NC Iowa | 6030Deere - 9/16/2020 11:35
Just curious but does the drought score rating follow the root score rating? I really haven’t seen a correlation of stress tolerance vs roots even in our variable climate. Lots of other factors in play. Variety selection is key to handle stress, I do agree with that.
I have been an agronomist for 40 years and went through the drought of 88. No one has taken the time to make a correlation of root size to drought tolerance using data points as far as I know. However, corn breeding programs have found genes in the corn genome that provide improved performance in hot, dry conditions. Some market these hybrids as "Aqua Max", some "Drought Guard" and "Artesian"!
What I have personally observed and found in yield data from those field observations is that generally, those hybrids with bigger roots systems yield more than those with smaller roots systems during stress conditions like this years hot, dry conditions. |