Recent improvements in climate modeling and consolidation within the agriculture and weather industries result in producers who are aware of relatively short-term weather patterns and can modify their cropping and irrigation strategies accordingly. Advances in breeding and genetics have improved stress tolerance of commercial corn hybrids and, along with seed treatment advances, allows seedlings to withstand cool, moist temperatures. Our work in the Mid-South USA region suggests that there are potential moisture savings with minor modifications to existing irrigation and agronomic practices. Data from over 14 farmer fields and four research stations over the 2013 to 2015 growing seasons suggest that by implementing minor irrigation modifications, we can improve yield by approximately 3 to 5 % (8 bu/A) and reduce the amount of water applied by 40 % all while increasing profitability. Planting date, plant population, and hybrid selection can also be optimized to improve the profitability of the system and lower risk.

Maize breeders continue to seek new sources of aflatoxin resistance, but most lines identified as resistance sources are late maturing. The vast difference in flowering time makes it hard to cross these lines with proprietary commercial lines that mature much earlier and often subjects the reproductive phase of these resistant lines to the hottest and driest portion of the summer, making silking, pollination and grain fill challenging. Two hundred crosses from the GEM Project were screened for aflatoxin accumulation at Mississippi State in 2008, and a subset of these lines were screened again in 2009. The breeding cross UR13085:S99g99u was identified as a potential source of aflatoxin resistance, and maturity-based selections were made from an S2 breeding population from this same germplasm source: UR13085:S99g99u-B-B. The earliest maturing selections performed poorly for aflatoxin accumulation, but later maturing selections were identified with favorable levels of aflatoxin accumulation. These selections, while designated as “late” within this study, matured earlier than most aflatoxin resistant lines presently available to breeders. Two selections from this study, designated S5_L7 and S5_L8, are potential sources of aflatoxin resistance and will be advanced for line development and additional aflatoxin screening over more site years and environments.