
SORTING 
Soon after the corn is harvested from 
Pioneer seed fields, trained workers 
carefully hand sort it ear by ear. Corn 
unsatisfactory for seed is discarded. 
Damaged kernels are picked out of the 
good ears—and the weak, chaffy, 
moldy and off-type ears are thrown out. 
On the average, about 140 pounds 
of ear corn from the field on October 
Ist is required to produce a bushel of 
sorted, dried, shelled and graded 
Pioneer hybrid seed. 
GRADING 
Pioneer hybrid seed corn is accurately 
graded into six uniform kernel sizes— 
large, medium and small flat—large, 
medium and small round. Grading 
machines efficiently divide the kernels 
—blow out those which are light and 
chaffy—remove tips and cracked ker- 
nels, leaving only the clean, healthy 
seed. The size or shape of a Pioneer 
seed kernel bears no relation to the 
yield, size or quality of corn it grows. 
Each kernel of each hybrid carries 
exactly the same heredity and pro- 
duces the same type of corn regardless 
of its size and shape. 
COLD TESTS 
As a double-check on Pioneer's germi- 
nation, representative samples of all 
seed is actually planted in outdoor’ 
gardens under the adverse conditions 
of early March. To survive these un+ 
usually rigid tests requires seed with 
stamina and strength far ‘in. excess. of 
the actual growing conditions usually 
found in your fields. 


PLANTED IN OUTDOOR GARDENS IN 
MARCH. 
