Commercial Maize Seeding Rates Look to Have Hit a Ceiling
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2025
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As with other agricultural inputs, the choice of crop seeding rate involves tradeoffs. While seed comes with genetic, coating and other resources that positively affect yield, use of some resources essential to plant growth are determined by plant density. Each unit of land makes available nature-given stocks of nutrients and sunlight. In many cases these stocks can be supplemented with irrigation and applied plant food (i.e., fertilizer). The seeding rate choice trades off the number of plants per acre with the yield produced per plant where production per plant at higher plant density will decline because a smaller share of resources available per acre are available per plant. When highest profit per acre is the goal then two factors weigh in favor of choosing a low seeding rate, these being cost of seed and higher production per plant, while having production from more plants weighs in favor of choosing a higher seeding rate.
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