Purple corn has been showing up in many Manitoba fields this year.

Manitoba Agriculture's Soil Fertility Specialist John Heard talked about some of the causes last week at the Crop Diagnostic School held in Carman.

"There's a number of ailments," he said. "The first one, everyone says phosphorus, and that is one of the things that turns corn purple, is a lack of phosphorus but whenever anything slows or hinders the crops, conversion of sugars to be used for growth elsewhere in the plant, if you get that sugar build up, the crop will turn purple due to anthocyanin build up."

He adds warm days and cool nights earlier in the season may have also contributed to the ailment.

Heard says farmers should hire a good agronomist to determine what is causing the corn to turn purple.