|
Roanoke, IN | A sign of a good healthy mature corn plant is a dry ear and green stalk and leaves. That means nutients & water were available and the plant didn't have to eat itsself and had plenty of energy for grain fill. This usually leads to high test weight as observed. Anyone ever see the pics of yield champ Kip Cullers' corn before he shells it? It is green as grass with brown husks and 15% moisture.
The new varieties are bred with higher lignin, a tough "woody" substance so stalks don't fall down and ears don't fall off. The RR gene and an application of R-UP also produces plants with higher lignin content. Put them together and you've got a field full of little corn trees. This also contributes to stalks decaying slower as it take the microbes longer to break down the tough lignin material. This is not all bad though. At least on my farm, there have been no lodging issues for several years, even with last year's late harvest. Even with some harvesting this spring, I don't think lodging was as bad as it could have been.
More upright ears also contributed to the toxin problems we had last year. As the husks opened up and grain started to dry we kept getting rain, moisture got trapped in the ear and provided a perfect environment for molds. Talking with other farmers last year and my own observations with the toxin problems it was sometime variety specific. Was it related to upright ears on that variety? Hard to say. I did talk with 2 non GMO corn farmers from other areas that had no toxins, but their neighbors did, some at high levels. I didn't observe that on my own farm as everything was in the 1-3 ppm range GMO or not.
Remember, in breeding to get something you have to give up something else. Are we getting too far to one side and giving up too much for standability? Hard to say. It will be interesting what happens in the next couple of years. | |
|
Ears staying upright.
