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Can We Increase Yields with Increased Seeding Rates?

© Don De Beyer

The goal of every farmer is to have a bountiful crop each year. In order to do this, they must make numerous decisions and often make educated guesses. There are so many variables that will determine a good year that it can seem like gambling sometimes. Fortunately, there are variables that you can manage and use to your advantage to try growing the best crop possible.

If you have crops already growing now is a good time to evaluate a few things and determine if they are working. You should have kept records at planting indicating some of the most important parameters of this year's crop. They could be seeding rate, row spacing, fertilizer applied, pesticides, herbicides etc. These variables will play a part in how well the crop performs and in the end how much is harvested. It also is a good idea to keep track of the weather patterns. After all you may have done everything right except Mother Nature didn't supply enough rain.

The most important skill to learn when farming is to just look. Quite often by looking we can see important clues that will help use farm better. In the case of crops it means visiting the field regularly to evaluate the crops progress. There is a TV commercial playing right now, which depicts a farmer driving down the road beside his field. The farmer is cruising along appreciating and admiring his perfect crop. Suddenly the truck comes to a screeching stop, he jumps out and goes bounding thru the field. He is focused on a single weed that has invaded his field and promptly pulls it out. If look at how well your plants perform with the current seeding rate and row spacing you can hypothesize how to improve their performance.

Despite agricultures best efforts planting every more seeds per acre does not necessarily correspond to greater yields at harvest. If we provided adequate nutrients in the soil and optimal amounts of sunlight and water you may think that we can grow every increasing amounts. Unfortunately, this is not true. The limiting factors are not these. We must look elsewhere for the factor and it can be found in the plant itself.

There are several factors that will affect the plants ability to grow.

1. The total surface area of the leaves.
2. The angle of the leaves in relation to the horizon. Upright leaves allow more sun to reach lower leaves and present a larger area to the sun. A Christmas tree-like shape allows lower leaves to receive sun.