Mybrid Com Hits Fast ' 

 Pace In Peoria County 



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HE best hybrid corn is out- 

 ^""-'f^ yielding ordinary corn (open 



^_y pollinated) from 10 to 20 

 bushels per acre this year in areas where 

 there was enough moisture to make a 

 fair crop. 



Test plots on the Harold Shissler 

 farm near Elmwood in Peoria county 

 showed that some hybrids are much 

 better than others. In fact, the poorest 

 hybrids were no better than the best 

 open pollinated. But the average of 

 the Hybrids was a good deal better than 

 the best open pollinated. 



Take Illinois 543. That's a top 

 notch double cross hybrid. In fact, it 

 was the best of eight or 10 on the 

 Shissler farm this year. Based on 100 

 hills husked out, the yield was esti- 

 mated at 65 bu. per acre, not bad for a 

 drought year. Right alongside Illinois 

 543 was some open {pollinated corn 

 from seed supplied by Ed Doubet who 

 is no slouch when it comes to growing 

 corn. The Doubet seed yielded 44.9 

 bu. per acre. A man named Appell in 

 the same community supplied some of 

 his best seed for the test plots. It made 

 47 bu. per acre. 



Another striking difference between 

 hybrid and open pollinated is in the 

 stalks. The hybrid stands up straight 

 as a company of soldiers in the kaiser's 

 army. The open pollinated was tangled, 

 some stalks lying flat on the ground. 



Other good hybrids were U. S. 44 

 that made 61.2 bu., Illinois 361 that 

 yielded 59.2 bu., and Illinois 710 that 

 was right behind No. 543 delivering 

 64.5 bu. per acre. We won't tell you 

 about the two or three hybrids that 

 produced less than 50 bu. But there 

 were some that yielded low along with 

 the best of the open pollinated corn. 



Mr. Shissler is one of a number of 

 Farm Bureau members in Peoria and 

 Henry counties who have hybrid seed 

 for sale this year because they worked 

 along with Farm Adviser J. W. 

 Whisenand and the Peoria and Henry 

 County Farm Bureaus. 



Whisenand got interested in seed 

 corn years ago when he was adviser in 

 Henry county. He persuaded a num- 

 ber of corn growers there to start 

 test plots, develop inbred strains, and 

 later cross these inbreds to get the hy- 

 brids that are making com history. 



When he became farm adviser in 



Peoria county, Mr. Whisenand con- 

 tinued the same type of work with such 

 men as Shissler who had the patience, 

 ambition, and means to tackle a hard 

 job. Don't think that producing hy- 

 brid seed is kid's play. It isn't. It 

 takes a lot of work. 



But what is hybrid corn? To pro- 

 duce hybrid you start inbreeding the 

 best seed stock you can find. Briefly 

 to develop the inbred stock you keep 

 both tassel and silks on growing corn 

 covered with paper bags. Then when 

 the pollen has dropped from the tassel 

 in the bag, you sprinkle it by hand on 

 the silks. That's how you get your 

 inbred ears. You plant the kernels 

 from these ears and do the same thing 

 the next year, and the next, and the 

 next until you have a pure inbred 

 strain. They're usually measly little 

 ears, those inbreds. But my what they 

 can do when you cross them. 



How do they do this? By planting, 

 say three rows of one inbred alongside 

 one row of another inbred. You then 

 detassel the three rows so that the ears 

 in those rows will be p>ollinated by the 

 tassels from the one row. That's how 

 the hybrid corn you pay $8 to |10 a 

 bushel or more for is produced. The 

 hybrid seed comes from the detassled 

 rows. It takes a gang of men working 

 constantly for two to three weeks to 

 nip off the tassels in a field of any size. 

 They must work back and forth in the 

 rows plucking off the suckers and 

 watching carefully for any tassels that 

 may show themselves. 



Shissler has about 500 bushels of the 

 543 strain to sell. Next year he plans 

 to have a good deal more. He recently 

 installed a |2500 seed corn drying out- 

 fit in a horse barn. He is drying seed 

 for neighbors as well as for himself. 

 The seed corn drier is an interesting 

 device. An electrically driven fan 

 forces warm air from the furnace on 

 the ground floor up into six seed corn 

 bins on the upper floors. The air ducts 

 are made so that the hot air may be let 

 into the bin either at the top or bottom. 

 This is to get the corn throughout the 

 bin down to "a uniform moisture con- 

 tent of around 12 per cent. The hot air 

 must be kept at a temperature of 100 

 to 105° Fahrenheit day and night to 

 avoid ruining the seed. Shissler sleeps 

 on a cot in the drying house while the 

 "fire" is on to keep the thermometer 



at the right temperature continuously. 

 A lot of corn comes in that runs up 

 to 25 per cent moisture. Frequent tests 

 have shown that seed corn high in 

 moisture content not only loses its 

 strength, but also is prone to develop 

 disease. When you dry seed corn 

 quickly it puts corn diseases to rout. 

 In fact, modern drying houses promise 

 to revolutionize methods of combating 

 root rot and other bacterial diseases 

 that attack corn. 



■•eOOD CORN? SURE, ITS HYBRID" 

 says Harold Shissler. And 65 bu. an acre 

 it not bad in a drought year. 



100 HILLS TO THE PILE 

 Each a different variety and what a differ- 

 ence. Hybrid yielded heavier, stood straighter. 

 Farm Adviser J. W. Whisenand (below). 



NOVEMBER. 1936 



