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Show Hybrid Corn Yields 95 Bushels to Acre By Planting Thicker, 104 Bushels Resulted Hybrid corn's ability to produce more bushels per acre than open-pollinated open-pollinated varieties was compared to the "superiority of a well-bred Jairy cow over a scrub animal" by Prof. D. F. Beard, extension agronomist agron-omist of the agricultural extension service of Ohio State university. "In hybrid corn, we have a belter bred strain of plants capable of converting raw materials such as nitrogen, ni-trogen, phosphorus, potash, water, carbon dioxide and other elements into corn at more efficient rates than the old scrub open-pollinated varieties. On the same land and with the same 'feed' provided, good hybrids will yield 10 to 12 bushels more corn per acre than open-pollinated varieties. Moreover, the hybrid hy-brid plants are sturdier and show less tendency to lodge." In the case of both hybrid corn and pedigreed dairy stock, the matter mat-ter of ample feed and a well-balanced ration are essential if maximum maxi-mum production is to be achieved. With hybrid corn, this means providing pro-viding the soil with sufficient plant foods in the proper balance, via the fertilizer bag. Four Plants Per Hill. Professor Beard emphasized that In addition to the use of more fertilizer, ferti-lizer, farmers could profitably adopt the practice of planting hybrid corn thicker to obtain greater yields. "At the Ohio agricultural experiment experi-ment station," he said; "good corn aybrids yielded 95 bushels to the icre as a two-year average, and open-pollinated open-pollinated corn 80 bushels, when both were thinned to three plants per hilL With four plants per hill, lowever, the hybrids yielded 104.3 pushels per acre and the open-polli-pated varieties 84.1." The difference in favor of hybrids Increased from 15 bushels to 20.2 pushels per acre for the extra plant per hill. This principle was borne put last summer, in a southern Ohio location, with later maturing hybrids, hy-brids, where stands of three plants per hill produced average yields of 92.8 bushels per acre and stands averaging 3 plants per hill gave fields of 101.9 bushels per acre. "Unless heavier fertilization and thicker planting go along with good corn hybrids, users of hybrid seed fail to cash in on all the advantage pf hybrids." |