Grew CORN BELT CRUPS eit 

" VIEW OF A LARGE SEED PRODUCTION FIELD OF HYBRID CORN 


5 Important Reasons on Why to 
Plant Our Hybrid Corns 
1. GREATER YIELD—Hybrid Corns usually 
yield more bushels of corn per acre over open 
pollinated corns, year in and year out, wher- 
ever they are planted. 
2. EASIER HARVESTING—The uniform 
height of the ears of most Hybrid Corns makes 
them twice as easily harvested. No stooping, 
no scraping in the mud is required. There are 
virtually no down stalks, and the ears are all 
of the same level. 
3. STIFFER STALKS—When hard winds lay 
other corns flat, most Hybrid Corns stand firm 
and erect. The stalks are so much stiffer, the 
roots so much deeper that the problem of 
twisted and down corn is virtually eliminated. 
4. DEEPER ROOTS—tThe roots of our Hybrid 
Corns have been known to go down eight feet. 
When drouth strikes they dig down for moisture 
and produce a crop where other corns fail. In 
normal years these deeper roots tap a supply 
of food that ordinary corns never reach. 
5. A SURER CROP—It costs less than $1.00 
per acre to plant our Hybrid Corns. For that 
nominal cost you get more bushels of corn per 
acre plus protection against wind, drouth, dis- 
ease and pests plus uniform ears of a distinct 
quality. 

The Development of HYBRID CORN Was a Dramatic Agricultural Event 
The most dramatic agricultural event of this 
generation is the development of hybrid corn. 
The research work on hybrid corn, which has 
put millions of dollars into the pockets of farm- 
ers throughout the corn belt, was conducted 
largely by research departments maintained 
by commercial seed companies and by the 
various state experiment stalions. Years of 
careful research are required before any hybrid 
seed can be produced. The work of breeding 
hybrid corns began years ago, but it has only 
been in recent years that varieties suitable to 
the South have been developed. 
Inbreeding Was the First Step 
The basis of hybrid corn breeding is ‘'self- 
ing,’ which is the closest kind of inbreeding. 
The breeder starts with a good ear of corn from 
some .standard, productive variety. He planis 
the ear and covers the shoots with a paper bag 
before the silks are exposed. When the tassels 
start to shed their pollen the silks are carefully 
hand-fertilized with pollen from the same plant, 
and then kept covered so that no other pollen 
can reach them. (Each kernel on an ear of corn 
is the result of the union of a pollen grain from 
the tassel with an ovary at the base of the silk.) 
The same process is repeated year after year, 
The second year plants decrease rapidly in size 
and vigor as inbreeding continues, but the re- 
sulting plants also become more uniform. After 
five to seven years of "'selfing,’’ the characters 
that remain are definitely fixed. Because it is 
possible to mate a corn plant to itself, as much 
has been accomplished in five generations as 

could have been done in seventeen generations 
of brother-sister mating. 
These finished inbreds, which thereafter can 
be grown from year to year without change, 
are the standardized parts which the hybrid 
corn breeder is now prepared to put together. 
Inbreds Are Not Much to Look At 
To the practical corn grower these inbreds do 
not look like much. They are small and puny, 
nothing to brag about as corn; but they are no 
longer mongrels like the open-pollinated strain 
from which they started. They are purebreds. 
This is a hard point to make clear. Sometimes 
farmers will ask, ‘‘How long will it take for an 
inbred to run out?’ The answer is that it never 
runs out. The exciting thing about an inbred is 
that it does not change at all after it has been 
established. 
All of this inbred development has taken 
many years of work on the part of the breeders 
of Hybrid Corn. Thousands of inbreds have 
“fallen by the wayside’’ for every one that 
has been kept. 
Making Hybrids Out of Inbreds 
The next step is to cross these inbreds. The 
result is as astonishing as touching a match to 
gunpowder. For some reason that scientists 
have not yet fully explained, when one puny 
little inbred is mated to another the offspring 
grown from that seed is astoundingly strong, 
large and vigorous. Something happens when 
the germ plasms from two different purebred 

THIS PICTURE DEMONSTRATES THE DIFFERENCE IN STANDING ABILITY BETWEEN HYBRID 
AND OPEN-POLLINATED CORN. THE PICTURE WAS TAKEN IN A TEST PLOT IN MISSISSIPPI 
RUSSELL-HECKLE « 
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strains are brought together that produces a 
degree of vigor which no one has ever been 
able to secure in any other way. 
Something else happens, too. The offspring 
may combine the desirable characters of both 
parents, with the undesirable characters sub- 
merged; or some of the undesirable characters 
may be so prominent that the cross is of no 
value, Some crosses ‘‘click.’’ Some don't. 
So one hybrid is crossed with another, then 
the seed tested in the field until the breeder 
knows which crosses are good and which ones 
are not. 
When one inbred is crossed with another it is 
known as a Single cross. Until more vigorous 
and high-yielding inbreds are developed, ithe 
yield from many hybrids is so small that the 
seed is very expensive. 
So the corn breeder takes two single crosses, 
which tests have shown to be good, and crosses 
them. Again some of these double crosses, 
which are a combination of four inbred parents, 
are discarded because of some undesirable 
features. But by the tedious process of trial and 
error the breeder finally gets a corn plant 
which combines yielding ability, strong roots, 
stiff stalk and high quality ear with that 
mysterious vigor which results from hybridiza- 
tion. 
Then he has a useful hybrid, ready to be 
produced on a large scale and sold as commer- 
cial hybrid seed. And he can always be sure of 
giving his customers exactly the same thing, 
because the same combination of inbreds 
crossed in the same way will always give the 
same result. 
After the inbred recipe is established, three 
more years are required to produce hybrid 
seed commercially. The work of inbreeding and 
“selfing’’ and the production of hybrids on a 
small scale is done all in one field by con- 
troling the pollenization with silk and tassel 
bags. 
To produce hybrids on a large scale the in- 
breds are first brought up to a commercial 
scale by planting in isolated blocks a long 
distance from other corns; then the two inbreds 
which are to comprise each single cross are 
planted in an isolated field in such a manner 
that the entire field is planted in a ratio of one 
row of male plants to three or four rows of 
female plants. Just before the silks emerge the 
tassels—which are the male portion of the plant 
—are removed from the female rows. The silks 
of those rows therefore receive pollen only from 
the male row which still carries its tassels. 
Thus a cross is effected between the two kinds 
of corn. As before stated, this work of producing 
single crosses must be carried on in different 
fields as only one single cross can be produced 
in any given field. The following year the two 
single crosses are crossed together and the 
seed is again saved from the female rows. It is 
this seed which is brought in, dried, carefully 
graded and processed to be used later for 
planting. 
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