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Relation of Blade Injury to the Yielding Ability of Corn Plants 1
Author(s) -
Dungan George H.
Publication year - 1930
Publication title -
agronomy journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.752
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1435-0645
pISSN - 0002-1962
DOI - 10.2134/agronj1930.00021962002200020007x
Subject(s) - george (robot) , crop , production (economics) , citation , agricultural experiment station , relation (database) , blade (archaeology) , agronomy , agricultural economics , mathematics , horticulture , agricultural science , computer science , agriculture , library science , history , environmental science , artificial intelligence , economics , database , biology , archaeology , macroeconomics
Definite percentages of the leaf area of corn plants were removed at different stages in the plant's development by the use of hand shears. This was done by taking off whole blades and by cutting out portions of the blades. The results show that the injury occasioned by blade removal was much more severe when the treatment was applied during the early silk stage than when administered later, and that the reduction in yield became progressively less with each advance in the development of the plant. The quality of the grain was influenced markedly by loss of blades. Plants having blades removed during the early silk stage were capable of adjusting the size of the ear to the reduced photosynthetic area and they produced grain of almost normal quality. The corn having the lightest test weight was produced by plants treated when 76% of the plants had brown silks. Cutting off the outer or tip half of each blade was slightly more injurious than cutting out alternate 4-inch sections on each side of the mid-rib and both of these treatments were much more detrimental to yield than the loss of one side of all the blades or the removal of half the number of blades. Breaking the mid-rib of each leaf was somewhat more harmful than slitting the blade to the mid-rib on each side. These treatments applied during the early silk stage resulted in a little over 20% reduction in grain yield.