Talk:Corn dolly
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is supported by the Mythology WikiProject.
This project provides a central approach to Mythology-related subjects on Wikipedia. |
|
| Start | This article has been rated as start-Class on the Project's quality scale. (If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.) |
|
With the advent of the Combine harvester, the old-fashioned, long-stemmed and hollow-stemmed wheat varieties were replaced with knee-high, pithy varieties.
- Modern wheat is knee-high because some herbicide is applied to it. The herbicide (in a low dose) does not kill the wheat, but just makes it grow shorter than it would naturally. This is done because wheat on long stems is more prone to windfall, especially modern varieties that have large and heavy ears. (See for a -- probably copyrighted -- example of the damage done: http://www.ag.auburn.edu/~kburch/harvest.JPG ) -- dnjansen 13:30 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- This sounds like an Urban (or in this case rural) Legend. See[1], an abstract that mentions different height varieties among wheat. Rmhermen 13:52 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- Not quite. I have received this information directly from (agricultural) civil servants and farmers in Switzerland. I admit however that it is 5 to 10 years old. The article you mention contains two new points to me: there are wheat varieties which grow short without applying herbicides, and short wheat not only has advantages. Interesting... This may lead to the conclusion that the practice of applying herbicide can be abandoned. Are these wheat varieties already in commercial use? -- dnjansen 20:35 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
- This sounds like an Urban (or in this case rural) Legend. See[1], an abstract that mentions different height varieties among wheat. Rmhermen 13:52 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)
