Corn
Hybrid corn is the founding product of the modern American seed industry, the crop where F1 hybrids proved their yield advantage in the 1930s and where seed production became an exacting engineering discipline of detasseling, isolation distances, and pollen control. It is also where the industry's hardest questions have played out: the StarLink recall of 2000-2001, the science of adventitious presence in seed production, and the reliance of U.S. hybrids on a strikingly narrow germplasm base drawn from two heterotic groups.
Corn varieties (6)
| Variety | Breeding | Habit | Days | Resistance codes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ambrosia | F1 hybrid | - | - | - |
| Argent | F1 hybrid | - | - | - |
| Bodacious | F1 hybrid | - | - | - |
| Incredible | F1 hybrid | - | - | - |
| Kandy Korn EH | F1 hybrid | - | - | - |
| Silver Queen | F1 hybrid | - | - | - |
Diseases of corn
- fungus
Common Rust
Puccinia sorghi
- fungus
Northern Corn Leaf Blight
Exserohilum turcicum
- seedborne
Stewart's Wilt
Pantoea stewartii
Planting corn
Windows are computed per location from median frost dates. Pick a place on the Grow pages for exact dates; the rules by climate band:
| Zone band | Method | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| temperate | direct sow | 0-42 days after last frost, soil ≥ 50°F, Field corn goes in when soil holds 50°F; sweet corn prefers 60°F+. |
Who breeds & sells corn
- American Seed Trade Association
- National Council of Commercial Plant Breeders
- Association of Official Seed Certifying Agencies
- USDA Agricultural Research Service
- Corteva Agriscience
- Bayer Crop Science
- Syngenta Vegetable Seeds
- KWS
- AgReliant Genetics
- Beck's Hybrids
- Wyffels Hybrids
- Eurofins BioDiagnostics
- SGS North America Seed Services
- SoDak Labs
Research touching corn
- → Biotechnology in Seed
- → Seed Genetics & Germplasm
- → Adventitious Presence in Seed
- → The StarLink Corn Episode
Related crops: Wheat
Sources & References
Evidence: 1 source, an independent reference.
- Maintaining the identity of non-GMO grain: pollen drift and segregation in corn · Purdue University Agronomy (Corny News Network) (2003), University or Government