Ottumwa tri-weekly courier., 1904-05-03
SEED CORN TESTS.
EXPERIMENT AT AGRICULTURAL
COLLEGE SHOWS STARTLING
RESULTS.
Actual Tests With to2 Ears Of Corn
chos en- From Farmers Seed Stocks
Show Many PecuIlarities in Repro
ducing Power Of Corn.

Farmers of Wapello county will be
interested in the report of an expert
ment with seed corn conducted by Pro-
fessor F. G. Holden, Of the Iowa State
Agricultural college at Ames during
last year, an account Of which, was
used by him in his talks delivered on
his recent tour with the Burlington
seed corn train. This experiment was
made with 102 ears of corn secured
from and selected by forty-three farm
ers who reside near the state institu-
tion from their. own stocks of seed.
In writing of the experiment Mr..
Holden says:
The question Of seed corn in Iowa for
the season Of 1904 is important, for
upon the type, quality and terminating
power of the seed planted will depend
In large measure, the stand, yield and
quality of over nine millions acres of
corn this year. Too much emphasis
cannot be placed upon the fact that
success or failure in corn production
is based very largely upon the seed
planted. Iowa now has annually nine
and one.quarter million acres in corn,
and an increase of one bushel of corn
per acre means to Iowa farmers over
three million dollars.
Record of Individual Ears.
Maximum yields can be obtained on
ly by using the best seeds of the best
varieties. These seeds can be secured
only by careful selection and breeding.
Last spring the most perfect kernels
from 102 of our best ears of corn were
planted in rows side by side, each row
being planted with kernels from sin.
gle ear. At husking time each row was
harvested by itself and the record of
yield, barren stalks, broken stalks,
suckers, ETC., of each individual ear
was thus secured.
The following table shows the wide
variation in the results obtained from
the different ears:
Ear No. Blu, per A.
rs Yielded 90.56 bus. per acre. 80 Sc
SO Yielded 36.05 bus. per acre ..3606
~ Gave 96.5 per cent Of stand 5000
70 Gave 43 per cent of stand. .36,27,
"a Gave 258 broken stalks or 81
per cent -. -. -. .67.52
s5 Gave 41 broken stalks or per
19 Gave 79 barren stalks or 21.5
PSA
SO Gave 6 barren stalks or 1.5 per
cent -. .....75.S5
~ Gave 106 suckers or d per
cent 80 -. .77.93
rs Gave suckers 49,. -. ..90.58
This record Illustrates very clearly
the great difference in the producing
powers of different ears. Some ears
produced more than six times as many
broken stalks as others. Other ears
seemed to be predisposed to barren
ness. For example, ear No. 10 gave
|79 barren stalks while ear 83 gave
only 6. The variation in the mum Der
Of suckers was still more striking, ear
|37 giving LOG suckers while ear rs was
entirely free.
Ears At, which Is not given in the
above table, and 83, are also very inter-
esting by way Of comparison. The
rows planted from these two ears had
practically the same number of stalks.
Ear Al produced 55 bushels per acre.
It had 81 barren stalks. 244 broken
stalks and 62 suckers. Ear SO yielded
76 bushels, had only barren stalks,
130 broken stalks and 5 suckers. The
figures illustrate clearly the wide range
In two ears, not only in producing
power, but also in their tendencies to
reproduce inherited qualities.
The following diagram shows the
yield in bushels per acre Of the ten
highest yielding rows in our breeding
plats. The five lowest yielding rows
and the average Of the entire one
hundred and two breeding rows are
also shown.
Record Of Individual Ears.