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| I'm sure that tolerance or productivity at high population is dependent on many things, most importantly the breeding of the corn, not to neglect the availability of nutrients. The short pop can ears with the DynaGrow in my 2007 field showed that clearly. With the high price of seed corn today, seems like 5 to 8 times more than I paid 15 years ago when I first planted some corn, there's profit potential in a number that uses N efficiently with a lower population, for the farmer. It would seem to me that a number that grew long and wide spread roots would find more nutrition than a number with small roots and so could have the potential to produce better with a lowered population, then in those numbers its time to look for multiple ears that mature mostly filled. But I know nothing about corn breeding, I get more than overwhelmed trying to pick a number out of the seems like ten thousand numbers available each year.
The last time Farm Progress Show was at Amana, I went with the goal of asking about seed corn that was efficient in its use of N. I didn't get to the Monsanto tent, but except for Crows, the uniform answer to my question about N efficient corn was, "We are working on it, look for something out about 2012." But the sales staffs at the corn tents had not even a hint of how their corns responded to or demanded N. Many said, "N is cheap, just apply plenty." I read a seed corn catalog that says "this number responds to N" to really mean that "this corn won't produce without lots of N." I may be wrong but that's my interpretation. But N at a kilobuck a ton, makes us want to get by with a lot less. Regulations that limit N because of Gulf hypoxia can hurt worse, especially if they limit N to a percentage of that used on the farm in the past. One thing in our favor, is that N use hasn't changed much, yet the hypoxia area of the Gulf was a lot smaller last year, even hard to find, which may reflect more on some chemical plant(s) shut down along the lower Mississippi than yard, farm, and sewage plant runoff.
Gerald J. | |
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Seed corn genetics heading in the right direction ?
