While driving along Interstate 39 from Bloomington to Rockford, Ill., last fall, John Pickle Jr. conducted a windshield survey based on looking at the four outside rows in corn fields that were running parallel to the highway. His quick and easy visual survey indicated that 60 percent of the corn fields had rodent damage.

Know The Cause. If you found small to large areas during last fall’s harvest where there were no plants and plenty of weeds, it will pay you to figure out what happened. Pickle says these spots could be caused by water, birds, insect or rodent damage. The spots often range in size from a few missing plants in a row to a bare area that covers as much as a quarter of an acre.

The crop consultant from Lodi, Wis., says there is a solution if the stand loss was caused by rodents. Compounding the problem is the fact that rodent damage is much more common in no-till fields.

“Rodent damage to the outside 4 to 12 rows of crop in a field is very easy to spot and correct,” he says. “You can also see rodent damage show up on combine yield monitors and visually as you run the combine. In most cases, the crop has been replaced by weeds, making harvest of the crop much more difficult.”

Three Critical Concerns. Pickle says the three main rodents that damage no-till corn are voles (meadow mice), 13-lined ground squirrels (striped gophers) and Ord’s kangaroos (sand rats)…