Summary of 5 major measures to increase corn yield, teaching you how to raise production

Corn occupies an extremely important position in China's crop farming, so to increase corn yield and quality and raise farmers' incomes, active exploration of corn cultivation techniques is necessary. How can corn yield be increased? Next, let's take a look at the 5 major measures for increasing corn yield.

1. Leaf removal: When corn seedlings grow to 5 leaves, use a blade to cut off the entire plant above the 1st leaf, and also remove the 1st leaf by hand. Because at this time the growing point of the corn seedling is still below the soil surface, the plant will grow new leaves on the second day after leaf removal. Compared with corn without leaf removal, corn after leaf removal has thicker stalks, steadier growth, and fewer bare tips, and can increase yield by 30%.

2. Tip bending: In the middle and late stages of silking throughout the corn field, for plants that have not yet formed ears or silked, bend the upper part between the 2nd and 3rd leaves by hand into an angled bend, but do not break it. Four to five days after bending, ears form and silking occurs, and the bent stem nodes generally recover to their original shape in two to four days. Practice has shown that this method can reduce the barren stalk rate of corn from the original 15%-40% to 2%-5%, with an average yield increase of 15-25 kg per mu.

3. Seedling hardening: Carry out seedling hardening after corn thinning and final stand establishment until before jointing, before the differentiation of the corn tassel.

The specific method is: when the soil moisture at the seedling stage is relatively good, adopt measures such as controlling irrigation, repeated intertillage, and exposing roots to the sun to promote deeper root development, and control excessive aboveground growth, so that the base of corn seedlings becomes firm and sturdy, which helps resist drought and prevent lodging. The indicator for seedling hardening should be as follows: on sunny days at noon the leaves curl and the leaf color is dark green, and in the afternoon or evening the leaves recover and spread out, and the next morning there are water droplets on the leaf tips, so watering is not needed; if the leaves still do not spread from the afternoon to the next morning and there are no water droplets on the leaf tips, then seedling hardening should be ended, and soil moisture should be controlled at more than 50% of field capacity.

Corn plants that have undergone seedling hardening have thick and sturdy stalks, many roots, deep penetration into the soil, rapid growth after jointing, thick and short basal internodes, many aerial roots, earlier appearance of female ears, large ears with low ear position, few bare tips, many grains, and high yield.

However, corn seedling hardening must be adapted to local conditions. If the seedling hardening time is too short, it will not produce the effect; if the seedling hardening time is too long and water control is too severe, the seedlings will age and adverse consequences will also result. One should follow the principles of hardening young seedlings but not old ones, hardening strong ones (land with high capacity) but not thin ones (barren land), hardening dark ones (seedlings with deep green color) but not yellow ones (seedlings that are yellow and weak), and hardening wet ones (with sufficient soil moisture) but not dry ones (with insufficient soil moisture), so as to achieve good results.

4. Detasseling: When the corn tassel has just emerged and has not yet shed pollen, manually remove the tassels of some plants according to a certain proportion. Corn detasseling is a simple and easy yield-increasing measure. After detasseling, plant nutrient consumption is reduced, and the nutrients that would have supplied tassel flowering are transferred to the female ears, and it can also concurrently control corn borers.

The specific method is: starting from the beginning of tasseling, every morning remove the newly emerged tassels. For the detasseling ratio, detasseling by alternate rows can be used, or removing 1 row out of every 2 rows, or detasseling alternate plants within the same row. Regardless of the ratio used, the total number of plants in the field should not exceed 30%-50%, and several rows near the field edge should not be detasseled, so as not to affect pollination.

5. Pollination: Artificial pollination of corn can satisfy fertilization of late-emerging silks at the top of the ear, overcome the influence of unfavorable factors, reduce bare tips and missing grains, and achieve plump, large grains. The yield increase range is 8%-10%.

The specific method is: when corn is in the flowering and silking stage, at 9-11 a.m., use a long rope pulled by two people to carry out pollination, or make a T-square frame and walk through the field to touch the tassels so that they shed pollen, ensuring pollination of late-emerging silks. It can be done once every other day, and in the late flowering stage once a day, three to four times, which can meet the pollination requirements. After tasseling and flowering, promptly remove barren plants in the field, which can increase light intensity, reduce shading and consumption of water and nutrients, and help increase grain weight.