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?”
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?”