Corn with tillers work well together in

Restrictive Environments

Undeniably, corn is one of the world’s most important crops. From feeding humans and livestock, to its many industrial uses, humans have been growing it for approximately 10,000 years.A fully matured corn stalk with three ears of corn

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

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

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Did you know that corn is technically a member of the grass family? Like other grasses, corn can grow tillers, a branching structure naturally found at the base of a corn plant. Tillers require 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 main ear of corn! Understanding how tillers affect corn yields in less productive regions is crucial.

The researchers set up 11 field experiments during two years in the southern Argentinian Pampas. Researchers collected data from corn with and without tillers at 11 locations with varying sunlight, rainfall, and temperatures. For the corn being studied without tillers, the researchers had to remove the tillers by hand. This type of research is hard work!

Data such as plant density, ears of corn per plant, tillers per plant, and corn yield were collected and evaluated. Gathering this data led to some exciting results: in a wide range of environments, tillers either maintained or increased corn yield compared to corn without tillers.

“The advantages of corn with tillers compared to the corn without tillers were evident across a wide variety of environments. Remarkably, tillers did not promote negative effects on overall corn yield even in the most restrictive environments evaluated,” says Massigoge. “Farmers/producers in restrictive environments can use these findings to understand the effects of tillers on corn planted at a lower density.”

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Ignacio Massigoge, a researcher at National University of Mar del Plata, and his team study corn and tillers in the Pampas of Argentina. “Research that can help stabilize and maximize corn yield will have a significant impact in these restrictive environments,” says Massigoge.

This study was recently published in Crop Science, a publication of the Crop Science Society of America.

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Lower planting density is beneficial in restrictive environments like the Pampas region. Reducing plant density decreases water use and increases water availability, so one of the main challenges for corn under these conditions is to maximize the use of resources. This study proved that tillers could help maximize the corn’s use of its resources and adapt to the environment, when environmental conditions are better than expected.

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

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“This study aimed to assess the role of tillers on corn planted at a lower density,” Massigoge states. How does the presence of tillers impact corn yield in varied environments in the Pampas? What are the relationships between tillers, environment, and corn yield? These were all questions the team worked to answer.

According to Massigoge, research on corn tillering is scarce, possibly because traditional high plant densities common in fruitful environments do not allow the corn to develop tillers. “This new knowledge can aid the development of decision support tools for farmers in more restrictive environments.”

Rising temps, drought likely to increase incidence of aflatoxin in corn

CONTINUED FROM PAGE C8 do to offset the potential impacts to their corn crop “is the million dollar question,” Tack said.

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“It’s important to note that our research does not take future adaptation into account beyond the re-optimization of the growing season, which might mean changing planting and harvest dates,” he said. “Right now, we are simulating what would happen in the future under a business-as-usual scenario, aside from growing season changes.”

Tack adds: “We know that there will be adaptation; there always is in agriculture, and the evolution of plant genetics and on-farm management are powerful tools that can be leveraged. However, it is still not clear what the full menu of adaptation possibilities are, which of them will be most effective, and how costly they will be.”

Tack said the researchers hope their study – titled, ‘Climate change will increase aflatoxin presence in U.S. corn’ -- can help to inform future discussion on adaptations.

“Unfortunately, we haven’t solved a puz- zle,” he said, “but rather added an additional piece to an existing one.”

The current study did not look at the occurrence of aflatoxin in grain storage systems; Tack said other researchers are taking on that question. Damaged corn usually does not make it out of the field and into storage, he notes, “and thus it wouldn’t typically be measured when assessing the overall damage that aflatoxin causes in the food system as a whole.”

“Agricultural biotechnology may offer solutions to the problem of increased aflatoxin risk in the face of a changing climate,” Wu said. “Our larger project found that controlling for climatic factors and grower practices, transgenic Bt corn offered protection against aflatoxin contamination because of its insect pest protection. We could also use biotechnological methods to improve corn’s resistance to heat and drought, which could in turn reduce damages from aflatoxin.”

David Hennessy of Iowa State University is also a co-author of the study.

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Alfalfa weevil resistant to common insecticides

By Emme Demmendaal, MSU News Service

Forage alfalfa, the third most valuable exported field crop in the United States, may be at risk from the alfalfa weevil, a pest that has established itself across the western U.S., due to the insect’s resistance to common insecticides, according to a study published by a Montana State University student.

Erika Rodbell, a doctoral student in the Department of Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology in MSU’s College of Agriculture, studies invasive insects that impact field crops. Her paper, “Alfalfa Weevil (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) Resistance to Lambda-cyhalothrin in the Western United States,” written with her MSU academic adviser Kevin Wanner and researchers from the University of California, Davis, was published in the Journal of Economic Entomology last fall. Producers across the West, including Montana, have reported significant issues managing the insect with the standard insecticides on the market, Rodbell said.

“The alfalfa weevil is a defoliating insect, which means it’s destroying the leafy green goodness of the alfalfa,” she said, explaining that the larvae chew the leaves and cause the most economic damage to the plant. “It was becoming a significant pest.”

Insecticide resistance begins to develop when significant numbers of the pest survive after the standard amount of an insecticide is properly applied.

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