Earlier-Maturing Hybrids Improve Corn Grain Profitability in the Northern Corn Belt
2010
Hao, Xinmei | Thelen, Kurt | Gao, Juan
With continuous genetic improvement of corn (Zea mays L.) hybrids and increasing volatility in energy cost, selecting hybrids with appropriate relative maturity (RM) ratings has significant impacts on profitability for growers. Annual grain yield and moisture at harvest of corn hybrids from 2000-2009 were obtained in three zones across Michigan. Hybrids were classified into either early- or late-maturing groups based on their RM ratings, and the top 5 yielding hybrids of the two groups for each year in each zone were included in the analysis. The relative economic returns of the early- and late-maturing hybrids were evaluated using scenarios of various corn grain price and drying cost combinations. Overall, the late-maturing hybrids had higher grain yield than the early hybrids in the three zones, but only in two of the ten years was the yield difference statistically significant. Meanwhile, grain moisture was consistently and significantly higher for the late hybrids across the region. Consequently, the late hybrids had significantly larger net returns only when they had a large yield advantage combined with a corn grain price higher than $3.5/bu and drying cost less than $0.05/bu/point. For most of price and cost scenarios studied, the early-maturing hybrids had greater net returns than the late-maturing hybrids.
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