The fact that plants grow uniformly within a field during a cropping season, ripen synchronously, and are harvested at about the same time is truly amazing. The synchrony of development between and within plants is largely taken for granted by farmers. Yet synchrony allows a farmer to spray herbicides, cultivate, irrigate, and most importantly harvest in a single operation.
Synchrony is a remarkable feat of coordination by the plants.
Days or weeks may elapse between leaf, tiller, spikelet or floret initiation, and yet each plant flowers at about the same time and grain ripens simultaneously within the span of a few days. The observed synchrony of crop development cannot be achieved without the coordinated responses of a number of developmental processes to the environment. How this coordination between plant and environment is achieved is largely unknown. Farmers often use benchmarks to track corn development and time various management operations. The accuracy of some of these statements may be debated, but the reality is often borne out of careful observations by farmers in their environment.