I recently have gotten my mother to paint up the Busch corn rows we purchased a couple of months back.
I applied the yellow stalk fuzz and instead of painting the ground the stalks are attached to I used hob-e-tac on them and gave it a dusting of WS (earth) ground foam so it matches the dirt better.
But now thats its come down to actually planting it I dont know how far apart the rows should be.
Does anyone have the insight of this? I do believe the instructions might have covered this but my mother got clean happy and threw the box out.
Any information would be greatly appreciated, thank you.
Generally, older planters had wider row spacing, first to accomodate horses, then later the tractor tire spacing that matched the equipment set up for horses. The drive for increased yields, especially during and after WWII, got farmers thinking outside the box once they realized that they didn’t have to worry about horses anymore. Adapting to different row spacings once a whole new generation of equipment was available was a logical move. Combine that innovative impetus with other scientific advances in agriculture and rows grew narrower as farmers raised yields every year – even if rising production meant falling profits that didn’t always sustain the cost of new equipment, let alone land. That is one reason why commercial farms are so much bigger these days. My uncle and aunt’s farm went from somewhere around 500 acres when I was born in the mid-50s to over 2,500 acres nowadays.
My memory is a little hazy here, but I think we were planting 24" rows in Indiana in the late 60s. There were regional and individual variations. I remember a discussion about this on the Monon list – lots of corn in Indiana to be modeled – row spacing for corn in the old days was around 30". Is there anyone around with better info – or a better memory?
I can give you some information(at least in the Northern Iowa/Southern Minnesota area) about corn row spacing. Previous planting was in the 36-38" range(depending on the equipment). In the 60’s there was a big push to go to 30" spacing and a lot of equipment was setup to do this. The average yield increased by about 5%, but was not consistent… Further tests with 15", 30", and 38" spacing was done, and the 15" spacing resulted in an avg of 0.3% increased yield over the 30" spacing. The 30" spacing is pretty much standard from what I have observed, though there is some equipment that can do 20" spacing.
What all this means for the modeler is:
Classic/Transition Era(40’s/50’s/60’s) - Go with the 38" spacing
Modern Era(70’s on forward) - 30" spacing would be good
When it comes to actually ‘planting’ that expensive imported stuff, I would space it out further to use up more real estate(less cost)…
Well for a less scientific answer…corn rows have to be spaced far enough for people to walk down them. I grew up across the tracks from a corn field and remember walking thru there many times. Think of it this way, it would be about the same width as a typical doorway for example, or an aisle on a model RR. 24-30" as suggested sounds about right.
A typical no.2 office or school pencil is about 8mm wide, which would be about 27 inches wide in HO, might be an easy way to space the rows - and get them straight.[swg]
30" is what you want. Sounds plenty spacious, but when it is leafed out, walking down those rows when the dew is still on everything picking “eatin’ corn” is downright nasty.
All I know is that when in a corn maze, there practically is no spacing… I figured that the spacing was down to 12" or so now because they don’t bother with walking through the cornfield, they just drive a combine through it.