News

Growing just roots, in a large tote

Beck’s Hybrids has been looking into the impact roots have on the performance of the corn crop.

Beck’s corn lead Craig Moore says the company’s root boxes allow researchers to take a closer look at root volumes.  

“Corn is claustrophobic, it doesn’t like root-to-root contact,” he tells Brownfield, “I’ve had a lot of growers come to me and say I just pushed that hybrid too hard, meaning I raised the population too high.”

Moore says the tool can measure roots in feet compared to a root dig where agronomists can only see a few inches of the root.

“As you think about more vertical roots, you can push the populations on those a little bit more whereas more of your horizontal roots there going to have that more of that root-to-root interaction so I think those are some things we can take away.”

He says the study, which has been underway for about a year, also looks at drought tolerance.

Stangler recently interviewed Craig Moore at Beck’s Bash in Columbia, Missouri.

AUDIO: Craig Moore, Beck’s Hybrids