Canvassing corn fields in northwest Illinois on Wednesday, scouts on my route found consistently above-average yield prospects, with one glaring exception.

One corn field on low-lying ground in Henry County, Illinois, showed an estimated yield of 26.7 bushels per acre, a figure that jumped out when compared with our projections for three other fields in the same district, at 154.8, 160.1 and 193.7 bpa.

The stalks in the problem field were short and spindly. The ears we pulled were tiny and held only 1 to 4 inches of kernels, compared to nearly 7 inches in the other fields. Pulling back the husks, we found caterpillars dining on the few available kernels.

It seemed that nearly everything that could have gone wrong, did.

Roger Bernard, director of the eastern leg of the John Deere Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour, speculated that the field was planted late, probably due to wet conditions, and endured weather stress later on.

“That field had pollinated at just the wrong time,” he said. “For all intents and purposes, that is the equivalent of a zero (yield).”

Why would the tour include in its calculations a corn field so clearly out of line with the area’s norm?

“We don’t throw something like that out. It was a sample that we stopped at, and that was a yield number,” Bernard said.

“We’re not out there trying to find the best corn field, and we’re not trying to find the worst field. If that happens to be the sample we gathered, that’s a sample that we come in with.”