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By Harold Watters, Ohio State University Extension
This is the fun part of my job. I get asked questions or am told I misguided someone and so I do a little field work to investigate what may be the reality. I thank Joe, Nick and Zack at the OSU Western Agricultural Research Station for giving me the space to work, and I think they enjoy the challenge and quest to find answers too.
So once again I ran a trial comparing “older” open pollinated corn genetics to modern corn hybrids. I still use Reid’s yellow dent as a basis for my work because there is so much of that old variety carried through into modern genetics. A chance cross occurred in Ohio at about the time of the Civil War and that accident carries through to today’s genetics and yield improvement.
| WARS 2020 Antique corn trial, for yield and harvest stand. | |||
| Yield | Stand | ||
| Variety/ hybrid | bu/A | thou. Pl/A | |
| 1 | Reid yellow dent 110 | 105.7 | 21.1 |
| 2 | Green Field 114 | 121.4 | 15.0 |
| 3 | Krug 95 | 95.1 | 19.1 |
| 4 | Lancaster Sure Crop 120 | 129.7 | 22.5 |
| 5 | Rebellion 110 | 129.7 | 21.0 |
| 6 | modern transgenic hybrid | 228.3 | 29.3 |
| 7 | modern hybrid (2) organic | 236.5 | 29.2 |
| 8 | Wapsie Valley 85 | 114.0 | 22.0 |
| LSD | 19.1 | 1.7 | |
| C.V. | 10.8 | 6.1 | |
| Prob > F | 1.2285E-11 | 1.2863E-11 |
In the Table, except for item number 6, these are all available and sold as organic corn seed. I was chastised a year or so ago that I was comparing varieties to hybrids, “of course they don’t yield as well.” So we have two modern hybrids here and yes the organic hybrid yielded right with the transgenic hybrid — no significant difference. Many of the organic varieties trace their lineage back to Reid’s yellow dent.
