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Show Corn Variety Adaptable This brief report on breeding and introducing a new corn variety is hardly a story in itself. it-self. Unless the grower provides the necessary cultural practices, the traits built into the variety may never bear fruition. Just a few minutes of improper im-proper harvesting, in fact, can threaten the results of years of breeding and research. To maximize the improvements bred into a new variety, the grower must contribute expertise exper-tise in crop management. As a wise sage once predicted . . . you can't have the one without the other. in its maturity range, once its maturation process starts, the grain dries very quickly." This allows for earlier harvesting which "pays off in a big way in the event of early rains. " G-4507 responds dramatically to good farming practices. Inadequate cultural procedures inhibit its ability to attain peak yields. "Proper watering, fertilizing fer-tilizing and correct plant populations," Hornbrook emphasized, em-phasized, "are essential for maximum production." The recommended plant population at harvest time for this variety should not exceed 26,000 plants. Yields drop perceptibly per-ceptibly if the population is substantially above or below this figure. "Crowding this variety," Hornbrook warned, "tends to reduce ear size significantly." The ability of this new variety to produce top yields is indicated in-dicated by test plantings completed com-pleted last season over an extremely ex-tremely wide range of growing conditions, including Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Utah. In Utah, where corn silage yields average 18 tons per acre, La Mar Skeen, who farms in the Warren area, produced 30 tons of silage per acre with this new introduction. "We get more grain ou,t of G-4507," said Skeen, "than other varieties with the same maturity. The leaves have a.n upright growth, the kernels are big and the ears are large." Archie Hunt, of Plain City, Utah, produced 31 V4 tons of corn silage per acre with this new variety. "The leaves are placed higher, the grain looks better, and it has a long enough maturity for this area," Hunt claimed. During the past few years, the multiplicity of new con-varieties con-varieties being introduced has made selecting the right one an especially difficult undertaking. under-taking. This year, however, one variety might ease the decisionmaking decision-making procedure. That's ' :iecause it has already been pre-tested in replicated .valuation plots and in limited commercial plantings not in just one or two isolated areas, but in every major corn growing section of the United States. Although this new variety, Funk's G-4507, was developed mainly for high grain producing potential, it is proving very successful for silage not only in Utah but throughout the Northwest and Inter-Mountain states. "The maturity of G-4507," -aid Bert Hornbrook, plant , areeder for Funk Seeds International, Inter-national, who developed this variety, "is too long for grain in Utah but it is such a big plant that it works ideally for silage here." Because grain contributes so significantly to the nutritional value of silage, it should prove interesting to review G 4507's performance thus far as a grain variety. This new introduction has produced yields consistently above 200 bushels per acre all the way from the deep south into in-to Tennessee and Kentucky, through Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, then south and west into New Mexico, Arizona and California. Two growers in first year trial plantings last season reported yields of 304.6 and 337.7 bushels per acre - that's in excess of 17,000 pounds of grain per acre. Seldom, if ever, has a new variety in its first commercial test year established such a consistently high yield average over such a far reaching and diverse growing area. How do you explain it? "It is a rare exception to find a variety with such an extremely ex-tremely broad adaptation area," said Hornbrook. "One explanation is that the parents of G-4507 were from separate growing areas, were subjected to different growing conditions and stresses and possessed diverse germ plasm. Just how the genes from the parents match up in the progeny." Hornbjook con-'inuetf. con-'inuetf. "is a matter' of chance 'ii random arrangement." Hornbrook's breeding program was hardly a random undertaking. G-4507 is a single ..toss variety developed from iwo separate parent lines. "It look from eight to ten years to 'ltvelop each line." The new hybrid was then tested for four years before being released. In otal . . . "14 to 15 years were required to breed this variety. 'Each line," Hornbrook stated, "was chosen from hundreds hun-dreds of other lines which means about 99 percent of the lines-tested were discarded. " The top grain yield built into G-4507 was accomplished through one line contributing long tars and the other co,n- under normal to excellent growing conditions it is one of the highest yielding varieties available." Another interesting trait of this variety is that "its excellent ex-cellent seedling vigor very emphatically em-phatically crowds out the weeds." This tall growing silage hybrid is characterized by broad, upright growing leaves. The plants thus produce not only a high grain content but also "more green matter." Total leaf production is far greater than on comparable but shorter growing varieties. "The leaf profile," Hornbrook Hor-nbrook explained, "captures more sunlight and this tends to increase the efficiency of the photosynthetic process. The additional energy generated ' within the plant adds to the grain producing potential. "This variety," Hornbrook explained, "differs from other hybrids in that it dries down quite rapidly. Although it may flower later than other hybrids -i |
