I was very happy with the fertilizer placement. This created gaps at the ends of fields where Greif started planting. I cleaned them up with spraying. He concedes, ''I like to tinker. There's a lot of disagreement whether varying seed population is worth it, he says.
Some hybrids respond well.
Greif says the short, more nonflexible ear hybrids from Garst seem to respond better to varying the population. In contrast, the flexible-ear Garst hybrids do well from 20,000 to 30,000 population. The lighter, sandier soils with lower CSR get lower populations, depending on the hybrid. This may go down to 20,000 an acre. With the 80 CSR ground, Greif may plant as much as 33,000.