By Stephen Sexton (@AgricenLifer), Agricen
Yellow seedlings are a familiar sight for many corn growers. On continuous corn acres, the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio can be more than double the optimal ratio* for crop residue decomposition due to the buildup of organic matter from multiple years of corn-on-corn rotations. Even if a grower has applied nitrogen during the previous fall or around spring planting, soil microbes can out-compete seedling corn plants for nitrogen when excess carbon is present. The microbes use the nitrogen as a food source, immobilizing it as they work to degrade crop residues; the seedling corn plants, meanwhile, turn yellow due to a lack of available nitrogen.
One effective way to solve the problem of yellow corn seedlings in corn-on-corn rotations is to lower soil C:N ratios by baling corn stalks for winter cow feed. Unfortunately, this is really only practical if one has cows—and most row crop farmers do not. In addition, complete removal of corn residue also takes away a significant amount of the N, P and K that comprises corn stover (Table 1).