With the weather (finally) warming up, the Ottawa Citizen has published a timely story on the Crop Heat Unit system that was developed in Ontario 50 years ago by Dr.Murray Brown. It’s good to see the anniversary was picked up by a general news publication.
It was great to talk to Dr. Brown for the story I wrote for the February issue of the Ontario Grain Farmer:
THE MAN WHO came up with Ontario’s renowned Crop Heat Unit (CHU) system admits a little luck along with ten years of research led to its development. Considered the gold standard for helping farmers choose corn hybrids that are most suited for their area, the CHU system developed by Dr. Murray Brown was first adopted 50 years ago in 1964.
“At that time, corn hybrids were expanding in numbers that you wouldn’t believe but there were very few hybrids on the recommended list in 1963,” recalls Brown, a retired Professor from the University of Guelph’s School of Environmental Sciences.
Prior to the CHU system, a map with five zones was used for corn recommendations. Long-season varieties were recommended for Zone 1 in the southwest with shortest-season hybrids suggested in Zone 5.
“It was general, and farmers had to kind of guess what hybrids should go into each of the zones,” says Brown, who was a Research Fellow at the Ontario Research Foundation in Toronto at the time he recommended the CHU system to the Ontario Corn Committee.
The rest of the story is posted on the Ontario Grain Farmer website.
