New Corns for a Greater Harvest

the rich fertile acres of America home of the farmer factory for feed food and fiber a checkerboard beauty and like a checkerboard a challenge to those who farm a challenge to the skill of the corn grower who every year must take his patience and his pocketbook against the elements of nature every season brings its time of harvest the final answer to the challenge here is the return on money and methods on land labor and seed and because harvest is the payoff the business-minded farmer is always looking for better farming methods and new corns for a greater harvest today there's more and more demand for corn for use here and abroad and fulfilling this demand is most profitable when you have a greater harvest per acre the size of the harvest depends largely upon three basic factors which affect the growth of crops first there's the natural environment the soil weather water supply the weeds insects and disease next fertility that which is native to the soil and that which is applied and finally genetics is a factor varieties that take full advantage of the existing environment and fertility and fit the farmers particular needs modern corn growers profit most by keeping these three factors well balanced with efficient machinery fertilizers and agricultural chemicals plus proven hybrids developed by the producers of Pioneer seed corn for more than 40 years this organization has been developing hybrid corn that meets the challenges of intensified corn growing today research and production has come a long way since the company was formed in 1926 by Henry a Wallace and a number of friends this was the first company ever formed to produce hybrid seed corn pioneer is proud of its pioneering achievements the first hybrid developed from inbred lines ever sold in the Corn Belt first breeding work ever done on commercial hybrid corn first hybrid seed corn plants ever built today this same progressive spirit is carried on by dozens of forward-looking men who apply their skills at fifteen breeding stations man of creative vision based on learning not only from the book but also from the field men respected for their knowledge often called upon to lecture at universities but they are even more at home in the field than on the speaker stand progressive in their thinking and in their objectives pioneer men are also progressive in their methods of research using a computer to compress time and to supply complete data and they are equally modern in applying their research findings to develop improved hybrids which are crosses of pure inbred lines across two inbred lines and you get a single cross cross a single cross with another inbred and you have a three-way cross cross two single crosses and you get the familiar four away or a double cross the first invent lines of corn were developed by repeatedly self pollinating certain plants selected from open pollinated varieties today skilled corn breeders rely on different sources of reading materials and use more highly refined techniques to develop inbred lines one method used to get new breeding material involves crossing two existing in breads and selecting a single new inbred another method developed new synthetic open pollinated varieties by crossing proven inbred lines and open pollinated corn these varieties are a fertile source of new and improved inbred lines developed by five to seven years of self pollination and selection through the skill and judgment of pioneer research men by growing an extra generation of corn each winter at pioneers southern breeding stations breeders cut in half the time needed to develop new inbreds and bring improved varieties to farmers year sooner new approaches to developing improved inbreds are matched at pioneer with a seed industry's broadest testing program in its search for improved corn for its area each of the major pioneer breeding stations annually tests about 100 new inbreds crossing bees with five well-known inbreds result in five hundred single crosses their performance determines which new inbreds should be tested further the first years testing eliminates all but perhaps 25 the second year's tests screen out all but three or four of the original 100 inbred lines each stations breeders also test between 3 and 400 promising new hybrids which may fit the needs of farmers each new variety is tested at four to six locations with duplicate plantings at each location to improve accuracy extracting meaningful data from these tests brings Pioneers computer Center into action this results in faster more accurate data on as many as 19 characteristics for each ibrid tested data from 200 test locations on thousands of varieties data compiled so that breeders at the various stations can share both ideas and breeding material readers at each research station also runs special projects suited to their areas conditions a sampling of the stations and their specialty shows the depth of pioneer research at Mankato Minnesota blight prolific and short season corn Middletown Delaware stock rot Union City Tennessee maize dwarf mosaic York Nebraska stress and drought resistance Tipton Indiana blight and corns for special soil types Princeton Illinois combine harvesting Johnston Iowa insects stalk rot stress blight and protein quality general direction of the pioneer breeding program comes from the research station at Johnston here on more than 400 acres pioneer research men concentrate on developing new corns for a greater harvest these special plots check route lodging resistance the soil has been soaked by irrigation a wind machine creates a 70 mile an hour blast against the roads this test is for corn borer resistance or tolerance each stalk is artificially infested with corn borer egg masses so that the resistance of each inbred can be more accurately determined pioneer beads for rootworm resistance to this plant was specially planted the previous year to attract heavy root worm infestation in addition egg Laden soil is placed next to the plants to assure a uniform level of attack this provides a sure test of rootworm tolerance or resistance to measure blight resistance corn is artificially infected with ground-up blight infected leaves from susceptible varieties grown the previous year at just this one station 10 acres are devoted to developing blight resistant corn there are plots for breeding corn with higher quality protein for painting data on the silking and tasseling dates of inbred lines and for inbreeding and crossbreeding tropical and European corns the Jamaica station backed by widespread tropical testing develops varieties especially adapted to lowland tropics to evaluate corn at high populations special tests are planted at up to 40,000 kernels per acre this and similar experiments measure yield differences caused by variations in row width and plant population and help breeders evaluate the features that varieties need to take full advantage of narrow rows and optimum plant populations specially adapted combine to the heart of another area of pioneers research and development producing corn that harvests well with modern equipment kernels Michelle easily and cobs must resist splitting promising crosses are tested at least three years then planted and evaluated by top-level farmers when a variety proves itself a top performer in yield and other key characteristics the parent corn Department and production Department take on the job of increasing the seed supply now the goal is to produce seed corn that gives farmers all the genetic advantages bred into the seed because this is a production operation client here men have the opportunity to carry on research in growing methods each field is coated and the use of various agricultural products and practices carefully scheduled applied and tested the results become the basis of corn growing recommendations for the farmer to help him bring out the seeds full potential here is a symbol that corn growers have learned to trust it is also the symbol of service provided by pioneers experienced agronomists armed with a knowledge gained from genetic and production research pioneer agronomists helped farmers make more profitable use of fertilizers chemicals and seed just as important as the information they give is the information they receive the feedback they get from the men who make their living growing corn from what they learn through these contacts the service agronomist determine the real needs of corn growers and relay that information to the corn breeders pioneer seed salesman also obtain feedback from corn growers these salesmen know farming and by frequent contact with corn growers they learn more about their needs and wants needs that are fulfilled by skillful interpretation of research results providing the modern corn grower with superior seed to best fit his needs today new generations of corn for greater harvests and profits tomorrow pioneer research may provide him with multiple eared corn for greater dependability and yields Corner can germinate and grow at lower temperatures to add days to the effective growing season corn with much greater yield potential than present varieties or through studies of plant chemistry kornet uses soil nutrients more efficiently all this could be part of tomorrow's new generation of corn that will be planted with the same confidence as the new generation of seed available today new varieties that provide the farmer with higher yields and more profit per acre playa near new generation seed corn for a greater harvest