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Dowdy tops NCGA Yield contest with 521 bpa

The National Corn Growers Association has announced its 2016 Corn Yield Contest winners and Georgia’s Randy Dowdy (dow-dee) took this year’s top honors.

Dowdy says it isn’t every day he gets to say he has 500 bushel corn.

He tells Brownfield farmers need to be a student of the crop.  “We need to be able to control the controllable things and the things that are taking yields away from us,” he says.  “To do that, you have to know what those things are.  You have to walk the fields and understand what stress is to a corn plant.  What am I going to do today to remove stress or what am I going to do today to induce stress?”

Dowdy says it all starts with the corn plant’s stand.  “How it emerges and how it comes out of the ground,” he says.  “It all has to come up at the same time.”

AUDIO: Randy Dowdy, Georgia

While not all farmers are shooting for 500 bushel corn, Mike Kavanaugh, agronomy manager for AgriGold, says small changes to management practices can help farmers increase yield averages overall.  “We’re trying to challenge our customers now to look back in their last five years,” he says.  “What were your yields per thousand (planted seeds) – instead of talking about yield per acre all the time.  Yields per thousand – and if it is 5 bushels per thousand planted seeds – than strive for six.”

AUDIO: Mike Kavanaugh, AgriGold

Dowdy won the No-Till/Strip-Till Irrigated class with a yield of 521.4 bushels and the Irrigated class with a yield of 501 bushels with the AgriGold A6499 variety.

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