




WHY IS HYBRID 
CORN SUPERIOR TO | 
OPEN POLLINATED? 

All open pollinated corn is ‘‘mongrel’’ corn—it 
is a mixture. Some plants are good plants. They 
have a good stalk and root and a good ear and they 
mature in season. But other plants in a field of, 
open pollinated corn are poor plants that cut down 
the yield. The stalks lodge or break and make 
extra work at harvest. The reason why hybrids are 
generally better than open pollinated varieties of 
the same maturity is that the process of breeding 
has eliminated the undesirable plants. The corn 
at the left in the picture above is open pollinated. 
The hybrid at the right is more uniform, makes a 
bigger crop of better quality corn. 



CAN | SAVE SEED 
FROM MY CROP 
OF HYBRID CORN? 
No, you have to buy your seed for every crop if 
you want to get real hybrid because the real hybrid 
has to be produced by crossing pure lines or single 
crosses of pure lines. The ears you get out of your 
6 
field are partially inbred. And this ‘‘second gener- 
ation’’ seed will yield perhaps 25% less. It cer- 
tainly does not pay to plant second generation seed. 

