Former Site Manager Lisa Swanson commented at the Wallace Farm in 2021 that a new historic corn plot, paying homage to Henry A. Wallace, who is arguably Adair County’s most famous native son, would serve well in carrying on his legacy.
Wallace was born on the farmstead northeast of Orient in 1888. In addition to starting Pioneer Hi-Bred seed corn, he was an editor at Wallaces’ Farmer magazine and served as U.S. Vice President under Franklin D. Roosevelt in his second term. He was Secretary of Agriculture and Secretary of Commerce before dying in 1965 of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease).
The demonstration corn plot is 50 feet by 100 feet and is the result of a partnership between the Wallace Centers of Iowa and Corteva Agriscience, commonly known as Pioneer HI-Bred.
President and CEO of the Wallace Centers of Iowa, Deb Houghtaling, said she’s amazed, every time she walks through the plot, at the different forms corn plants take on, depending on the variety.
“I grew up around corn and drive around corn fields all the time,” she said. “From a distance, you don’t really notice how the shape has changed over the last however many years. Corn plants today are a lot more compact. They’re not drooping, stereotypical corn leaves. They’re much more erect, and nothing gets wasted. That allows all of the water that falls to go down into the plant.”
There are five varieties Corteva and WCI staff selected of hybrid and non-hybrid corn for the historic plot. The more modern varieties have been bred for greater efficiency and yield. One variety included in the historic plot is Reid’s Yellow Dent, a double cross hybrid first sold in 1936 that holds the world record of 616 bushels per acre. Houghtaling said that farmers when she was a child would get excited at 150 bushels per acre. Now that has doubled to around 300 bushels per acre. Still, over 600 bushels per acre is astonishing.
Accompanying the plot is a large sign explaining how hybridization revolutionized agriculture and the history of Pioneer Hi-Bred’s founding in 1926. Smaller signs explain each variety’s relevance and why it was selected for the demonstration.
In the first year, the plot did very well, without much interference from neighborhood rodents or birds.
The area stopped receiving rainfall right after the second plot was planted. An agronomist who came out for a consult after the plot was planted a second time that year told them that the plot, which is more like a garden because of how it is hand-tilled and hand-planted, can lose moisture more easily because the soil underneath it is more fluffy than a typical field.
A major struggle last year, in the third year of the plot, was critters coming in and eating things. Much of the plot again required replanting. Interestingly, a cover was put on the plot to try to detract animals from getting in. One of the corners got loose and was flapping in the wind, and Houghtaling wonders if that noise detracted critters from coming in.
At Pizza on the Prairie, a Friday night event held at the Wallace Farm, visitors are often drawn to the corn plot to walk through it.
“I would say our original goal was to have a living museum to show Henry A’s role in developing hybrid seed corn. You can touch the corn plants and see the major differences that have happened,” Houghtaling said. “It was meant to be a living, breathing kind of exhibit, and that has been very successful.”
John Van Nostrand contributed to this report.