October 2020
Welcome to the October edition of our information exchange platform. This month we discuss the effects of the Derecho, plant breeding, conventional & specialty hybrids, and more.


Missed last month's E-Newsletter? Catch up in the News section of our website
Planting Dates 2020
This year we planted at the beginning of May. Most of the farmers in our area started planting around April 21, and were done planting by the end of the first week of May. One large farmer near our location plants corn and beans beginning April 21. He comments that he has been successful following this practice.

The key to planting early is to be ready with all the fields, to take advantage of good planting weather. Planning for early planting starts at harvest time, with all the field preparation done before the weather closes down for the winter. Organic farmers, with cover crops, try to plant as early as possible, but there are usually planting delays because of crop growth, termination, date delays, or cross pollination decisions from neighboring crops. I think planting dates have to be considered carefully to get the best harvest of your crop.
Derecho
We had a weather event called a derecho on August 10. We had seen this phenomenon before in 2011 in the Sheldahl area. The differences between the two events were the date, the wind velocity, and the amount of damage. This year we were all finished with our pollination work in our nursery. Thankfully, we were not in the field when the derecho passed through the Luther area.

The storm destroyed much of the new elevator in town and caused lots of tree and property damage. At our research location in Luther, we had several trees toppled. The nursery was flattened and there was selective damage to the hybrids in the yield test.  

We learned from the derecho. Although the corn nursery was flattened, we let the corn fields stay until harvest time and were able to harvest most of the pollinated ears. In the yield test, we observed differences between hybrids. Some hybrids were flat on the ground, others were bent following the direction of the wind, others were standing up with very little damage. This was good to see which hybrids stood up to high winds. 

We had 12 row strip plantings of 5 commercial hybrids. Overall they all had some degree of damage, but were harvestable. Two early hybrids, GEI 9700 and GEI 9010, had better standability than the later hybrids. This summer has been full of events in the field; we learned more about the material. We missed the opportunity to have our field day and we missed the interaction with our farmer friends in the field. We are happy to have the seed production areas at different locations and regions giving us the opportunity to spread the business risk.
Seed Production
We visited one of our specialty corn production fields where we were producing seed of our high lysine and our new blue corn hybrids. This production will increase our seed inventories to cover the seed needs of our customers of these specialties. The weather in the production areas was normal. The fields looked good and the seed parents were well pollinated. 

We will know about the seed amounts available as the season progresses and the seed is dried, shelled, conditioned, and bagged. This seed will add to our seed inventories for the 2021 season. We are happy with this important part of our business. We have produced more seed of our conventional corn hybrids GEI 9700 and GEI 1050 and our organic hybrid GEI 9010 in a different production area. The production reports have been very good during the season. 
Conventional seed corn production field
Specialty seed corn production high lysine
GEI 5121C blue corn seed production
Plant Breeding for Organic Industry
A new federal grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative - OREI) was awarded to a group of Iowa State University scientists and collaborators as they develop improved seed corn for the organic farm industry. Dr. Paul Scott, USDA research geneticist and lead investigator, and Dr. Thomas Lubberstedt, the Frey Chair in agronomy and Director of the Raymond Baker Center for Plant Breeding at ISU will partner on the project along with Martin Bohn from the University of Illinois and Angela Linares from the University of Puerto Rico.

The breeding project’s main objective is to develop new hybrids for the organic industry using selected germplasm and new breeding techniques that accelerate the selection and development of these new hybrids for the organic industry. The hybrids will be developed under organic management practices with the cooperation of field teams and knowledge groups that excel in their own fields of expertise. The project will use collaborative research that will include germplasm, breeding techniques, field evaluation and farmer collaborations and seed production.

We are excited about this breeding project because new organic hybrids will be available for the organic farming industry. These hybrids will have pollen exclusion capabilities that will allow organic farmers to produce grain without cross pollination from other hybrids grown by non-organic farmers in the area. Seed companies will also benefit from this research by having access to new technologies and germplasm to develop their own products for the organic farmer. We expect to be able to collaborate with this project.
Conventional Hybrids
GEI 9700, GEI 9010, GEI 1050 
GEI 9010 Organic
Specialty Hybrids
Blue corn, high provitamin A, and high lysine hybrids
High Lysine
High Provitamin A
Specialty Corn Utilization
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