You can’t construct a strong building on a weak foundation, and you can’t grow a great corn crop on a weak root system. From freezing temperatures to voracious underground pests and other threats, ...

This figure from the paper shows the evolution of root types from teosinte to modern corn over the last 10 000 years, simulated using the modeling program OpenSimRoot, which was developed by ...

Wondering what’s causing stunted growth and wilting in your corn field? First, examine the roots. You might find evidence of seed corn maggot or cutworm damage in the corn root system. But there are ...

Dr. Dan Quinn, Purdue Corn Agronomist, shared his experience with abnormal mesocotyl growth of corn seedlings in the most recent Pest & Crop Newsletter. As a young agronomist, one of the first things ...

Researchers report some corn plants are genetically predisposed to develop longer, less constricted water-conducting tissues and deeper roots, which helps them deal with drought. That's the conclusion ...

Early in the season a plant begins to "take root" in the soil, but that growth can continue to considerable depth There is no simple definition of the “right way to farm” because any answer would have ...

Editor's Note: Corn is a product of domestication and continual evolution. Today's top-yielding hybrids look nothing like the teosinte plants from which they arose 9,000 years ago -- or even the ...

Researchers Johannes Scharwies and José Dinneny standing in front of corn plants grown to study root responses to moisture at the Stanford Greenhouse Facility. A corn plant knows how to find water in ...

A corn plant knows how to find water in soil with the very tips of its roots, but some varieties, including many used for breeding high-yielding corn in the U.S., appear to have lost a portion of that ...