UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



1 BULLETIN No. 836 dBBQfc 



•^&Mfa~i*)K*- Contribution from the Bureau of Plant Industry ^ SJXr tiy^^' 



jj\%^^^L WM. A. TAYLOR, Chief JW?W, 



Washington, D. C. 



PROFESSIONAL PAPER 



April 27, 1920 



BROOM-CORN EXPERIMENTS AT WOODWARD, 



OKLAHOMA. 



By Benton E. Rothgeb, Assistant Agronomist in Charge of Grain-Sorghum and 

 Broom-Corn Investigations, and John B. Sieglingeb, Assistant Agriculturist, 

 Office of Cereal Investigations. 



contents. 



Page. 



Experiments with broom corn 1 



Description of the district 2 



Topography 2 



Soil 2 



Climatic conditions 3 



The Woodward Field Station 10 



The broom corns 10 



Classification 10 



Experimental conditions 11 



Varietal experiments 16 



Date-of-seeding experiments 26 



Page. 

 The broom corns — Continued. 



Comparative yields in the date 



of-seeding experiments 29 



Rate-of-seeding experiments 30 



Comparative yields in the rate- 

 of-seeding experiments 33 



Combined rate-of-seeding and 



spacing experiments 34 



Harvesting experiments 47 



Wearing quality of the brush 49 



Nursery experiments v 49 



Conclusions 53 



EXPERIMENTS WITH BROOM CORN. 



The experiments 1 with broom corn at the Woodward Field Sta- 

 tion were started in 1914. The results of five years of work are now 

 available. "While this may be too short a period from which to draw 

 final conclusions, it is thought that the results thus far obtained are 

 worthy of publication. Much interest is shown in the crop at this 

 time and a large number of inquiries are being received for informa- 

 tion with regard to varietal adaptation, the best time to sow, and the 

 rate of seeding which will give best results in both yield and quality 

 of brush. The results obtained at Woodward and reported herein 



1 These experiments were conducted in cooperation with the Office of Dry-Land Agri- 

 culture of the Bureau of Plant Industry. Mr. E. F. Chilcott, of that office, is superin- 

 tendent of the station. Credit is hereby given him for his hearty cooperation and assist- 

 ance in conducting these experiments. The senior writer was in charge of this work at 

 the station during the seasons of 1914 and 1915. The junior writer was appointed 

 assistant agriculturist on October 5, 1915, and conducted the experiments at the station 

 in the seasons of 1916, 1917, and 1918. 



147841°— 20— Bull. 836 1 



