Figure 1. Corn grown at three irrigation levels at the Oakes Irrigation Research Site in 2022.
Average performance of the hybrids at the different irrigation regimes were as follows: 0% irrigation = 27.5 bu/a, 50% = 177 bu/a, and 100% = 220 bu/a. The performance at 0% irrigation is impressively poor, but the other two values are on par with expectations.
At first glance, there were no large differences in performance between the DT and non-DT hybrids (Table 1). At the medium and high irrigation levels the highest yielding treatment was random between the hybrids. This means that the drought tolerance trait created no real benefit at these water levels. We had hoped that the medium treatment might create some differences. This would potentially mean there could be cost savings by lowering the irrigation quantity required for a full corn crop. Since there were no treatment differences, we have to infer that cutting irrigation quantity is not a good strategy with the DT trait.
There were a few things to note with the 0% irrigation treatment. Again, at first there are no differences between hybrids from a raw yield perspective. But, when the yield of each hybrid was compared to the mean performance of the 0% irrigation treatment, we can see that the DT hybrids performed very well compared to the non-DT hybrids. This indicates that the trait may be providing a benefit to the DT hybrids. However, these differences are not going to make a difference in actuality. In some cases we doubled our yield with the DT trait but that only left us at 36 bu/a (compared to 18). With additional years of data or more commonly textured soils, the trait may show greater value to corn producers. But at this time, the value appears to be fairly minimal. We will not recommend against the trait, simply to temper expectations.
Source : ndsu.edu