Corn plants with tillers work well in restrictive environments

Undeniably, corn is one of the world’s most important crops. From feeding people and livestock to its many industrial uses, humans have been cultivating it for about 10,000 years.

Traditionally, corn was grown in the most productive regions of the world. These regions have healthy soil, adequate rainfall and more. Think of places like the American Midwest where you can find a corn-related college mascot. In recent years, corn production has expanded to less fertile areas around the world with the development of new corn hybrids and improved agricultural practices.

A common agricultural practice in less productive regions is to increase the space between the corn plants in the row. The space between plants is called plant density. With a lower planting density, there is less competition between the corn for water, nutrients and other needed resources. However, greater access to nutrients can cause the corn to grow an additional component: suckers.

Did you know that corn is technically a member of the grass family? Like other grasses, corn can grow suckers, a branching structure that occurs naturally at the base of a corn plant. Offshoots need nutrients to grow. As a result, they can be seen as a nuisance by stealing nutrients from the most important part of the plant: the corn cob. Understanding how tillage equipment affects corn yields in less productive regions is critical.

Ignacio Massigoge, a researcher at the National University of Mar del Plata, and his team study maize and seed drills in Argentina’s Pampas. “Research that can help stabilize and maximize maize yields will have a significant impact in these confining environments,” Massigoge says. His team’s study was recently published in crop science.

“This study was designed to assess the role of tillers on lower-density corn planted,” Massigoge says. How does the presence of seeders affect maize yield in different environments in the Pampas? What are the relationships between tillers, environment and maize yield? These were all questions the team was working on.

The researchers set up 11 field experiments in the southern Argentine Pampas over two years. Researchers collected data from maize with and without milling at 11 sites with varying sunlight, rainfall and temperatures. For the corn studied without burrs, the researchers had to remove the burs by hand.

Data such as plant density, ears of corn per plant, suckers per plant and maize yield were collected and evaluated. Collecting this data led to some exciting results: in a wide variety of environments, cultivators maintained or increased maize yields compared to maize without milling.

“The benefits of milled corn compared to non milling corn were evident in a wide variety of environments. Remarkably, milling had no negative effects on overall corn yield, even in the most restrictive environments that were evaluated,” says Massigoge. “Farmers and producers in constrained environments can use these findings to understand the effects of milling on corn planted at a lower density.”

Lower plant density is beneficial in restrictive environments such as the Pampas region. Reducing plant density reduces water use and increases water availability, so one of the biggest challenges for corn under these conditions is maximizing resource use. This study proved that tillage equipment can help maximize the use of the maize’s resources and adapt to the environment, when environmental conditions are better than expected.

This research is important to Massigoge and his team. “Historically, most research on maize crops has focused on high yielding environments. Recommendations for less productive regions are less sophisticated, so applied research that can help stabilize and/or maximize maize yields will have a significant impact on the production.”

According to Massigoge, research into sowing corn is scarce, possibly because the traditional high planting densities common in fertile environments do not allow the corn to develop seedlings. “This new knowledge could help develop decision support tools for farmers in more restrictive environments.”