UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



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BULLETIN No. 1014 



Contribution from the Bureau of Plant Industry 

 WM. A. TAYLOR, Chief 



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Washington, D. C. 



January 11, 1922 



EFFECT OF DATE OF SEEDING ON GERMINATION, 

 GROWTH, AND DEVELOPMENT OF CORN. 



By E. B. Brown, Agronomist, and H. S. Garrison, Scientific Assistant, Corn Investi- 

 gations, Office of Cereal Investigations. 



CONTENTS. 



Commonly observed effects of date of seeding. 1 



State experiments 1 



Experiments at the Arlington Experimental 



Farm 3 



Results obtained 8 



Effects on germination 8 



Page. 



Results obtained — Continued. 



Effects on height and rate of growth 8 



Effects on development 9 



Correlation of effects 9 



Summary...- 11 



COMMONLY OBSERVED EFFECTS OF DATE OF SEEDING. 



Corn growers in localities with a long season have observed that 

 early and late seedings of the same variety of corn usually show wide 

 differences in rate of growth, total growth, and number of days 

 required to reach maturity. In general, corn which is seeded early 

 requires a longer time to come up than that which is seeded later. 

 The plants also grow more slowly, bear their ears lower, and do not 

 attain so great a height. The number of ears to the plant, the size 

 of the ears, and the number of suckers have not been found to be 

 affected consistently by the time of seeding. 



STATE EXPERIMENTS. 



Numerous experiments on seeding at different dates have been 

 conducted by the State agricultural experiment stations. The 

 primary purpose of most of these experiments has been to determine 

 the relative value of the different dates of seeding in influencing the 

 crop yields. In the published results of some of the experiments 

 the only data presented have been comparisons of yields from the 

 different seedings. In others, additional data have been presented 

 upon the height of stalks and the number of days from seeding to 

 maturity. 



68201°— 21— Bull. 1014 1 



