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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Mar 13, 2011 19:32:01 GMT -5
This is an idea that i'm directing mostly at Joseph, since he's the only one i've heard mention he was dryland farming. Anyway, here's an idea some of you might be interested in. twri.tamu.edu/publications/txh2o/summer-2008/cultivating-cornmaizeresearch.org/2010/05/improve-drought-tolerance-by-growing-maize-in-clumps/comment-page-1/#comment-2At the end of last year i already decided that i was going to try planting corn in clumps instead of rows this year, after viewing a video on how Hopi farmers plant their corn. When i saw it, it immediately made sense. They said that corn does not like to grow alone, because they are a family. Upon thinking about growth patterns of teosinte and how wild corn would grow, i would imagine that they often grow in clumps. In essence, corn is a bunchgrass. This also gave rise to the idea that maybe when grown in clumps, tillers would also not form, because the corn would be able to tell if it was already in a clump. After i read the articles above, this theory seems to already been observed. I love it when i come up with theories, and then find an article that supports it. The neat thing is that there might be a multitude of reasons a person would want to grow corn in clumps. I will try and list these reasons below: 1. Drought resistance and conservation of water 2. Reduced tillering 3. Increased pollination (great for sweet corn cobs) 4. Greater swapping of pollen (great for corn breeding) 5. Increased yield by up to 11% 6. easier to arrange in companion planting (ie. 3 sisters technique) ..so I'm getting a little antsy about wanting to plant stuff... Hope spring comes soon..
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Post by grunt on Mar 13, 2011 20:05:53 GMT -5
Interesting that they state the increase in yield to be only 11%. Check out the numbers from the trial, and to my eye it looks more like a 50% increase. I'm no mathematician, but (321 g m−2 vs. 225 g m−2 and 454 g m−2 vs. 292 g m−2) looks closer to 3/2 and 4/3 than 10/9.
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Post by silverseeds on Mar 13, 2011 20:58:25 GMT -5
this is something on my mind a lot. Im working on systems and breeding for dryland staple including corn. If you look into it, tillers do not seem to affect yields. Part of what you posted assumes less tillers are good, but they didnt prove it. Only that planting in clumps has less tillers and better uses the water... Personally i think tillering may be the key to a good dryland corn farm and my breeding focuses on that and some other things... if you notice ALL the hopi varieties tiller heavily. In dry years the tillers fade away mostly and they get a decent ear on the main stalk. In wetter years all without irrigation the tillers are ready and able to produce additional ears. there have been studies showing tillering doesnt alter yield though it wasnt dryland conditions. since we know under stressful conditions the tillers will send sugars to the main stalk I personally think the benefit in some years will far outweigh any small set back in the drier years. The hopi indeed took dryland farming as far as anyone Im aware of and this was their method..... ohioline.osu.edu/agf-fact/0121.html<<<<<More recent studies have found that there is little movement of plant sugars between the main plant and tillers before tasselling. However, after silking and during grain fill, substantial amounts of plant sugars may move from earless tillers to ears on the main plant. When there are ears on both the tiller and the main plant, little movement of plant sugars occurs. The main plant and tillers act independently, each receiving sugars from their own leaves. The nubbin ears, that tillers may produce, therefore have no impact on the ear development of the main plant as was once thought. >>>>>>>>> As for planting in clumps, lots of tribes grew it that way, not just the hopi. Im also intending to trial various growing patterns and believe there may be a lot of potential in such things especially in the more marginal areas where a few percentage point better performance can mean the world in some years.... good thread....
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Post by darwinslair on Mar 13, 2011 21:57:37 GMT -5
I prefer it for corn, especially for smaller growouts I am going to pay more attention to, and for ones with issues of lodging it is good to have hills to hoe up. Last year though I did it with a group of corn that I did not hoe up, and a big wind laid it down in a tangled mess. It still did ok, but if you are not going to hill it in wet areas, then I dont see much point. Rows are easier to tend to with modern implements on a larger scale.
Tom
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Mar 13, 2011 22:12:08 GMT -5
Thanks grunt, i don't know. Perhaps they were being conservative when they said 11%.
Silverseeds, interesting about the sugars. I actually never meant to imply that tillers are bad. I actually am agnostic about them. I don't necessarily think they are good or bad. But, it's interesting to hear you prefer them in your climate. I guess in the back of my mind i was thinking that the reason corn sends out tillers is a way to try and increase shaded area to conserve water. I could be wrong, but thats the general idea i was thinking.
Darwinslair, yeah i agree, rows probably are better for large scale harvesting.
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Post by silverseeds on Mar 13, 2011 22:30:45 GMT -5
Well i cant say i prefer them as of yet. i just think (since they do if need send sugars to the main ear) that in a dryland corn in a dry area, it may be ideal to best make use of the wetter years. It is basically theory at this point, but one that stands on solid ground imo..... We can have a vast difference between our regular or dry years and the wet years here. So if I breed something that works in the rough years, sure it would do well in the wetter years, but what if there were a bunch of tillers that were ready to produce in such years? Wider spacing whter in clumps or not is all ready needed in this dry area. I cant always know it will be a wetter year ahead of time, it just seems like the most efficient way to make use of the extra water of some years....
Im not sure if tillering relates to creating shade I think its just among the possible habits of the plant. It wants to make as many seeds as possible, it also hedges bets for the plant if the main stalk is damaged. if you look at dipplo perennis which some think is among the precursors to corn, it tillers heavy, as do many of the other related plants that came together to make corn as it is today. some selected the tillers to be semi useful, others ignored them mostly.
Other types of grains will tiller heavily as well if given the space, especially older varieties. Lots of modern ones either were selected not to do so, or are grown to close together for it to occur. It is my understanding from the only person I know who grew and bred many grains that things like wheat or rye that can tiller heavily with space have the potential to be MUCH better yielding under those conditions, but not congruent to machine harvest. this is something that homesteaders should be rediscovering imho.....
This is a great thread though, because its an issue not always discussed. different growing patterns and plant habits do indeed have differing potentials especially for small scale cultivation. where sometimes very specific growth patterns or plant habits are needed for machine harvest, for those of us growing our own those industrial patterns are not always ideal.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 14, 2011 12:05:11 GMT -5
I live and farm in the desert, and have an abundance of irrigation water so while my plants are being adapted to an arid low-humidity sun-drenched climate they are not being adapted for drought tolerance. (Other than I only irrigate once per week.) I plant a little bit of corn in the dry-lands, but only playing around with it, not seriously trying to develop a dry-land corn. Gotta fence the cows out of the ranch before I could get serious about farming out there. I'd definitely start by adapting Hopi corn and techniques to my shorter season. It seems to me that tillering on corn is highly influenced by genetics, because some varieties tiller like crazy regardless of how close I plant them, and other varieties don't tiller even if they have as much space as they want. The most productive and the least productive corns in my garden last year were highly tillering, so I don't think that tillering is directly related to yield in my garden. The trick would be to select a population in which the tillers are producing useful grain, or pollen, or biomass, etc... or in which they increase the yield of the main stalk. (Some of my highly tillering lines have unusually dark green leaves, leading me to wonder if they are more efficient at converting sunlight to plant energy due to having more chloroplasts.) Because the cumulative length of my vegetable rows are approximately 11 miles long I cannot imagine how I would put out the labor to plant in clumps. I can plant seed around 40X faster with a seeder than in clumps. When I was a small boy we planted corn in clumps, but it takes two people to approach any sort of efficiency: One to lift up a shovel-full of dirt, and the other to throw the seed in the hole. Then there is the weeding issue. If I plant in rows it's much easier to weed with mechanical devices such as a Planet Jr or a rototiller or even with a hoe. I don't plant anything in clumps or hills: Everything is planted into a row. I plant at wider spacings than is typically recommended on seed packets, or I thin to wider spacings after germination. I give plants about 2X to 4X more space. Things just grow better for me with more space. If I were attempting dry-land vegetable farming I would significantly increase spacing. I think that if I planted corn close enough together in my garden to suppress tillers, that cob quality would be seriously diminished. I'd expect smaller cobs and fewer seeds per cob. I get paid per cob, and get higher prices for bigger cobs, so at least for me, and in today's market, appearance is more important than yield. It's not like I am running out of space in my garden.... In my soil, it is easy to hill row planted crops with a rototiller, or even with a hoe.
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Post by DarJones on Mar 14, 2011 18:40:07 GMT -5
It is amazing to me that you brought out several reasons for planting in clumps but did NOT figure out the most important reason why it was used in traditional dry land agriculture. They dig a deep hole to plant the seed because that is where the moisture is to make the seed germinate. The varieties traditionally used for this culture develop a very long shoot to grow up through the soil and break through the surface. Multiple seed just happen to be much better at breaking through than just 2 or 3 seed. Then they had to consider how much water and nutrients would be available in the soil to grow their corn. When you have an average of 10 plants in a clump, it turns out that you need about 4 feet of clear space all around the clump to meet these needs. There is no magic in growing in clumps, it is an adaptation to a set of conditions. Growing in rows is just a different adaptation.
DarJones
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Post by darwinslair on Mar 15, 2011 2:19:04 GMT -5
<smile> opposite reason for planting in clumps here. Drainage. Mounding them up prevents them from drowning and getting washed out. Different climate.
Tom
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