Just Write Communications
  • Home
  • Contact Us
  • News
  • Clients
  • Testimonials
  • Writing Tips
  • Weekly Chuckle
  • Meals We Steal
  • Bad Golf

Not Knee High by the Fourth of July

7/5/2022

1 Comment

 
Picture
​The phrase about corn crops, “knee high by the fourth of July,” doesn’t really make sense when you think about it. Whose knees are we talking about? Mine? A giraffe’s? A mouse’s? An “average” human?
 
Depending on perspective, you could argue the corn is way behind or way ahead of its normal growth cycle depending on the human or animal knees you decided to measure with. Yeah, yeah, it’s a silly point, but still there’s a certain relevance to it when we make generic statements like that – your frame of reference has a lot to do with your perspective.
 
Spending a large portion of my life in the Midwest watching corn grow over the summer, I began hearing the “knee high” comment sometime during my high school years. You don’t think anything about it. Kind of a generic statement and you respond with a shoulder shrug. Who cares?
 
Well, the farmers do, and in the chain of food distribution, we all should care, since how well the corn grows affects supply and prices at some point. If it’s ankle high by the fourth of July, will there even be a harvest? With age, I began to wonder those things.
 
Yet, for some odd reason, regardless of heavy spring rains or heat, drought or flood, too cold temperatures or too hot, that hardy corn hung in there. At the fourth, it was always pretty close to “my” knee high, which I guess is the measuring stick we all have to go with once you get down to it.
 
This year found us a dry spring. Almost no rain in April and May. Very unusual. Planting was delayed. Once planting occurred, no rain fell.

As the corn sprouted little seedlings, it seemed stuck to the earth, not wanting to rise to the sky and be seen. Fields became almost dusty and the tiny plants lounged around doing nothing.

Then in mid-June, BAM, we get two massive dumps of water over a three-day period. The fields quickly saturated.
 
The corn stalks took the hint and began to hop ahead. Rising skyward, my wife and I remarked on almost a daily basis, “Whoa, the corn sure has grown since yesterday.”

It was true. You could see a visible growth day-to-day. It may sound hard to believe, but if you live in an area where corn is grown, go check it out this time of year.
 
To a certain extent, it almost reminds you of a child’s growth spurt. One day your kid is lagging behind everyone in height, then in six months sometime in those adolescent years, they rocket upward by 3-5 inches and become “normal.”
 
Corn is kinda like that. It seems to stay dormant, as necessary, saving its energy for just the right moment. Some combination of rain saturation with the proper sunlight and heat. Then, LOOK OUT, here they grow.
 
My wife and I stopped in a corn patch recently to take a photo with my knees next to the corn. I thought it would “not be knee high by the fourth of July.” But, it was. The corn stalks looked shorter from the road than when you stand next to them.

We should get another good crop of field corn this year. Now, how do we measure soybeans’ growth path? “Ankle high by the fourth of July?” 

1 Comment
Jay Shattuck
7/5/2022 03:32:31 pm

The corn is waist to shoulder high in central Illinois. We had plenty of good spring rain but are now entering week 3 with only scattered rain. Our rain guage has registered 0.1 of an inch in 3 weeks.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013

    Categories

    All

Proudly powered by Weebly