From AuntieB, “No Tassels, No Ears. A Sterile Summer In Northern Ohio,” on Daily Kos:
Then I started to notice the silence. Usually corn fields hum with life. Birds, crickets, all sorts of insects create a quiet hum all day and all night. I couldn’t hear it.
Some of the fields also looked different. They were planted just before that wild swing of rain followed by heat. That brutal one-two punch hit right as the seeds were waking up. Now the corn has grown tall, but it’s sterile. No tassels. No ears. No harvest.
Farmers here are calling it “tight tassel.”
They say it might affect a third to half of the local crop.
Up here in Minnesota I know my strawberries didn’t produce, the raspberries and blueberries produced minimally. Bumblebees are way down, as is the local morning bird flock, which used to be deafening at 5 in the morning, and now we barely hear it.
