Did you know corn can sweat? It’s real, and it can make it more humid outside

September 13, 2024 Canuck

Did you know corn can sweat?

Karim Malik, an assistant professor in the School of the Environment at the University of Windsor said corn sweat is a term that has been coined from the behaviour of corn in response to rising temperature levels.

As the plant grows, it draws moisture out of the ground and later evapotranspiration occurs pushing moisture into the atmosphere.

In other words, the corn is essentially releasing water vapour, along with oxygen as it grows.

Malik said while corn stock naturally releases water to cool down, the corn sweat also has some negative consequences including changing the general relative humidity.

“So, that means that we can have what we called high heat index and this could be related to that evapotranspiration that comes from corn related transpiration,” he said. “It changes the general relative humidity.”

Malik notes that Ontario is the country’s leading corn producer, and Windsor-Essex is a centre for agriculture.

While it’s hard to draw a direct conclusion for Windsor at large, Malik says it’s likely to have a very localized impact.

There has been a lot of talk recently on the subject of corn sweat due to high humidity in the corn belt of the United States.

‘Funny name’ for normal process

Barb Mayesboustead, an author on the Fifth National Climate Assessment, said corn sweat is a funny name for a normal and boring part of a plant’s life cycle.

“There are a lot of contributing factors to how humid it is anywhere really [but] in areas that grow corn or are near to areas that grow corn… corn sweat is a contributor and a measurable one — something we can detect — to that humidity in the air,” said Mayesboustead.

She noted that while all plants put some level of moisture into the atmosphere, they do not get the same credit as corn sweat.

“I guess you could say corn is a very sweaty plant. It’s very efficient at taking that moisture and putting it out to the ground. It requires a lot of moisture to grow and thus it evaporates a lot of moisture off of each stock,” Mayesboustead said.

Mayesboustead, who grew up in Michigan, said each stock of corn puts a substantial amount of water vapour into the air.

“Corn, especially these days, is grown very densely, so in any given field, that’s a lot of corn stocks putting that moisture out into the air.”

“Corn can be pretty widespread in some parts of North America, so that wide swath of corn can collectively also put a lot of moisture into the air.”

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