The year 2014 has confirmed this progress, with yields that have been high virtually everywhere. This remarkable performance, promoted by sufficient summer rainfalls, is above all due to the producers' know-how, the efficiency of methods used, and the genetic progress of hybrids grown. This development should continue in the coming years.
Why? First, because we are yet to fully attain the genetic potential of maize. The best yields recorded by farmers in France reach 180 q/ha, and stand largely above 250 q/ha in yield contests held and highly prized by farmers in the U.S. (250 q/ha being the average in all categories of such contests held in 2013 in the United States). Secondly, because maize is the “beacon-plant” in the field of hybrid breeding, that makes use of all biotechnology resources, which go far beyond transgenesis techniques that tend to be most often talked about. Genomics knowledge – nowadays acquired and applied routinely “at high flow” and very low costs –, faster selection cycles of new hybrids, re-creating variability by multiple genetic combinations – enabling one to take advantage of the “hybrid effect” (the driving force for genetic progress) –, and the power of current data processing will further accelerate hybrid breeding. This strategy, known as “genomic selection”, incorporates all the know-how of current techniques. It allows one, above all, to tackle the improvement of highly-complex functions such as drought tolerance and resistance, effectiveness of inputs such as water and nitrogen inside the plant metabolism, which set into motion thousands of genes at the same time. As most maize crops are grown without irrigation (in America, China, and Central and Eastern Europe), drought tolerance is the major area of private and public research worldwide.
Genetic progress does not exclude using all the improvements of cropping practices, which are equally topics of active research – e.g. precision agriculture, allowing for better space use (by GPS); improved equipment (for tillage operations; fast planters, allowing for a fast use of available time slots); crop monitoring for better prevention (observation networks, drones, etc); plant density (narrow row-spacing) – all these techniques aimed at enhancing and optimising all the inputs that are used in what one can call “ecological intensification” of maize production. If tight regulations of all types (which, in France, limit the efficient use of production inputs) are loosened up, the possibilities provided by the progress of farming techniques.
Jean-Paul Renoux, Technical Adviser, AGPM (French General Association of Maize Producers)
