine dried up, planted some more win the duck hole and those look like they're gonna make it if the train continues.

After 5 weeks of no rain we finally got our share in late June and July and our corn and sunflowers did really well. This is NWTF corn planted with a 4 row planter and cheap sunflower seed planted with the same. We planted the high dollar sunflowers last year. The heads were bigger last year but for a $20 bag of seed I'm extremely pleased with the results. Sprayed the corn and sunflowers after 4 weeks. Corn with Gly. and sunflowers with Clethodim.

Finally made it to the farm to check my corn, and I actually made a little. It had about 2" of rain over the first 80 days, and has rained 6" the last 3 weeks. Too late to make a decent crop, but its probably made 20 bushels/acre or so. The stalks are about 4' tall, but most of them made a small ear or 2. Maybe I have enough to manage a dove shoot.

The chufas are stunted, but will still make if it keeps raining.

Amazing what a little rain will do. In 3 weeks the place has gone from a desert to a rain forest.