Have you ever noticed a difference in humidity in vegetation? It's called "Corn Sweat" | Hey Ray!
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Summertime is full of heat and humidity. Usually, the combination of the two makes for a very steamy situation. You may have noticed though, that in the hotter parts of the year, when you're out and about it feels much more humid and steamy when you walk from low vegetation to higher vegetation.
So why does this happen?
Well, the non-scientific name of this phenomenon is "corn sweat." Yep. So people call it "corn sweat."
Since this has to deal will all vegetation, we'll mainly call this process by its scientific name of "transpiration."
It is the evaporation of moisture that comes from plants. All plants, not just corn. Corn is very efficient at this process though. Since it is most prevalent when the corn is knee high and higher, corn sort of gets the bad wrap, even though all vegetation takes part in this process.
When the roots of a plant take in water from the soil, that moisture moves through the plant to help it grow and stay alive. The water is eventually released through the leaves.
You can't really see this process happening, but plants can give off a lot of water. I mean A LOT!
Plants give off many more times their own weight in water. The United States Geological Survey says an acre of corn gives off 3,000 to 4,000 gallons of water each day! A large oak tree can transpire 40,000 gallons of water in a year.
Transpiration just accounts for the moisture passing through the plants!
Transpiration gets added to all the other moisture that is released into the atmosphere from groundwater, soil, bodies of water and everywhere else through evaporation. When you add up all the evaporation and the transpiration the sum of what you get what is called evapotranspiration. Evaporation and transpiration work together, making things feel hotter.
So, we have corn sweat, but there isn't yet corn deodorant!
