Farming's January Forage Column : The 7 Factors Most Affecting Corn Yield - Discuss!

[EditorBob]

Below is an overview of January's column. Read the entire column at Farming: The Journal of Northeast Agriculture. Feel free to post comments and questions!

by Everett D. Thomas

The Department of Crop Science at the University of Illinois has been doing research for many years to identify the most important factors affecting corn yield. Most of these should be obvious, but what may surprise you is the order of their ranking Here they are from one to seven, with some comments on how I think the rankings fit here in the Northeastern U.S.

1. Weather

2. Nitrogen fertilization

3. Hybrid selection

4. Previous crop

5. Plant population

6. Tillage

7. Chemicals

The author is an agronomist and vice president for agricultural programs at William H. Miner Agricultural Research Institute in Chazy, N.Y.

[Ricardo Blackardo]

I agree that weather is probably the most important factor - however, it is not a controllable factor and perhaps may not warrant the discussion in it's realm of importance as the rest.
I'm curious about plant populations - is this also addressing row spacing?

Just some random thoughts for some random readers...