Short-stature corn

[billhammond]

Today I learned about this -- an excerpt from Strib colleague Evan Ramstad:

As a teenager in a small Iowa town in the 1980s, I would join dozens of kids around this time of summer on crews at a Cargill research plot where we helped scientists control pollination of corn hybrids under development.

We'd start work very early to finish before the heat of the day. By 8 a.m., we'd all be covered in dew, sweat, dirt and pollen.

The last summer I did it, we were only about halfway through the season when a big windstorm toppled the field and ended our work. We kids went back to school with a little less money than we expected and a lesson in the risks of farming.

For decades, crop scientists improved corn yields by making plants taller. Reaching 10 feet or more by harvest time, these plants produced bigger ears with more grain. Now, economics and harsh weather are steering farmers and seed companies in the other direction.

Shorter corn plants — topping out around 7 feet — are better able to withstand thunderstorms and windstorms.

After a derecho devastated Iowa in August 2020, photos of toppled silos, buildings and trees stunned most of us. But the photos that intrigued farmers and crop scientists showed fields of short-stature corn still standing after the storm packed winds of 120 mph and caused $11 billion in damage.

Shorter plants also make it easier for farmers to add fertilizer to fields late in the growing season. They can't navigate tractors and sprayers through taller plants after midsummer.

Scientists and farmers are finding the shorter plants are producing ears with nearly as much, and often the same, amount of corn as the tall plants do. And since it's possible to fit more of the shorter plants into a field, per-acreage yields actually rise.

"This is a Corn Belt-wide thing," said Jeff Coulter of the University of Minnesota Extension. "The major seed companies are working diligently on it."

For 12 years, Stine Seed, Iowa's independent seed giant, has been selling shorter-stature hybrids to farmers. They now account for half of the company's corn business by volume, Myron Stine, the company's president, told me last week.

This summer, Bayer — the multinational giant that owns Dekalb and Channel seeds, which has about 60 Minnesota farmers involved in its early commercialization effort — joined Stine. Other seed companies are following suit.

"If you think about all the innovations over the last three to five decades — switching from in-breds to hybrids, bringing in traits to protect against pests like rootworm, herbicide tolerance, breeding advances — farmers figured out the most they could get from them," said Denise Bouvrette, a scientist at Bayer Crop Science. "This is the next step-change."

[Rob Hanesworth]

I never detasseled corn but lots of my schoolmates did so for Pioneer Seed which was a dominant seed corn producer around Sharpsville and Tipton County.

I did make a few bucks chopping rogue cornstalks out of bean fields so they wouldn't cross-pollinate/contaminate nearby corn fields.

[Cornflake]

I've heard that corn should be as high as an elephant's eye. It should look like it's reaching clear up to the sky.

[epaul]

Breeding is why corn is King!

Figures made up, but the ratio is correct:

In the last twenty years:

- There has been $500,000,000 invested in breeding improved varieties of corn.
- There has been $500,000 invested in improved strains of wheat.
- There has been $.50 invested in breeding improved strains of rye.
- And there has been $.005 invested in buckwheat, flax, and millet combined.

I kid you not, if I were to head out to the elevator in town and buy some rye seed to plant this fall, it would be the same damn variety I grew in 1985 (the last year I grew rye). And if I were to head out and buy some buckwheat seed, I wouldn't make it back home as I have instructed friends to shoot out the tires of my truck if I every try plant that worthless shit crop again. You look at buckwheat wrong and the few seeds that actually bothered to set will shatter out and become next year's weeds instead of this year's crop.

This isn't a plot. Breeding dollars follow demand. And the resultant breeding improvements that result increase the demand further, which in turn increases further the dollars that get poured into breeding, which again improves product which again increases the demand because the resultant product has become just so damn good. Corn has become a near miraculous crop that can be grown nearly anywhere on the planet for nearly any purpose.

If variety and diversity in our cropping landscape is wanted, serious dollars have to be invested in currently shit crops like rye, flax, and buckwheat to take them out of the 1800's. (invested in University and big dollar private breeding programs, not organic mother earth types playing farmer).

[epaul]

Back in the 70s, Ag Canada realized Canadian farmers were losing out big time in the world edible oil market because they were too far north (especially at the time) to grow soybeans or corn. So Canada, as a country, invested several millions of dollars into improving rape seed, a shit crop grew well in short cool climates (rape seed is a close plant cousin to mustard with a market in industrial, non-food, plant oils). And this breeding program resulted the development of Canola (a weird acronym which is supposed to reference "Canada and Oil").

Canola is now the second largest food grade oil crop in world, and Canada has 90% of this lucrative market all to itself.

I really like Canada. They just do things better than we do.

[howard lee]

I hate the smell of canola oil being used in a skillet. It really stinks.

[epaul]

As a person invested in the market success of soybean and sunflower oils, I agree. That damn Canola stuff should be banned!

(I saw on Facebook that regular use of Canola oil can lead to penis drop in men. Not droop, drop. As in fall off and eaten by your cat kind of drop.)

[david]

I thought that there were a number of dark sides to corn:

Annually wiping out soil nutrients, requiring a heavy dose of a multitude of chemical dumps into the soil for next year's crops, requiring large amounts of water, fertilizer costs nearing the costs of production, high nitrogen and other chemical runoffs into local aquifers, genetic seed mods that make such similar variants, with lack of variety, susceptible to large scale disasters.

Here is part of my noted prejudice: I had to move irrigation pipes to water the f-ing corn that Oregon State University planted for livestock feed. I was about 5 foot 7 inches tall and 110 lbs at the time. The corn reached up to 6 feet 6 inches tall near cultivation time.

The process was to unhook a length of aluminum pipe, either 3 of 4 inches in diameter, (depending on the proximity to the water pump, and with a length of 15 to 20 feet?); then balance that pipe above my head, and walk through the corn stalks for 10 to 20 rows for the next location. The corn leaves, and sometimes the tassels, were dumping dust onto me while I was hot and sweaty.

As the corn grew taller, the "risers," (which were a piece of pipe taller than the corn, with a sprinkler head on the top), were part of the carriage package. The risers had to be taller than the corn.

Yes, I understand that corn does not need to be irrigated in some parts of the country. To that I say, you lucky ... .

Ever since my two years of corn irrigation, I have not liked corn.

[Dub]

One of my nieces, raised in a small Iowa town on the mississippi, used to do corn de-tasseling in the summer for extra money. She finished high school at an elite school on Califorinia’s Monterey Peninsula on scholarship. There was no way her parents could afford that. Her classmates were all ultra-rich and had no idea what life in rural Iowa might be like. When she told them about corn de-tasseling, they all thought it sounded cool and wanted to visit her over summer break so they could de-tassel corn. I don’t think any of them ever did it but it sure handed us all a laugh. She went on to Brown on a scholarship.

Her older sister had gone to Yale (again on scholarship) and once had a black roommate who didn’t know the meaning of the word wages.

Iowa is well known for its corn. I think most of the corn goes to make corn syrup and ethanol. The rest goes to feed pigs. Iowa is also the world’s largest pork producer. As a result, Iowa is number one in another category.… it boasts the worst water in the USA.

[epaul]

There are a lot of non-farmers telling farmers what they should grow. Spend the time instead telling the world what to buy. Farmers grow what the market wants, and the market, the world market wants wheat, corn and beans. If you want farmers to grow Kernza, Quanza and millet, then buy those crops at a price farmers can afford to grow them. Tell the world to stop asking, begging, for corn, wheat, and beans. Tell the world what it really wants and needs is some kind of oddball bird seed it doesn't know what to do with.

Greenies yelp about all the water and nutrients needed to grow the crops the world demands. Corn takes up too much water and nutrients they claim. They don't understand that any crop grown to current production levels will take current levels of water and nutrients. There are no miracle crops that grow without water and nutrients. Corn takes X amount of nutrients while miracle hippie crop only takes Y amount of nutrients these green experts say. They ignore in their figuring that corn can reliably produce 12,000-14,000 lbs. of valued product per acre while miracle hippie crop Kwanza will only produce 800-1200 lbs. of product per acre, product no one currently wants to buy. Greenies are happy, world is starving.

Wheat, corn, and beans have been the basis of the human diet for ten thousand years. These crops are the result of ten thousand years of domestication and development. They weren't selected as the crops to domesticate ten thousand years ago by accident or ignorance. You would think ten thousand years of feeding humanity and allowing it prosper would garner these crops a little respect and gratitude. But, no, not from some.

You want to start from scratch with some new crop that was wisely ignored by those savant farmers back in the days of yore and mammoths, fine, go ahead. Make this new crop a reliable producer and convince people to buy it. But understand, if this new "wonder" crop is to reach the same production levels we are currently getting from wheat, corn, and beans, it will require the same, or more, amount of water, fertilizer, and chemical inputs. There is no free lunch. If by some miracle you can get something like Kfunza to reliably produce 80-100 bushels an acre instead of its current 12-15, it will take the same level of water, nitrogen, phosphate, potassium, and other soil nutrients as our current wheat varieties require.

(nature's law. Annual grass plants will always produce more seed than perennial grass plants. Annual plants put all their energy into seed then the plant dies. Perennial grass plants can only put so much energy into producing seed as they have to devote a good portion of their energy into loading up their root system with enough carbs to initiate a new cycle of growth come spring. Annuals 100% seed. Perennials 50/50 seed and root.)

[John B]

Finally, corn for those of us of... lesser stature.

[millring]

The walls are up in the countryside now. Instead of rolling through wide open landscape where the vistas were endless in almost all directions, I now drive down hallways and corridors.

The Midwest puts the "corn" in corner. The rural art of the rolling stop ends abruptly when the corn is tall. You can't detect cross traffic until your nose is nearly into the intersection.

Oh, in deeply rural areas (like my route. You know how rural my route is? ... I have an Earl, a Homer, and two Wilburs on my route) ..... anyway, as I was saying before I interrupted myself, in the deeply rural areas of dirt and gravel roads, you actually CAN detect oncoming cross traffic by the rooster tail of dust they kick up. You can see it above the corn. Someone's headed your way.

There are still windows. It's not all walls. The bean fields, alfalfa, and harvested wheat fields still open wide the view to the miles of sun dappled green and gold.

[drlj]

I live here in the Big City(pop 30,000)with sidewalks and everything, but I go around the corner and it’s corn as far as I can see. Some fields of corn that were near when Barb and I moved to this megalopolis are now field of houses. I liked the fields of corn more. Big cities like this have their benefits, like indoor plumbing and grocery stores but, if these Illinois people keep moving in, our fields of corn will be just a memory.
And, yes, we moved here from IL, but we moved to IL from IN in the first place so we are bonafide Hoosiers who have returned to our roots and corn.

[epaul]

Tiling is a focal point in modern ag vs environmentalists. It is a boon to some (me), a bane to others (me).
Tiling: www.ag.ndsu.edu/tiledrainage/documents/faq-about-subsurface-tile-drainage

My farm has been tiled. And it has been graded and ditched by land scrapers operating with laser and satellite guidance. The production benefits are as clear a crystal bell ringing in a glass cathedral.

Three years ago we got a heavy shot of rain mid-summer. Six-plus inches all at once. Neighboring fields suffered drown-outs and the crops lost yield to stress from waterlogged soil. My renter's crops suffered no drown-outs and the crop was superb.

Last spring was wet, wet, wet. My guy got in an easy ten days or so ahead of the adjacent un-tilled land, got better crop emergence, and again, a clearly better crop.

Neighbor guy saw enough. He tiled his land that fall.

It took a little longer for the north to tile (old news in the corn belt proper), but tiling is now being done by any who can afford it and has land good enough to justify the substantial investment.

But while farmer guy sees better production and much, much more reliable production with subsoil tiling and lasered surface ditches, the environmental eye sees something much different. Vastly improved farmland drainage has increased, and rapidly so, the discharge of excess farm water into waterways, rivers, and, eventually, the ocean. This farmland drainage contains unwanted leached fertilizers (like nitrates and phosphates) that can degrade water quality.

The degree of farm to stream degradation is case by case. My farm, for instance, drains into a swamp a couple miles west of me, and a swamp is an excellent water filter, but other systems can shoot pretty quickly into a river. Bottom line, nitrate levels are rising in many rivers and the dead spot in the Gulf is growing due to farmland to river phosphates.

I’m on both sides. Nutrient run off from farm land to river is bad, and tiling and modern drainage system increase this run off. But, from a production standpoint, a well-drained and tiled farm fields will produce despite nearly any water event nature throws at it. And if heavier rainfall events are in the cards, as they seem to be, well-drained and tiled farmland becomes not just a bonus for the farmer’s billfold but very possibly a matter of food security.

[epaul]

This is an issue that can be managed. This country needs to manage its water. Excess water events and farmland runoff isn’t going to go away. The opposite. There will be more. And it is a waste to send a flood of valuable fresh water racing off to an ocean (or town) that doesn’t want it. There are dozens of ways to hold excess water runoff in various types of reservoirs. Whether created swamp, pond, or wild life preserve, these designed water holdings would act as a filter and purifier before passing their overflow down ocean way. And in dry years, locally held water reserves can sustain local water tables and wildlife alike (or even be a source for irrigation).

But, the deal is, such a system will take massive public investment. Offering tax credits to a landowner as a cheap carrot to take valuable land out of production won’t cut it, this would have to be an interstate highway kind of big ass infrastructure deal. And the government can’t cheap out on the land it purchases. Pay three times the going rate, four times the rate, then there won’t be a stream of fights and lawsuits. And pay off those who neighbor these projects as a swamp suddenly showing up next door will eventually end up leading a stream of geese to their cornfield. Open the Federal billfold. This is public investment for the public good (and for the birds, bees, and critters)

The farmland clock is not going to be turned back to the 40’s or 50’s. 40 acre fields with rock piles, wet holes, and weedy fence rows aren’t coming back. It won’t be. It can’t be. Farm fields increasingly are going to shed excess water like a duck. Where is that water going to go? And how quickly is it going to get there? It is going to be. Make a plan for it.

[epaul]

I differ from those I disparagingly (and I suppose unfairly) call greenies in the following.

I believe the way out of the trap we are in is by going forward, not backwards. There is no backwards solution to be had or found.

By increasing farmland production, by tiling and drainage and by improving the crops we plant by all breeding methods available, including genetic, I believe we will be able to take an increasing amount of farmland out of production... and this land can be planted with clover, alfalfa, flowers, bushes, shrubs and trees... and turned loose for the wild.

I believer this is very doable, if not derailed by greenie legislation that would try turn the clock impossibly back. Intense production on select land will result in more land available to restore habitat on. And the three things that matter most to wildlife of all types is habitat, habitat, and habitat.

(my hope is that we can bring wolves back to Indiana