“Wait! Stop! What’s that?”

Comedian Bert Kreischer was riding shotgun in my vehicle. He was shouting with excitement. We’d finished up another day of shooting with the reality-show host and it was time to cool off and go home.

But Bert was still revved up. Most of the television personalities I’d dealt with over the years as a publicity liaison turned to stone as soon as the cameras were off. Not Bert Kreischer. He kept chatting, chuckling, and hooting with laughter.

“Bert, that’s a field. A farmer’s field,” I explained patiently to the city boy.

“But what are they growing – what’s in there?” Bert wasn’t a total moron. To the untrained eye, the eight-foot stalks looked intriguing. Even a little scary.

After I explained to Bert it was a corn field that would be transformed into a corn maze at Halloween time, he was nearly beside himself.

“Can I go in? I’ve never been in an actual field before. Can I pick one?”

Since he’d asked so nicely, I told him it was fine. I stayed in the air-conditioned vehicle though, as he disappeared between the stalks.

A few minutes later, he emerged. Triumphant.

I wish I’d known the term “corn sweat” back then. I think Bert would have just about gone nuts using the phrase.

Yes, corn sweat. According to Farmer Gary (who knows stuff), in peak growing season, corn plants suck a lot of water out of the earth.

Plants don’t eat, they drink. ~ Farmer Gary

With that water – equivalent each day to a 2″ to 4″ rainfall – comes nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash. The corn plants use what they need and then release the extra moisture into the air.

And what does that extra moisture do? It ups the humidity level in the air and makes us all miserable.

Gary says soybeans (which he currently grows) use moisture from the earth at about one-fourth the rate of corn.

Corn not only drinks more, there’s more of it. Farmers grow about 95 million acres of corn nationally and 85 million acres of soybeans each year.

The real challenge is at night. When overnight temperatures don’t drop down to around 60°, the corn simply can’t develop plump kernels as it should. The heat is that stressful. Guess what that means? The crop needs more water and then it releases more vapor into the air.

And that, my friends, is the particular summertime torture called Corn Sweat.

It’s not the only cause of humidity, of course, but it explains why certain areas of the country are sweatier than others.

Maybe someone can get word of this to Bert Kreischer. Something tells me he’d drink it up.

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