Drought or Compaction

This photo was taken from the levee near Valmeyer, IL.  The corn in the foreground is clearly showing some drought stress.  The corn in the middle of the picture looks OK.  The yellow corn is clearly still showing wetness stress.  Oddly enough the better looking corn is on fairly sandy soils.  Probably Landes Sandy Loam for those familiar with soil types.  The soils showing the drought stress is heavier Nameoki and Fults soils.  The heavier soils should have more available water, but it looks like the field was worked and planted too wet and so the soils that should look bad if moisture was short are looking pretty good because they were drier when the fields were worked.  This illustrates pretty well why compaction is a problem.