Research Progress Report 370
February 1970
1969 Hybrid Popcorn Performance Trials
R. B. Ashman
Department of Botany and Plant Pathology
Popcorn performance trials were located at Lafayette, Lagrange, and Princeton, Indiana; North Bend, Nebraska; and Ridgway, Illinois. The Indiana trials were conducted by the Indiana Agricultural Experiment Station on land provided by Tom Hite at Lagrange and by Princeton Farms at Princeton. The trials in Nebraska and Illinois were conducted cooperatively by the Indiana AES and the Agricultural Alumni Seed Improvement Association on land provided by the Blevins Popcorn Company, Nashville, Tennessee.
A trial at Marion, Ohio in cooperation with the Wyandot Popcorn Company was not harvested because of poor plant stands. In the cooperative trials the Agricultural Alumni Seed Improvement Association arranged for the land, planted the trials, and collected the field data at harvest; the Indiana AES ran the popping expansion tests and conducted the statistical analysis of all data. Grateful acknowledgment is made of the assistance and cooperation of the above individuals and organizations.
Hybrids included in the trials are identified as to source by the following letter prefixes: "P" -- Indiana Agricultural Experiment Station, Lafayette, Indiana; "Iopop" or "Ia" -- Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station, Ames, Iowa; "A" -- Ames Seed Farms, Ames, Iowa; "RB" -- Chester Hybrids, Valparaiso, Indiana; "AP" or "EP" -- Agricul-
tural Alumni Seed Improvement Association, West Lafayette, Indiana; "Robust" -- Crook-ham Company, Caldwell, Idaho. Hybrids without letter prefixes are Indiana AES experimental hybrids.
Methods and Trial Conditions
Yield data are reported as pounds of ear corn per acre corrected to 13.5 per cent moisture. No correction was made for missing plants, and per cent stand is given for each hybrid as an indication of the confidence that can be placed in the yield data. Trials at Lafayette were machine harvested with an ear picker, and all other trials were hand-harvested.
At Lafayette, Lagrange, and Princeton a popping expansion sample of about 10 ears was taken from all plots in all replications; an expansion test was run on each sample, and the average expansion for each hybrid is reported in the tables. At Ridgway and North Bend, samples were taken from one replication only; two expansion tests were run on each sample, and the average is reported in the tables.
Stalk breakage and lodging notes were taken just before harvest and are given as percent of plants broken below the ear or lodged 45 degrees or more from the vertical.
PURDUE UNIVERSITY • Agricultural Experiment Station • Lafayette, Indiana