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SC Wisconsin | I read this thread and got interested enough to do some reading... I found this online. I can't vouch for it's accuracy, but interesting stuff.
"Herman lived at Saybrook, Ill. I visited his farm a couple times. He was as wonderful and gracious a person as has ever graced this earth. There are a few details about his 300+ bu, yields yuou might be interested in.
He used a FS variety that had the capability to convert almost all of it's stalk reserves into grain, consequently he would harvest when corn was28 to 30 % moisture or he would have to pick the stuff up off the ground. FS would breed up a hundred bags or so of this variety every couple years for guys like Herman.
Herman and his brother-in-law had a feed lot that they bedded with corn cobs they got from local corn shellers. Every year 10- 15 tons per acre of these manure and urine soaked corn cobs would go on each acre of his "test" plot. The cobs would slowly break down providing late season nutrients.
Herman claimed he chiseled 18" deep. I don't know how he did that with an old Graham-Holme chisel plow with 24" of clearance from frame to chisel tip.
After Herman retired, U of Ill set up some plots on his farm for several years trying to duplicate his yields. With out his variety and the corn cobs they were never able to come with in 50 bu. of Hermans yields.
One of Herman's claims for the extraordinary yields was his long term fertility program which gave him soil test results of 250-300# per acre of P and 900-1000 # per acre of K. I don't doubt these levels,but I don't think they were necessary for his yields. They served a purpose however, in that more of the corn belt became aware of the need for adaquate levels of these nutrients to produce good economic yields. Dr. Harold Reetz of the Potash and Phosphate Institute, supported by potash and phosphate miners, helped Herman get around to corn grower meetings and seed corn meetings all over the mid-west to tell about his outstanding P and K soiltest levels and how they made for the record setting yields.
Herman was a modest man who made history. Like all of us, there was much more to him than the legend reveled." | |
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What happened to Herman Warsaw's favorite corn seed variety?
