World-record farmer Randy Dowdy is no stranger to big yields and big expectations. Through his work with Total Acre, a business he founded with Virginia farmer David Hula, he encourages farmers to ask the right questions and use data to back up decisions in their quest to unlock yield potential on their own farms.
“My brother teased me for years that I came out of the womb saying ‘why?’ rather than ‘waaa,’” Dowdy laughs. “There is a lot of tradition in farming, and farmers do things because their daddy did it or their alma mater says so. My challenge has always been to ask people why they do what they do.”
With the 2025 planting season right around the corner, his advice is to reevaluate common decisions and make sure there’s real information to back up your game plan.
“Hope is a strategy, but it’s not a good one,” Dowdy says. “Hoping versus knowing is a big deal, and I’d rather know what I’m doing than hope I made the right decision.”
Here are Dowdy and Hula’s top five tips for better yields in 2025:
1. It’s All About Emergence.
It’s not about bolts or bushings, it’s all about emergence. Based on Dowdy’s research, to avoid a yield-limiting establishment there must be a certain number of growing degree units (GDUs) between the first and last emerging plants. It’s not about counting stand populations — it’s about simultaneous emergence.
“Farmers know how to grow corn. They know how to put seed in the ground. What they don’t do a very good job of is knowing how long it takes for every plant to come out of the ground,” Hula says. “How long did it take for that first plant to come up and for the last plant to come up?”
It’s asking those questions that can help growers break yield barriers.
“When I spend $25 on a herbicide and $30 on a fungicide or something else, do I want 100% of those plants to respond or do I want 70% of those plants to respond? The only way I’m going to get a 100% response and maximize ROI is if all of the plants have emerged simultaneously,” Dowdy adds.
2. Determine Cold Germ Score.
Look beyond germination and know how your seed will react to temperatures and conditions. The warm germination test is the standard measurement for seed viability. Total Acre recommends getting a saturated cold germination test. If you want to plant early, or push conditions, you need to know the cold germ score.
3. Is Your Planting Population Reaching Its Potential?
If you plant 30,000 seeds, you should make 10 bu. per thousand plants, which is 300-bu. corn. If you’re planting 30,000 plants and you’re only making 240-bu. corn, that’s 8 bu. per thousand plants. Figure out why and work toward reaching that goal.
“If you plant 30,000 seeds, you should make 10 bu. per 1,000 plants, which is 300-bu. corn.”
4. Evaluate Soil Health.
When was the last time you pulled soil samples across the farm? Was it three years ago, two years ago or last year? Hoping your soil sample from three years ago will be sufficient for this year’s crop is just hoping. You have to know reality and make decisions based on data before the planter rolls.
5. Plan to Harvest High-Moisture Corn.
Harvesting corn at a higher moisture can add real bushels to yield. However, capturing that yield takes planning. With today’s equipment, farmers can often plant much faster than they can harvest. It might make sense to spread out maturities at planting so the farm can capture those free bushels at the end of the season.
How High Can Yields Climb?
Dowdy and Hula help growers break through yield barriers every year. One of the bst examples is Alex Harrell, a Georgia farmer who tallied a soybean yield of 218.2856 bu. per acre in 2024. He eclipsed the previous record, which he set in 2023 with a yield of 206.7997 bu. per acre.
Hula holds the world record for corn yield at 623.8439 bu. per acre.
While 600 bu.-per-acre corn sounds impressive, he thinks the corn yield potential per acre is even higher.
“I did a Google search on the theoretical yield potential of corn and found a professor who said by the year 2030, it was going to be 1,311 bu.,” Hula says. “I don’t think we’re [to the top yet], but clearly we’re over 600 [bu. per acre]. If I had to guess, the potential is in the 900-bu. to 1,000 bu.-per-acre range. There’s a whole lot of room for improvement.”
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