What You Can Learn About Hybrids Based On The Tassel

By: Tom J Bechman

If you’re comparing one corn hybrid to another and ears are present, your eyes will go to the ears first. Yield is still No. 1 in selecting corn hybrids. But if ear size is all you consider, you may be missing out on key information right before your eyes, Dave Nanda says. And it’s information that could help determine the size of those ears and the size of the kernels on the ears.

“We need to look at other characteristics, too, when making hybrid choices,” says Nanda, an independent crops consultant based in Indianapolis. “I always like to look at traits of tassels. They quite often vary from hybrid to hybrid, even if the hybrids are similar in relative maturity.”

A tassel is a tassel, right? As long as it produces and sheds pollen, you don’t really care about how it’s put together, do you?

Not so fast, says Nanda. He compared tassels from two different hybrids growing side by side in a field to illustrate what you can learn from tassels. At the same time, it underscored why studying tassels is worth the effort.