Volume 29 Number 372 Acceptance and diffusion of hybrid corn Article 1 seed in two Iowa communities January 1950 Acceptance and diffusion of hybrid corn seed in two Iowa communities Bryce Ryan University of Ceylon Neal Gross University of Minnesota Follow this and additional works at: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/researchbulletin Part of the Agriculture Commons, and the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Ryan, Bryce and Gross, Neal (1950) "Acceptance and diffusion of hybrid corn seed in two Iowa communities," Research Bulletin (Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station): Vol. 29 : No. 372 , Article 1. Available at: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/researchbulletin/vol29/iss372/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa Agricultural and Home Economics Experiment Station Publications at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Research Bulletin (Iowa Agriculture and Home Economics Experiment Station) by an authorized editor of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. January, 1950 Research Bulletin 372 Acceptance and Diffusion of Hybrid Corn Seed in Two Iowa Communities By BRYCE RYAN AND NEAL GROSS AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION IOWA STATE COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND MECHANIC ARTS SOCIOLOGY SUBSECTION ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY SECTION AMES, IOWA CONTENTS Summary ...........................................................................•.......................................... 663 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 665 Objectives and hypotheses of the study................................................................ 665 What hybrid corn is ................................................................................................ 667 Significance of hybrid corn .................................................................................... 667 The data for the study............................................................................................ 669 Certain methodological considerations................................................................ 669 Limitations of the unilateral economic approach .......................................... 669 Possible limitations to acceptance of the practice........................................ 671 Definition of acceptance...................................................................................... 672 Combining the two communities...................................................................... 673 Background of the diffusion ...................................................................................... 673 Effects of economic and climatic conditions........................................................ 674 Influence of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.............................. 675 Hybrid and the corn complex................................................................................ 675 Resistance to hybrid ............................................................................................... 676 The diffusion process.................................................................................................. 677 Diffusion of knowledge and practice.................................................................... 677 Increasing acceptance....................................................................... · ....................... 679 Acceptance by new farmers .................................•.................................................. 681 The agencies of diffusion ........................................................................................ 682 Original sources of knowledge........... _......................................................... : ... 682 Most influential sources of knowledge ............................................................ 684 Conclusions ............................................................................................................... 686 The relationship of certain variables to time of adoption .................................... 686 The four adoption groups and methods of analysis.......................................... 686 The characteristics studied.................................................................................... 687 Personal background characteristics.................................................................... 688 Age ....................................................................................................................... 688 Education ..............................................................................................................689 Nationality ............................................................................................................ 689 Economic status factors ..............................................................................................690 Corn acreage ............................................................................................................ 690 Tenure status............................................................................................................ 691 Inter·farm mobility.................................................................................................. 692 Social participation ...................................................................................................... 693 Neighborliness .......................................................................................................... 693 Organizational participation.................................................................................. 694 Total number of organizations ............................................................. :.............. 694 Extent of participation........................................................................................ 696 Leadership in community activities...................................................................... 697 Participation in Agricultural Adjustment Administration programs............ 699 Non·organized secondary participation ................................................................ 700 Commercialized recreation .........................................................................•............ 701 Reading .................................................................................................................... 703 Discussion ................................................................................................... _............... 705 663 SUMMARY This research constituted an analysis of the conditions and pro­ cesses under which im important technical innovation, hybrid corn, was adopted in two prosperous agricultural communities in Iowa. Three general problems were studied: (1) the time pattern by which use of the seed spread; (2) the functions and importance of its diffusion agencies or media by which the seed spread; and (3) the relationship of characteristics (personal, economic and social) of farm operators to the rapidity with which they adopted the new seed. 1. During practically one decade hybrid corn came to be ac­ cepted by all farm operators in the areas studied. 2. The diffusion pattern was made up of three periods: (1) a long period of slow initial growth, (2) rapid rise in adoption and (3) a brief decline as the most resistant adopters accepted the te.chnique. 3. Most operators deferred adoption of the seed until several years after they were familiar with its existence, Late adopters deferred much longer than did those accepting the seed early in the diffusion cycl". 4. The earliest adopters performed a special function for their communities in their roles as "experimenters." 5. Most ~dopters first accepted the seed in small quantities, gradually increasing their use as the years went by. Even late adopters usually went through such a period of trial use in spite of the currently larger plantings by those who had tried the seed earlier. 6. The diffusion media by which farm operators first learned of hybrid corn tended to differ from the media most influential in leading them to use it. This suggests a functional classification of diffusion agencies, as introductory and as activating media. • 7. The major single source of original knowledge about, hybrid seed was salesmen. The most influential single source of knowledge was "neighbors." 8. The importance of salesmen both as informants and influ­ encers in the diffusion process was mainly during the early period of adoption, while the importance of neighbors was greater in the later years. 9. Size of farm enterprise, education, youthfulness and amount of social participation of the operator were all associated with early adoption. 10. Leadership in organized community affairs was not related to leadership in the adoption of the new technique.., 664 n. Tenure status, mobility, extent of neighboring and national­ ity background had little or no association with time of adoption. 12. The associations of size of farm enterprise, education, age and extent of social participation with early adoption were in nearly all instances most pronounced when the bitest and the earliest adopters were compared. 13. The forms of social participation associated with early adop. tion indicate a greater susceptibility to technological innovation among farm operators who had a more. secular pattern of social life. 14. The analysis suggests that those members