Why this one and not that one (part 2 )?

A dead plant with yellow lower stalk is adjacent to a genetically identical plant with a green live lower stalk. Why? I first hypothesized these could be the plants that emerged late, as if it developed from seed that germinated slowly because of deteriorating quality. In the field nursery with many hybrids tags were put by plants that showed only 3 leaves and other tags placed by seedlings just emerging when most adjacent plants were showing 5 leaves. These plants were followed through the season.  Late emerging plants definitely did not develop stalk rot. Some of those that were only emerging when tagged actually disappeared but if not they were completely barren. Those tagged with 3 leaves had narrow stalks and tassels that were much smaller and with fewer branches than surrounding plants, silks emerging later than other plants and averaged about 20% of the yield of majority plants- but no stalkrot.  I showed the plants to the fellow that evaluated winter growouts for purity of new seed lots. He said that confirmed his opinion that some plants he saw that looked like they could be inbred selfs were actually late emerging plants.  To make sure that these were not inbreds, the next year I hand planted 5 hybrids leaving interplant space for planting the same hybrids later between the initial planting.  These intentional late emergence plants looked the same as in the first year’s observation.  Late emergers apparently suffer from competition resulting in having very small stalks and yield but the stalks remain green.  Late emerging plants do not yield but also do not explain why adjacent plants do not behave the same in terms of stalk rot.
 
The concept that late emerging plants do not perform well and that seed quality is a significant component to good grain yields was observed by many others before that experiment in 1973, but it was new to me.  It also set me on path to find a better method of evaluating purity of hybrid seed lots as well as finding other explanations as to why a dead plant would occur adjacent to a green one only a few inches apart. It is probably significant that commercial hybrids of 2015 have a lot less ‘flex’ than those of 1973, but the basic importance of uniform emergence remains.