Look-alike corn hybrids

[gil.gullickson]

All,

Almost 8 years ago, I did a story for the magazine called "Kissin' corn cousins" about look-alike corn hybrids. The premise was that you may think you are diversifying your hybrid lineup, but there is a chance you could be planting the same hybrid across different brands. That is because companies would buy a hybrid from another firm and put a new brand number on it. There were ways you could check, but it was kind of fuzzy, if i remember right.

I haven't thought about this subject for years, but ran across it this morning while looking at some old stories. Is this practice still going on? The gist of the story is that you may think you are hedging your risk by planting 3 different hybrids from 3 different companies when in fact you may be planting the same one.

Thx,

Gil Gullickson

Crops Technology Editor 

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

Gil,

This topic has bothered me over the years.  How can you make a rational choice when you don't really know what is different?  I think it is immoral.

A few yars ago, there was a move to force breeders to put some kind of code on the sack.  What happened to that?  For a while, there was a web site where growers were urged to post the company, variety and code and thus we could cross-reference when a 2331 XXX was actually the same or very close to a $$#@ YYY.

One can stay within one lybrid line and hope you are diversified that way.  Maybe you can split between the big companies.  But to buy 3 different 110 day corns that look alike from 3 different seed companies, you might wwell get the same seed.

I hate it.