FUNK RESEARCH 
RESISTANCE to CORN BORER DAMAGE 
HIGHER YIELDS’on MEDIUM FERTILITY 

RIPE EARS WITH GREEN STALKS AND LEAVES COMBINE 
EARLY MATURITY AND STANDABILITY 
Across the Northern and North Central Corn 
Belt, farmers must have early maturity but they 
don’t want to sacrifice the bumper crops that 
require a full season for development. Nor are 
they willing to pay the penalty which quick dry- 
ing formerly exacted in stalk quality. 
Funk Research is meeting this problem with 
a new kind of plant ...a “corn machine”’ that 
starts promptly, grows rapidly and dries the ear 
quickly before frost danger. But while the husk 
dries and the ear ripens, stalks and leaves of these 
G-Hybrids stay green to continue the process 


of reinforcing the framework of the plant. 
This explains why you often see a ripe ear 
and dry husks on a Funk G-Hybrid plant whose 
stalk and leaves are still green... rather than 
having husks and stalk turn brown together, as 
they do on outmoded hybrids and open-polli- 
nated strains. It explains, too, how by spreading 
out the major operations of building a massive 
root system, forming a big ear and maturing a 
stout stalk, G-Hybrids make possible bumper 
crops of corn on stalks strong enough to hold 
big heavy ears without breaking or lodging. 
Ten days later both the ear and stalk are fully mature. The 
stalk will continue to stand and hold the ear, as a measure 
Two weeks later. The ears are drying rapidly and the 
Dry husks are pulled back to show the ear matured 
crop is beyond frost danger—but leaves and stalk are 
while green leaves continue to manufacture glucose 
and reinforce the stalk. 

Though this plant matured a large ear of 
sound corn on a strong stalk, cut-away 
sections (above) reveal that numbers of 
borers entered. Cross-section of this resist- 
ant strain (below, left) shows how it 
“corked-off"’ injured area while stalk rot 
spread in susceptible plant (below, right). 

still partly green. 
Because Funk Research years ago went East 
to meet the corn borer, it is not now necessary 
for Midwest farmers to attempt to “dodge” 
this insect invader by late planting . . . which 
sacrifices hybrid advantages of full-season per- 
formance, safe maturity and grain quality. 
Resistant G-Hybrids enable you to plant at 
the date which has always given you best results 
and concentrate your efforts on growing a good 
crop while Funk Research takes care of the 
borer threat. “Physiological stability” is the 
name plant breeders give to the bred-in ability 
of resistant G-Hybrids to grow and function, 
apparently in normal fashion, even though 
the stalks may be honeycombed by a heavy 
infestation of the first brood of corn borers. 
Stalk-rot resistant and borer resistant G- 
Hybrids “cork-off” the damaged areas tun- 
neled by borers by depositing protective layers 
and substances around the damaged areas. 
These prevent or retard the advance of stalk 
rots and consequent lodging following borer 
infestation. This “corking off” ability is aug- 
mented in some G-Hybrids by an “unpalata- 
bility factor”, chemical or nutritional, which 
reduces the amount of tunneling and even 
inhibits the development of borer larvae. 
Funk research work with corn borer resistant 
lines goes back many years. Studies made in 
the Ohio corn borer areas before the corn 
borer came to Illinois and Indiana contributed 
background and experience to develop borer 
resistant hybrids when the need arose. 
of protection against winter weather. 

This was an abandoned hill farm, like thousands in the Mississippi 
and Ohio valleys. Then Frank James (left) planted G-80 and harvested 
this 60-bushel upstanding crop. ‘'A few crops like this pay for the farm 
and give a profit to build up the soil,”’ he tells his Funk Dealer. 
Unless hybrid corn can do more than efficiently “mine” high fertility 
fields it has no place in the “comeback” of Southern Corn Belt soils 
or the restoration of war-exhausted fertility to other areas. 
This conviction—that the hybrid itself must furnish the profit needed 
to build up soils and undertake conservation practices—has impelled 
Funk Breeders to develop G-Hybrids that perform well even when 
planted on soils of lower fertility levels. 
Funk Breeders accomplish this increased performance by developing 
strains that make better utilization of available soil nutrients. They do 
this by developing improved plants whose growth habits spread plant 
requirements over a full season rather than making ‘“‘peak’’ demands 
which the land cannot supply. 
Combined with resistance to drouth and insect hazards of the South 
Central and Southern Corn Belt and wide adaptability over a wide 
range of soils, these “comeback” G-Hybrids provide satisfactory yields 
and an opportunity to build up your farm income and your farm. 
CONSISTENTLY GOOD—YEAR AFTER YEAR 
