UP / Thumb of Michigan | Hilltop Husker - 7/2/2025 12:29
Corn breeding doesn't make higher yielding corn. Corn breeding makes stress tolerant corn. The reduction of stress allows farmers not doing everything correctly to yield more bushels. But the yield was already in the corn genes to begin with.
In laboratory conditions open pollinated corn can yield within 75% of hybrid corn. The 25% remainder is from stress reduction breeding.
I think theres quite a lot of truth behind this thought process if one looks back.
I've experienced a number of different years where some traits were advantageous and equated to additional yield- or conversely, lack of ability to weather a stress yielded less. For example: for many years, we planted Pioneer 3573. I'm really dating myself with that- but anyway, 3573 was never our top yielder in our plots. It was however always in the top 3. Reason was (in my opinion) it had more dimboa than others from Pioneer anyway. It could stand the stress of corn borers better than others without those genetics. Conversely, we also had a variety (again Pioneer) that was significantly better in our plots one year. Wanted to plant a bunch of it the following year, very glad the dealer talked us out of that. Had green snap terrible, was our lowest yielder by far.
It ws mentioned the other day about the corn belt moving north. Some of that is due to climate changes, I'd agree to that. The other larger factor (again, in my opinion) is that there have been a lot of effort in breeding shorter day hybrids that stand the adversity in cold climates. And ultimately yield quite well because they are able to take more stress than previous varieties.
GMO corn isn't yielding better only because of herbicide tolerance. Bt corn was a huge deal for us, corn borer had a significant effect on yield. Eliminate stress from corn borer, you get higher yields. The increased yield potential isn't because the Bt gene was added in and of itself, it was because stress on the plant was reduced. Nothing profound about that statement.
Theres just a lot of examples of higher yields in most crops because potential stresses were reduced vi breeding, no matter how the breeding was done. Obviously yield is the goal, but theres a few ways to get there as well. |
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