Bad seed corn field?

toolz

Well-known Member
I grew up on a farm, but haven't been involved in farming for many years. I still try to keep up with things a little. Near my house, there's a large field of seed corn. It has been de-tasseled, bull rows are cut, and today they were hitting it with a disk chisel, and turning it under. Would it be a disease problem? Even if not good for seed, wouldn't they just combine it like field corn? Just curious as to what happened.
 
My neighbors son works for one of the major seed companies. Some years they have a test plot just up the road from me. When they harvest the plots, they have a grinder on the combine & grind the grain & dump it behind the combine.My guess is they don't want anyone getting a hold of their genetics. That might be the case here.
 
The field probably got some kind of disease in it that affects the germination. If they combined it there's a chance someone could get hold of that seed without paying patent rights and plant it next year, or it could be stolen by the competition somewhere else in the world. It's a whole new world today when it comes to today's modern seed.
 
I'd be surprised if that's the case here, Charles. This was no test plot- probably 100 acres plus. Lots of money wasted.
 
Same thing happened last year near where I live. It was a dry summer, they sprayed it a lot, took care of it, irrigated it, then disked it under.
 
If it gets worked under there is that much less seed for next year, in turn driving up the demand which also drives up the price. It's simple economics to the big companies! :twisted: :lol:
 
Maybe crop insurance payout required it to be destroyed. We bush hogged some tobacco one year for insurance to pay. Had a big smile on my face doing it too.
 
Reputable seed companies aren't going to sell seed with poor germ. I don't know what the threshold is but I'm guessing it's in the 95 percent range for top quality seed. Something was wrong with the corn in that field that didn't make it marketable. Another problem could be poor pollination or kernels that are too small or shriveled or discolored or whatever. The seed we pay $300 or more for is as close to flawless as any seed can be. One year of selling less than desirable seed can send a majority of the customers away to the competitor and it's very hard to get them back.
 
Monsatan has 4 fields around Farmer City that had a virus in them and are to be destroyed. You can see a stalk now and then that look good but on the whole, the stalks are grey black looking. I heard that these fields had been sprayed 4 times to try to control this but it did not work.
 
Thanks, Frank. This field is at the corner of Mansfield rd and Galesville rd. I don't remember who lives there.
 

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