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Early corn guess: 147 b/a

March 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment

It’s still a little early to be projecting corn yields for 2013, but Iowa State University Extension climatologist and professor of agronomy Elwynn Taylor is willing to take a stab at it.

Taylor says that, considering where everything is at right now, “the guess would be better than the 123 bushels to the acre that the nation had last year, and not as good as the 160 to 162 that would be the trend yield.  Somewhere in between—my guess right now, I’d say 147.”

Taylor says the current weather pattern is neutral—absent the influence of a La Nina or El Nino—making it tougher to forecast what the spring and summer might bring.  He tells us to check back on April 15th, when the weather patterns begin to set up.

Taylor made those comments to Brownfield at the recent Triumph of Ag Expo in Omaha.

AUDIO: Elwynn Taylor (5:41 MP3)

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DuPont accelerating hybrid wheat research

February 27, 2013 By Leave a Comment

DuPont is stepping up its efforts to develop hybrid wheat varieties which, according to company officials, could increase wheat yields by 15 to 20 percent.

Speaking to investors Tuesday, DuPont executive vice president Jim Borel said that hybrid wheat technology has entered the first phase of DuPont Pioneer’s five-step research and development pipeline.

DuPont vice-president of research, John Soper, tells Bloomberg that the company is using conventional and biotechnology approaches to developing hybrid wheat.  He said the first commercial hybrid wheat product could be expected in the next decade or so.  

Dow Chemical and Monsanto, which have previously announced efforts to boost wheat yields through genetic modification, are not pursuing the creation of wheat hybrids.

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POET VP: All other plants running

January 28, 2013 By Leave a Comment

While POET Bio-Refining announced last week it was temporarily shutting down operations at one of its two ethanol plants in Missouri, its other ethanol plants remain open.

Larry Ward, POET’s Senior Vice President for Project Development, says corn supply is an issue at its Macon, Missouri plant, because of the drought, but no place else.  Ward tells Brownfield Ag News, “None of the other ones have closed at this time and we do not foresee that at this stage.”

Ward tells Brownfield they’ve been successful combining good corn growing locations and technology to produce ethanol and distillers grains. He says, “We have a great farmer base that has been both suppliers for corn as well as investors in the plants. We have a very strong technology base that has been in the industry for over 20 years and continue to develop and allows those plants to operate amongst the highest in efficiency anywhere in the industry.”

Ward says they are hopeful about the next growing season, “Mother Nature continues to usually bring spring rains. We’ve never seen anything where you’ve had major droughts put on top of other major droughts. You know, anything can happen. We all know that. But we also remain optimistic.

One of the world’s largest ethanol producers, POET has 26 plants in Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and South Dakota.

AUDIO: Larry Ward (4:00 mp3)

POET plants

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Another ‘initiative’ to increase wheat yields

December 31, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A recently-launched international wheat initiative seeks to increase wheat’s genetic yield potential by 50 percent in the next 20 years.

Representatives from 16 countries and international organizations met in Mexico City to set up the framework for the multinational initiative, known as the Wheat Yield Network.  A key focus will be boosting wheat yields through improvements to the plant’s fundamental processes including photosynthesis. 

The new initiative follows on heels of the establishment of the Wheat Initiative through the G20 in 2011, with which the new Wheat Yield Network will seek to coordinate.  The G20’s Wheat Initiative calls for better coordination of international wheat research programs and increased sharing of data between wheat researchers around the world.

U.S. signatories to the new initiative include USDA and the U.S. Agency for International Development.  To date, Syngenta is the sole industry partner.

Link to news release from the National Association of Wheat Growers

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Striving for higher corn yields with high pops and narrower rows

December 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

In an effort to find that next big breakthrough in corn yields, Iowa-based Stine Seed Company has been experimenting with 12-inch rows, equidistant plant spacing and corn genetics able to withstand 50,000 plants per acre.  We asked Stine’s vice-president of sales and marketing, Myron Stine, what they’ve discovered so far.

AUDIO: Myron Stine (3:00 MP3)

Filed Under: Feature Programs, Managing for Profit Tagged With: , , ,

NCGA Yield Contest winners announced

December 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This year’s drought didn’t hinder participation in NCGA’s National Corn Yield Contest.  Corn yields entered more than surpassed the national average corn yield – and in some cases doubled it.  Dean Taylor, chairman of NCGA’s Production and Stewardship Action Team says, “The techniques and practices contest winners develop provide the basis for widely used advances that help farmers across the country.

Hebron, Indiana’s Kathy Little won the AA Non-Irrigated category with a yield of almost 295 bpa.  Second was Herring Farms of Harpster, OH with a yield of almost 293 bpa and Chosen Acres of Lewiston, MN took third with a yield of 288 bpa.

Robert Little, also of Hebron, IN won the AA No-Till/Strip-Till Non-Irrigated category with a yield of just over 297 bpa.  David Oberbroeckling of Davenport, IA was second with a yield of 284 and Ridge View Farms of Clyde, OH was third with a yield of 284 bpa.

The national and state contest winners will be recognized at the 2013 Commodity Classic in Kissimmee, FL in March.

A list of the STATE winners can be found HERE.

The complete list of NATIONAL winners can be found HERE.

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Bio-Forge helps plants reach maximum potential

November 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Jeff Morgan

According to the StollerUSA web site, Bio-Forge is “the only stress-reducing yield enhancer that up-regulates specific genes associated with root development and ethylene reduction for significantly improved yield, quality and return on investment”.

At NAFB Trade Talk in Kansas City we visited with StollerUSA’s director of marketing, Jeff Morgan, about the benefits of using Bio-Forge.

AUDIO: Jeff Morgan 3:54 (MP3)

Filed Under: Feature Programs, Innovations Tagged With: , , ,

Pioneer: AQUAmax corn hybrids show 8% yield advantage

October 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

According to a recent news release from DuPont Pioneer, Pioneer’s Optimum AQUAmax products demonstrated a significant yield advantage in the second year of on-farm evaluations in North America during unprecedented drought conditions.

The company reports that, in more than 4,000 side-by-side comparisons with competitive products, preliminary 2012 yield data shows an advantage of more than eight percent with AQUAmax products in water-limited environments; and a nearly two percent yield advantage in favorable growing environments at locations harvested as of Sept. 27, 2012.

According to DuPont Pioneer, in more than 12,600 comparisons over the past two seasons, the AQUAmax hybrids have shown a 7.6 percent yield advantage in water-limited environments and a 2.7 percent yield advantage in favorable growing conditions.

To find out more about the 2012 harvest and the performance of AQUAmax hybrids, Brownfield visited with Darren Barker, Pioneer technical product manager in Iowa, and Chris Zwiener, a Pioneer field agronomist in northeast Nebraska.

AUDIO: Darren Barker (4:40 MP3)

AUDIO: Chris Zwiener (3:55 MP3)

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Early irrigated corn yields are looking good

September 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Farmers in Nebraska are just starting to harvest some of their early irrigated corn fields. 

Ben Benson of Seward, owner of regional seed company Big Cob Hybrids, was in the combine cab with some of his customers this week.   He says irrigated yields have been impressive, with a lot of 200 bushel-plus corn.

“The irrigated corn—the corn under the circles and the gravity irrigated corn—some yield levels around Holdrege and Funk are probably anywhere from 230 to 250,” Benson says. “Around Henderson, in that York County area, we were in some really good corn-after-corn, irrigated—105 day corn—that was making about 230 straight through at about 16 moisture.”

Bensen notes that those are fields that had adequate water throughout the season.  He says some irrigated fields that ran short of water or were forced to shut off early may only yield in the 170 to 180 bushel range.

Except for those situations—and, of course, the extreme heat—Benson says it was actually a pretty good year for corn under irrigation.

“We didn’t have a lot of the environmental conditions we normally have with hail and greensnap here in Nebraska,” he says. “There wasn’t a lot of disease and there weren’t a lot of those other variables this year that really affect our crop.

“So a lot of the irrigated corn is really uniform and looks really good.”

But Benson says non-irrigated—or dryland—corn is a different story, with yields running from 25 to 80 bushels in southeast Nebraska.

AUDIO: Ben Benson (3:37 MP3)

 

Filed Under: Crops, News Tagged With: , , ,

‘Variable’ describes Iowa corn yields

September 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Extremely variable—that’s how many farmers are describing their corn yields so far.

Myron Ehresman, who farms near Anamosa in east-central Iowa, began combining his 1,100 acres of stressed corn last weekend.

“In some places it’s making 200 bushels—but on the same row, same variety, not too far away, it might only be making 10,” Ehresman says,  “and it seems like those areas where it’s only making 10 to 30 are a lot bigger than those areas where it’s making 180 to 200.”

Ehresman says the corn planted on the lighter, sandy soils doesn’t have any ears to speak of.

Dave Miller is in Lucas County in south-central Iowa.  He says their corn has been averaging 75 to 80 bushels per acre, but with lots of variability in both yield and moisture.

“There are spots as low as 40 (bushels) and probably some spots up in the 120 range—and there’s variability just going down the row,” Miller says.  “You’ll probably be running 13.5 to 14.0 moisture and then all of a sudden you’ll hit a patch that’s probably at 20—but those tend to be short-lived and then you’re back to some real dry corn.”

Miller, who is also the research director for Iowa Farm Bureau, says their most recent load tested at 13.5 percent moisture.

Radio Iowa contributed to this report.

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