Premium
Performance of Two‐Ear Type of Corn Belt Maize 1
Author(s) -
Collins W. K.,
Russell W. A.,
Eberhart S. A.
Publication year - 1965
Publication title -
crop science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.76
H-Index - 147
eISSN - 1435-0653
pISSN - 0011-183X
DOI - 10.2135/cropsci1965.0011183x000500020002x
Subject(s) - geneticist , library science , operations research , mathematics , computer science , biology , genetics
W. K. Collins, W. A. Russell, and S. A. Eberhart CORN Belt plants of Zea mays L. have been selected for many years to produce only one harvestable ear. Before harvesting was mechanized, factors responsible for the selection pressure of one-ear types were: (a) farmers found it more convenient to harvest one large ear from a plant than several smaller ears; (b) seed for planting usually came from large ears selected from one-ear plants, and this tended to perpetuate one-ear types; and (c) corn shows were very popular in the era before hybrid corn and mechanized corn production and large ears usually won honors at these shows. Changes in ideas of ear size and type and wide scale use of mechanical harvesters have eliminated some of the reasons for growing one-ear-type hybrids. Southern prolific-type corns have been shown (2, 5, 6, 7, 11) to be less subject to genotype X environment interactions than adapted single-ear types. During the past 10 years, corn breeders have been examining the possibilities that prolific-type corn may have in the Corn Belt. Farmers are ultimately interested in total yield per se; however, they are highly interested in hybrids that are able to adjust favorably to changing environmental conditions. Most farmers are willing to sacrifice some yield potential to obtain a well-adapted hybrid that is likely to produce an aboveaverage yield under a wide range of uncontrollable environmental conditions. High yielding, two-ear types may be useful in the Corn Belt if they could be shown to interact less with changing environmental conditions than one-ear types. The genetic capacity of certain corn hybrids to produce two ears was investigated as a factor in genotype X environment interactions. Specifically, the objectives were (a) to compare the consistency of yield of 3 types of single crosses: 1-ear X 1-ear, 1-ear X 2-ear, and 2-ear X 2-ear at 4 planting rates, and (b) to relate the performance of the single crosses to degree of second-ear development.