Corn School: Tiller development an indication of healthy fertility

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Tillering corn may not offer the picturesque vision of a picket fence crop, but it isn’t all bad.

Alana Serhan, market development agronomist with PRIDE Seeds, says it’s both a positive and a negative to see tillering.

“Typically when you have the presence of tillers it means there’s a lot of nutrients available – a lot of fertility available – in the field, telling you that that specific variety could have been planted at a little bit of a higher population,” Serhan says in this episode of the Corn School.

Serhan says some people think the extra vegetative growth may take away from cob development, but that’s not the case.

“In the end that corn stalk is going to work to fill one cob the best it can. So it’s going to pull all the nutrients from that tiller, and it’s going to go to work and fill the one consistent ear to the best of its ability.”

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Corn School (view all)Season 8 (2019) Episode 7
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