Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 February 1918 — TESTING SEED CORN [ARTICLE]

TESTING SEED CORN

By G. I. Christie, State Food Director. The sand or sawdust box for testing seed corn is much older than the rag doll tester which was described yesterday and has been used for some years by Indiana firms and farmers who have tested their seed. This is a substantial and convenient method. The box is a wooden tray about two and a half inches deep, two and a half feet long and two feet wide, strung with light wire one and three quarters inches apart each way and an inch and a half above the bottom. The tray is filled up to the wires with moist sand, sawdust or earth. The cross wires permanently mark off the surface of the Sand into squares, each of which serves to hold the kernels to be tested from a single ear. This tester will accommodate about two and a half bushels of seed ears at one time. When making tests extreme care must be taken to mark or in some way arrange the ears in the test so that the ear belonging to a certain square in the tester may be readily located. The test should be made with about five kernels taken from various parts of the ear.

Moisture Essential. After the kernels have been placed, the material in the tester must be kept thoroughly moist. Sand is preferred because it is clean and easily kept in good condition, but course earth or sawdust will answer the purpose. When mostening is necessary after the kernels ’ have been placed, a towel or other cTotlTsfiould be spread on the surface and the water poured gently on top, so as not to displace any of the grains. In removing the cloth, care must be taken not to lift any of the kernels out of place. It is best to use some sort of cgver for the tester so as to keep the surface from drying out, but it should not fit closely, as the germinating kernels require considerable air. Window glass makes the most satisfactory cover. The filled tester should be placed in a room where the temperature ranges about 70 degrees and does not get colder than 50 during the night. It should not be placed near a stove or radiator. All kernels that do mot send out vigorous root and stem-sprouts within four or five days under these conditions are too weak to germinate under ordinary field conditions and the ears from which they came should be discarded.