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Rates and Patterns of Seeding Corn on High‐fertility Land 1
Author(s) -
Kohnke Helmut,
Miles S. R.
Publication year - 1951
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/agronj1951.00021962004300100005x
Subject(s) - statistician , agricultural experiment station , citation , pleasure , library science , history , agriculture , mathematics , psychology , computer science , statistics , archaeology , neuroscience
N 1 P z O ~ 1 Kz0 N I PZOS 1 K20 A.TES AND patterns of planting corn have been R evolved to suit the genetic ability of the plant, the fertility of the soil and the available tools. It has been remarked that the spacing between the corn rows corresponds to the width of the horse that pulls the cultivator. Be that as it may, the rates and patterns of corn planting as commonly used in the early 1940s were adjusted to open-pollinated corn and to the rather low rates of fertilization generally in vogue in the corn belt in the 1930s. The introduction of hybrid corn and the increased use of fertilizer, especially the plowing under of fertilizer, changed the yield potentialities. The occasional lack of response of corn to the application of large amounts of fertilizer on soils of medium or low fertility indicated that the individual corn plants might have reached their yielding capacity, and that there were not enough plants per acre to make use of the increased amount of plant nutrients. These observations pointed to the need for clearer knowledge of the yield that should be expected from a hybrid corn plant and how many plants should be planted per acre on land plentifully supplied with nutrients. It was just one segment of the agronomist's continuous search for ways of increasing crop yields. A secondary problem presented itself immediately. If a larger corn population were necessary to utilize high fertility, would it suffice to increase the number of plants per hill in the standard method of planting or would a new pattern have to be developed?