Breaking Barriers

Don’t Cut the Backstop: Dowdy And Hula Weigh In on Crop Insurance, Budgets

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 21:47:49 GMT

When Randy Dowdy picks up the phone to call his crop insurance agent this time of year, it’s not to see if he can shave premiums — it’s to make sure one tough season can’t threaten the future of his farm. He and fellow national yield champion David Hula want more farmers thinking that same way. They are optimistic that with some attention to the details, growers can put their operations on stronger footing.

Dowdy and Hula hold to a simple, practical blueprint: run the farm with the same financial discipline as any other serious business. That starts with a written budget and continues with a crop insurance plan that’s built around each of their farms’ true risk—not just what feels comfortable when the premium bill arrives.

Dowdy farms in Georgia, where tropical systems are a fact of life, not a rarity.

“For us, it’s not a matter if we’re going to get a hurricane or tropical storm, it’s how many we’re going to get and will we be on the edge or will we be Bullseye central,” he says. “I can’t sleep at night knowing I’ve got $800,000-plus at risk and not have some kind of backstop on it.”

That backstop for both growers is crop insurance. Hula is concerned by how often it’s still treated as a soft target when growers start trimming expenses.

“Growers, if they’re doing budgets—which I know most growers don’t do a budget, unfortunately—but they need to do a budget,” he says. “The sheer cost of production is so high and the risk is there. We all got to service debt. We cannot afford to cut out crop insurance.”

A Working Budget, Not a Guess

Both Dowdy and Hula believe that most operations are simply too big and too leveraged to rely on “gut feel” budgeting. When total corn production costs push into the $600 to $1,000 per acre range, they say every line item needs to be accounted for and challenged.

Hula encourages farmers to use this time of year – winter meeting season – as a springboard to upgrade their financial discipline.

“Growers need to try to capture at least three things when they go to these winter meetings,” he says —whether it’s “something new to try or somewhere to help fine‑tune their budgets.”

For him, that starts with knowing where dollars actually move the needle: fertility, seed, planter performance and risk management. A written budget that ties realistic yield expectations to actual costs per acre then becomes the framework for his every decision – from which hybrids to plant to what coverage levels to buy.

Crop Insurance as a Strategy

Dowdy and Hula say crop insurance should be viewed as the core of a risk management strategy designed around each operation’s exposure.

Dowdy explains how he has traditionally built his coverage and how that thinking is evolving.

“In a normal year we do enterprise [coverage], and normal insurance gets us to that 75% or we buy up 80%,” he says.

After talking with his crop insurance agent, Dowdy is now also considering the benefits of Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) and Enhanced Coverage Option (ECO).

“He’s talking about the SCO version of it, getting coverage to 86% and then you can go with the ECO version to get it up into that 90‑plus‑percent range. And it’s affordable,” Dowdy says.

For Dowdy, the insurance structure matters too. While enterprise units can help manage premium costs, he believes his farming geography demands a more granular approach.

“We may farm ground 60 miles apart,” he says. “I’ll buy optional units just to keep individual farms’ coverage because of the proximity. I go ahead and spend that $75 to $80 an acre, and it helps me sleep at night knowing I got that coverage.”

His takeaway: Don’t stop at the base policy without taking a deeper look. Sit down with your agent and run the numbers on unit structure, SCO and ECO to find a package that realistically protects your cost of production, not just your comfort level with the premium.

Managing Quality and Catastrophic Risk

The risk picture doesn’t end with yield outcomes. Dowdy stresses that in his environment, a lack of crop quality can be just as damaging as outright yield loss.

With his full‑season beans often ready for harvest in late August or early September—smack in the middle of hurricane season—the window for disaster is wide open.

“If it’s 90 degrees outside and it’s hot and wet, those beans will rot right before your eyes,” Dowdy explains. “It’s a quality issue as much as it is just a wind issue.”

Corn brings its own headaches when storms hit hard late in the season.

“If corn goes down, you aren’t going to get it all,” Dowdy says. “Now, there’s some manufacturers that say, ‘you can use our head, we’ll get it all.’ I call BS on that. I don’t want to have to deal with the process of trying to pick it up and harvest it anyhow.”

Dowdy and Hula’s recommendation: build quality risk directly into your budgeting and insurance conversations. Know how your policies treat quality issues and lodging, and be realistic about what you can—and can’t—salvage when a storm hits.

Population and Fertility: Trimming Where It Makes Sense

While Dowdy and Hula believe crop insurance is the wrong place to cut, they both say there are smart, numbers‑driven opportunities to manage input costs—especially in seed and fertility.

“For me, the take‑home that I’ve seen is in fertility management—let’s fine‑tune that,” Hula says. That doesn’t mean making across‑the‑board cuts; it means using precision.

“Use soil tests, yield maps and response history to put fertility where it pays and pull it back where it doesn’t,” he adds.

On seed, Hula thinks 2026 could be a year to rethink planting high populations.

“A lot of times we think we’re going to push our crop a little bit more, and maybe plant a little bit thicker,” he says. “This might be the year just to dial it back a bit… just dial it back 2,000 plants per acre. You’re not going to see a big change in harvestability, you’re not going to see a big change in the end result of yield, but you can see a little reduction in cost.”

Dowdy agrees with the direction—but wants growers to test populations boldly enough to get clear answers.

“I’m going to take it one step further,” he says. “When you do 2,000, I just can’t see enough response. I’m going to go to at least 4,000 less plants so I can say, ‘did I move the needle, yes or no?’”

Dowdy uses a simple benchmark to judge whether the population used is delivering ROI.

“What needs to drive people is, are you making 10 bushels a thousand?” he says. “If you’re not making 10 bushels a thousand based off your planting population, we need to consider, are we planting it too thick? Are we just doing that much of a poor job on getting simultaneous emergence? Why not fix that piece first, and then consider the reduction in population.”

The Planter: One Chance to Get It Right

Hula reminds growers that an expensive mistake is a poorly maintained planter. He believe economic pressure should drive you to the shop, not away from it.

This time of year, Hula is disassembling, inspecting and rebuilding his planter, replacing blades and wear parts and checking every row unit. The goal is simple: give every seed the best chance at uniform emergence and early vigor.

“It seems like we talk about the planter and planting a lot, but that’s what gets everything started,” he says. “You can only do that right one time.”

Dowdy and Hula share more recommendations on their podcast Breaking Barriers With R&D and in their discussion on AgriTalk. Catch their conversation at the link below:

Why Your Best Crop Investment Won’t Show Up On An Invoice

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 19:46:08 GMT

The advice from champion corn growers David Hula and Randy Dowdy for the upcoming season isn’t flashy, but it is a blueprint for success in a challenging year. In a world often distracted by “quick fixes,” they insist that disciplined execution of the fundamentals—from the planning process to the final pass of the combine—is what can help you capture high yields and ROI this season.

Here are three specific actions they recommend:

1. Build Your Yield House

David Hula often compares high-yield corn production to building a home. You don’t start with the roof; you start with a solid foundation.

“When building a house, you have the design, the foundation, and the framing,” Hula says. “On the farm, those basics look like choosing the right hybrids for your farm, picking the appropriate tillage system, getting your fertility in order, and ensuring your planter is truly field-ready—not just ‘dealer-ready.’”

2. Focus On Timely Actions

A recurring theme for Hula and Dowdy is the distinction between speed and timeliness. In today’s world, equipment allows farmers to cover acres faster than ever, but speed doesn’t equal success if the timing is off or the practice is poorly done.

“You can’t pay for or buy timeliness,” Hula says. “The grower has to be willing and ready to go when he needs to go. You can’t buy back a lost window of opportunity.”

This means your logistics, maintenance, and finances must all be prearranged and in order before they’re needed. When the weather breaks, you should be moving — not deciding on a plan or fixing a planter. This readiness extends through the entire season, Hula adds, and not just at planting or sidedress time.

He shares a powerful example of the payoff when a grower is ready to act. A Midwest farmer called him late last summer and said he had southern rust in his corn crop and asked what he should do.

“I said, ‘go spray,’ and he claims that fungicide application saved him 62 bushels [an acre],” Hula recalls. “That’s the kind of result that could help a person service a lot of debt.”

3. Avoid the ‘Shiny Object’ Trap

With a constant stream of new products hitting the market, Randy Dowdy warns farmers not to let the “latest and greatest” distract them from covering the basics.

“Every day, somebody has a new biological or stimulant they’re trying to get you to buy,” he says. “If everything we were told was worth five to 10 bushels an acre, this job would be a lot easier than it is to make ROI.”

His key message: don’t let products or unknown practices distract you from implementing the fundamentals well. “Test things, yes—but on top of a solid foundation, not instead of it,” Dowdy says.

Dowdy and Hula share more recommendations on their podcast Breaking Barriers With R&D and earlier this week during their discussion on AgriTalk. Catch their conversation at the link below:

Beyond Bushels: Align High-Yield Strategies With Your Crop Budget

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 20:31:39 GMT

A practical crop budget can serve as a valuable farming playbook, offering essential direction and guidance from planting through harvest, according to farmers and business partners David Hula and Randy Dowdy.

“Return on Investment (ROI) is the primary focus for the year ahead,” says Dowdy, who farms near Valdosta, Ga. “Everybody is trying to figure out how to survive this lean time, because we don’t have $8 corn or $15 beans.”

Start The Season Strong

For Hula, the strategy for achieving both high yields and ROI begins with selecting the right hybrids and using excellent planting practices, followed by consistent nutrition.

“You want to feel optimistic that you’re going to have high yield potential starting out,” he says. “Then, you need to make sure the crop has all the groceries it needs, because if it runs out of juice at any one time, you’ve just hit the minus button.”

Power Of Finishing The Crop

Hula highlights that another critical component of maximizing ROI, even in current tight markets, is finishing the crop well.

He shares that despite having a challenging growing season this year, his dryland acres achieved their third-best farmgate average. He attributes that to ensuring the crop received the necessary resources late in the season, especially a fungicide application.

“We felt pretty confident [the crop] was going to deliver... and that was mostly because we finished it well. We were picking 66.7 to 67 pounds test weight corn at harvest,” reports Hula, who is based near Charles City, Va.

“Finishing the crop is by far where a lot of people leave a lot of yield on the table,” adds Dowdy.

Use ‘Bushels’ To Track Costs

The current market outlook for 2026 necessitates a sharp focus on expense management, Dowdy notes.

“Obviously servicing debt is still on everybody’s mind. A farmer should never cut out anything that he or she knows makes money. But the problem is sometimes they don’t always know what that is,” he says.

When planning the budget, Hula urges growers to shift their perspective away from the cost of the input and toward the bushel return needed to justify it.

He offers, as an example: “For me to do in-furrow, that requires seven bushels. If I’m not going to get a seven-bushel return per acre, I’m not going to do it.”

Hula believes the bushel ROI mindset should be applied to all inputs. By framing decisions in terms of bushels rather than dollars, he says growers can more easily see the economic impact of each investment they make.

Make Every Input Pay Its Way

Hula and Dowdy are spending significant time this winter consulting with growers on budget strategies through their business, Total Acre . In many cases, they are stressing the importance of refining in-season input applications to make them more efficient, rather than cutting them completely.

“We can keep some of the in-season applications and make them more efficient by placement,” Dowdy says. “The goal is not merely to cut costs, but to find better, more efficient ways to invest money that directly leads to a higher ROI.”

Dowdy and Hula discuss their budgeting recommendations in more detail in their latest Breaking Barriers With R&D podcast discussion on Farm Journal TV and YouTube via the link here:

You can also hear Hula and Dowdy’s latest discussion on AgriTalk here:

‘Farmers Can’t Outyield the Balance Sheet Anymore’

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 22:54:51 GMT

Randy Dowdy, high-yield corn and soybean farmer and agronomic consultant, paints a stark picture of the economic pressure bearing down on American farmers.

Fresh from a visit with customers, Dowdy says the same three questions dominate almost every discussion he had with growers:

Where can we cut costs?
Where do we have to spend money to stay in business?
How do we service existing debt when margins are razor thin?

Even with strong yields this year, many of the farmers, he notes, “could not outyield the balance books.” Commodity prices have not kept pace with rising costs, he says, leaving farmers struggling to keep their operations in the black.

Costs Have Soared, Partly Due To Regulations
Dowdy contrasts his early years in farming with today’s reality. When he started farming in 2008, his first tractor cost between $150,000 and $175,000. Now, he says, a similar horsepower tractor “can run roughly three times that dollar amount.”

He traces a significant part of that escalation to emissions and environmental regulations that began ramping up in the late 2000s. He recalls an initial price jump, followed by annual increases of 6% to 8% since then, compounding the burden on farm finances. The complexity that comes with the machinery systems, he argues, also has stripped farmers of their ability to repair their own equipment.

“You can’t work on [equipment] without a computer. Even the technicians can’t work on them without a computer,” he mentioned on a recent AgriTalk segment.

Noting not all of the price jump is due to emissions controls, Dowdy believes the regulatory wave gave some manufacturers cover to raise prices.

Tension Between Policy and Reality
Dowdy’s comments on AgriTalk came following a White House roundtable on Monday tied to a new $12 billion “bridge payment” plan . President Donald Trump said his administration will move quickly to ease environmental requirements affecting tractors and other farm machinery , arguing the changes will lower sticker prices and simplify repairs.

On Wednesday more news followed with Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins and Health Secretary Robert “F” Kennedy Jr., announcing a $700 million initiative for regenerative agriculture .

Dowdy said he’s not opposed to supporting agricultural niches — all of the profitable corn and soybean growers he and Total Acre business partner David Hula met with recently have some kind of specialty angle.

“If there’s a little help for those guys, I don’t have a problem with it. But at the end of the day, the row crop farmers are where the help needs to be,” he notes.

Part of the help has to do with machinery costs. He highlighted cotton pickers as one example.

“The cotton industry’s got one manufacturer that I’m aware of that makes a cotton picker. One. And it’s $1.2 million,” he says. “Where’s the competition that helps make that thing affordable?”

Dowdy doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but he would like a “seat at the table” to have a candid conversation with policymakers and regulators focused on one core goal: bringing equipment and input costs back within reach so farmers can keep their operations viable.

“I’m all for the farmer,” Dowdy says. “If the farmer wins, everybody wins.”

Dowdy and Hula address farmer profitability needs in more detail in their new Breaking Barriers With R&D podcast, available here:

You can also catch the AgriTalk discussion between Dowdy and Host Davis Michaelson below:

Southern Rust Delivers A Harsh Wake-Up Call For Disease Control

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 22:54:08 GMT

Southern rust swept through the Midwest this past summer, taking big bites out of corn yield potential and forcing many growers to consider making late-season fungicide applications they hadn’t budgeted for.

Now, many farmers are asking themselves and their agronomic advisers how to plan for next season. A common question: Is southern rust going to be a significant problem in the Midwest again in 2026?

The answer: No one knows. Southern rust does not overwinter in crop residue – it has to blow in on winds from southern climes to be a problem for Midwest growers. So, what happens next year with the disease depends largely on how Mother Nature behaves.

Another fun weather fact from summer of 2025...
Chart showing why disease pressure was at biblical levels in areas this summer. Over two months of humidity levels WAY above average.

Mid June until beginning of September, nearly every day was above average humidity (blue line)… pic.twitter.com/eFHEDs4hs1
— Pioneer Troy (@deutmeyer_troy) November 18, 2025

Fungicides Paid Their Way
If there’s any silver lining to the challenge many farmers had with southern rust this year it’s that now almost everyone knows how yield-crippling the disease can be and the value fungicides can deliver.

Mary Gumz says she was fielding calls from concerned corn growers as early as the V10 to V12 growth stages of corn.

“It was a very different scenario than we’re usually in most years, and we were recommending that farmers spray earlier than usual,” recalls Gumz, a Pioneer agronomy manager.

With the tough economics farmers faced this season, some opted to forgo an application. But where corn growers made the hard call and applied fungicide, those fields delivered at harvest.

“We got some big yield increases, and you could visually see the difference between those plants where we did make the early call [with a fungicide application] compared to the usual application at tassel timing,” she says.

Another factor that made southern rust so difficult to control this season is that, in many cases, a second application of fungicide was warranted where the disease had time to rebuild.

“You can get about two or three weeks of efficacy from a fungicide on southern rust, but don’t expect you’re going to get season-long control,” says Randy Dowdy, Valdosta, Ga., and partner in Total Acre . “I’m not aware of a fungicide that you can spray at tassel for southern rust and that will last 50, 60 days or until black layer.

Southern rust does not overwinter in corn residue like some other diseases, such as tar spot. Instead, if it shows up in the Midwest, it has arrived via winds from southern climes.

(Corteva/Pioneer)

Proactive Planning For Next Season Can Help
While southern rust is a concern, Kim Tutor, BASF technical marketing manager, encourages farmers to keep in mind those tough diseases, such as tar spot, northern corn leaf blight and gray leaf spot, that are annual disease challenges in the Midwest.

Tar spot overwinters in corn residue, ready to rebuild in corn crops when weather conditions are favorable to its development, and is making its way across the Corn Belt.

“Tar spot can be infecting a corn plant, causing damage internally for two to three weeks before we are able to detect a lesion or see symptomology on the surface of the leaf,” Tutor adds.

She says if you are in a situation where models show significant disease pressure is moving into your area or you are based in an area with tar spot pressure, for instance, to consider making an early application with a fungicide that has residual control during what she calls an optimized application window – as early as V10 and through at least R3.

If you are in an area with heavy tar spot levels or you are looking to push the envelope for yield, Tutor recommends making two fungicide applications in corn, keeping applications 20 to 28 days apart.

As for which fungicide you apply, for so-called driver diseases like tar spot or southern rust, Missy Bauer, Farm Journal Field Agronomist, recommends going with what she describes as “Cadillac” type chemistry, newer technology that features multiple modes of control.

Extension plant pathologists annually update fungicide efficacy ratings for various crops, including corn, via the Crop Protection Network website. You can check the ratings for each fungicide’s performance on various diseases using the Corn Fungicide Efficacy table. Some products work better on tar spot or gray leaf spot, whereas others are more effective on rusts and other diseases.

Given the outlook for grain prices next year, be sure to also check out the new Corn Fungicide ROI Calculator on the Crop Protection Network.
You can use the calculator to look at different scenarios (grain prices, expected yield, disease severity) to see the potential ROI on fungicide applications.

Currently data available in the calculator are from university uniform corn fungicide trials conducted across 19 states and Ontario, Canada between 2019 and 2022. Primary diseases in this data set were tar spot and southern rust.

(Crop Protection Network)

Your next read: Red Crown Rot Rising: What Every Soybean Grower Needs to Know For 2026

In This High-Stakes Farming Economy, Some Practices Still Deliver ROI

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 20:47:45 GMT

Some agronomic decisions do provide an annual return-on-investment (ROI) you can count on, according to corn yield champions David Hula and Randy Dowdy. One of those, they say, is soil testing fields in 1-acre grids and then using the resulting information to guide fertility decisions.

“If people are used to going across the field and watching a yield monitor vary significantly, say from 300 bushels down to 200 bushels in a pass, there’s a reason why that is and a lot of it has to do with soil fertility,” says Dowdy, who farms near Valdosta, Ga. “Pulling samples in a 1-acre grid can help you identify where variability is in the field better than a 2.5-acre grid or a zone sample can.”

Hula agrees and uses a medical analogy to explain the value of 1-acre grids. “It’s like the more detailed information you can get from an MRI versus an X-ray,” says Hula, who farms near Charles City, Va.

Dowdy and Hula encourage farmers to prioritize soil tests this fall, starting with any ground they own. “Every acre I own would definitely get tested, starting with the tiled ground because it’s going to give you the biggest ROI versus the not tiled ground,” Hula says.

Making Assumptions Can Be Costly
Growers who are reluctant to soil test this year because of costs might want to reconsider, as one of Hula’s recent experiences demonstrates.

Hula says he had not limed his farm ground for several years, due to a lack of product availability. “First, the lime quarries broke down, and then they ran out of lime, so we just couldn’t get it done,” he recalls.

As a result, Hula anticipated spreading 6,000 tons of lime across his corn ground this year. But instead of simply making that assumption, he pulled soil samples in 1-acre grids across 4,000 acres.

To Hula’s surprise, soil sample results showed his fields needed a lot less lime than anticipated.

“We only needed 2,600 tons of lime spread,” Hula reports. “Yes, there were costs associated with the testing, but the savings we got was more than enough to cover that.”

Dowdy and Hula, who work as partners in Total Acre , offered more money-making and saving ideas during their latest Breaking Barriers With R&D podcast, available on YouTube.

Consider Lime Type And Source
The goal, Dowdy says, is to have a soil pH in the neutral to 6.8 range across all acres. “An old timer told me a long time ago, ‘the cheapest fertilizer you’ll ever buy is lime,’ because it’s going to help you get the maximum efficacy from all your nutrients,” he explains.

If tests indicate soils need a pH adjustment, give careful consideration to the type of lime that will provide the biggest ROI in 2026.

“Understand the source of lime, whether you need magnesium or not and also understand whether it is a coarse or a fine-textured lime,” Hula advises.

The finer textured lime is what’s needed for a spring application. A coarse lime can take a couple of years to break down and become available for soil uptake.

Farmers who applied a coarse lime last fall need to be aware of that, so they don’t over-correct on lime applications this next spring. “You don’t want a situation where it all kicks in on the same year,” Hula cautions.

“Likewise, don’t use that as an excuse to not lime, if what you applied two years ago still hasn’t shown up. Understand what kind of lime or other fertility need your soils have now going into the season,” Dowdy advises.

Dowdy and Hula addressed the value of soil testing in more detail during their recent conversation with Chip Flory on this episode of AgriTalk. Listen to it here:

Your next read: Add 75+ Bushels Of Corn Per Acre With Better Closing Wheel Performance

Some Farmers Are Increasing Cover Crop Acres to Cut Fertilizer Costs and Boost Soil Health

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 20:28:16 GMT

How can you trim fertilizer costs and still provide adequate nutrients for corn and soybeans next season? One solution is to consider planting some cover crops this fall, recommends David Hula, reigning world corn yield record holder.

“Nitrogen, potash, boron, sulfur… those are mobile nutrients, so if you plant a cover crop it’s going to pick up those nutrients, and then when you kill that cover crop, you can recycle that residue that was left over, or the residual nutrients that were left over,” explains Hula, who farms near Charles City, Va.

Cover crops can scavenge for nutrients from previous crops, store them and then release them for use the following season – a process that can help reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers.

Hula adds that corn and soybean growers don’t need to be using no-till on the farm to benefit.

“You can strip-till into those cover crops, or early in the spring you can work the cover crops in to get the benefits,” he says.

Randy Dowdy says one of the benefits he’s seen is that microbial activity likes to colonize around a living root mass.

“You know, it always helps our early season tissue sample values go up where we’ve got a cover crop,” says Dowdy, Hula’s partner in Total Acre . “So if guys can, at least on bean ground where they’ve harvested, get some cover crop established and get it up, from a biological play and nutrient availability play for next season, it’s a no brainer.”

Experience Has Increased Farmer Confidence
The survey data show that cover crop plantings are on the rise among farmers who already have experience using them, according to results of the September Purdue/CME Ag Economy Barometer. And, those growers will plant cover crops on a higher percentage of their total acreage this fall, reports Jim Mintert, emeritus professor of economics at Purdue University.

He says the survey trends point to broader adoption across acreage: This year, 57% of cover crop users planted them on 26% to 50% of their acres, compared to only 25% in 2021 who reported planting cover crops on more than one-fourth of their acreage.

“What the survey says is, if you use cover crops, you’re using them more intensively now than you did in the past,” Mintert adds.

He believes the increased use of cover crops by those farmers indicates they have figured out how to capitalize on the benefits.

“It’s like this learning curve, where maybe the folks that have learned how to use them are adopting them on a wider portion of their farm acreage. I think that is what we’re picking up,” Mintert says.

Where And Why Cover Crops Are Being Used
Cover crop use by farmers across the U.S. increased 17% between 2017 and 2022 – from 15,390,674 acres to 17,985,831acres – data from the 2022 Census of Agriculture show. In total, cover crops were planted on 4.7% of all cropland in 2022.

Regional differences in the use of cover crops are related to factors such as climate, soils, cropping systems, and state incentive programs, according to USDA-Economic Research Service.

(USDA-ERS)

For example, Maryland, which has the highest rate of cover crop use, has programs that encourage farmers to grow cover crops to help improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay.

“Water quality is a big deal for those of us on the East Coast, and there are some programs available through NRCS and others that could be a little bit of a revenue stream for a grower and you can reduce some expenses,” says Hula.

Warm Conditions Could Help Stand Establishment
With the current fall conditions across the Midwest, Hula would encourage growers new to using cover crops there to experiment with them on some acres.

“A lot of times, Midwest growers are worried they’re going to run out of time to get a cover crop planted, but with as warm as it is, you have a good chance to get some growth established this fall and a good root system going before conditions turn cold,” he says.

Moisture is needed to get cover crops established well, and that is a concern in some areas this fall, cautions the Midwest Cover Crops Council. It says good soil moisture at seeding and 0.5” to 1” of rainfall after seeding will improve germination and stand establishment.

The Council has recommendations for which cover crops are a good fit by state and especially well-suited to farmers who are new to growing them. Learn more here .

Hula and Dowdy address cover crops in more detail in their Breaking Barriers with R&D during their discussion on AgriTalk:

Your next read: Farmer Finds A Silver Bullet For High Corn Yields

Desiccants Could Help You Harvest More Soybeans At Ideal Moisture Levels

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 14:00:17 GMT

Harvesting soybeans at an ideal moisture level is a challenge for farmers to achieve in any year, and 2026 is no exception.

What commonly happens is soybeans drop below a desirable moisture level in what seems like a blink of an eye, notes soybean yield champion Randy Dowdy, based in Valdosta, Ga.

“You’ve got about 30 minutes in a day when you can pick soybeans at 13% moisture,” he says, only half joking. “After that, they’re below 13% and we start to get seed quality issues. Then the test weights go down and yields go down, too.”

David Hula says overly dry soybeans are an issue for any farmer, especially those who are growing seed beans.

“You can get wrinkled seed coats, and as you handle beans, that wrinkle can cause a pinhole and then those beans are not going to germ,” explains Hula, based in Charles City, Va.

Hula and Dowdy’s solution? They use a desiccant to hasten soybean plant maturation at a higher moisture level. The practice can provide more flexibility with harvest timing.

“We go in there and knock the leaves off these soybeans at 15% to 17% moisture, and then get the combine in there and harvest them. They’re not hard to dry whatsoever, and there’s some free bushels there. No doubt about it, you’re making some more yield,” says Dowdy in this week’s Breaking Barriers With R&D podcast .

When Using A Desiccant Can Make Sense
Desiccating soybeans with some type of drying agent – often a defoliant designed for that purpose or a herbicide – is a common practice used by soybean growers in the South. There, weather conditions stay warmer longer going into the fall and offer fewer environmental triggers to mature soybeans – unlike what occurs in the upper Midwest with its cooler, shorter days in autumn.

“There are situations and seasons where soybeans tend to remain a little green and are difficult to harvest,” says Seth Naeve , University of Minnesota professor and Extension soybean specialist in an online article . “When there are warmer fall conditions where we don’t have an early or even a normal hard freeze, or if farmers had to delay planting — all could lead to harvest challenges in the North and desiccants could be of help.”

Dowdy says many farmers struggle to achieve a 60-lb. test weight with soybeans, because moisture levels can fluctuate in the field.

“The yield goes out the window when beans go wet-dry-wet-dry, it’s part of that phantom yield loss,” he explains. “If growers can get them out of the field and dry them, that’s an easy way to make some money, I think.”

Naeve adds that while Midwest growers might find a desiccant useful in some years, “they won’t be needed every year or on every acre.”

Midwest Growers Weigh The Pros And Cons
Eric Anderson, a field crops educator with Michigan State University, believes there is potential for Midwest soybean growers to benefit from using a desiccant. But Anderson notes there are potential risks and rewards that growers need to evaluate before using one.

In a recent online article , he details some pros and cons for farmers’ consideration:

Potential Benefits:

Induce uniform seed moisture across a variable field
Potentially control weeds depending on desiccant selected
Quicken harvest, reducing the risk of shatter loss with wet-dry cycles
Allow for timely winter wheat or cover crop planting
Potentially reduce harvest difficulties associated with green stem

Potential Challenges:

Yield loss likely if applied before yield has been set
Need higher temperatures and humidity for efficient and quick desiccation
Harvest may only be a few days earlier than normal to achieve desired grain moisture and to account for pre-harvest interval (depending on desiccant used)
Cost of products and application and possible yield loss may make the practice unprofitable
Greater shatter losses possible if not harvested at optimum time after desiccation
Seed quality can be impacted if desiccant applied too early

Herbicides Labeled For Use And Their Cost
Anderson says the selected desiccant should have a short pre-harvest interval, so the crop can be harvested once the desired grain moisture level has been achieved. Care should also be taken to ensure the chemical applied will not negatively impact establishment of the following crop or cover crop (rotation restrictions).

Anderson references three herbicides labeled as potential harvest aids: paraquat (Gramoxone), saflufenacil (Sharpen) and sodium chlorate (Defol-5). Various adjuvants (e.g., crop oil concentrate, methylated seed oil, non-ionic surfactant) are required or recommended according to product labels, he adds.

From Dowdy’s perspective, with soybean prices below the cost of production, growers need to investigate any agronomic practice that can put more yield in the bin.

“Prices are already bad. We don’t need to give away any yield to boot; we just can’t afford it. So we’ve got to be willing to try some things,” he says.

“The herbicide costs about $2 an acre, not counting the application. So, it would be something to consider for sure,” Dowdy adds.

Farmers can learn more from the most extensive study to date conducted by the Science for Success team of soybean researchers in 2024 at 19 locations across 13 states.

In addition, Naeve is looking at the effect of desiccation from several aspects through a research project funded by the Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council.

Watch the latest Breaking Barriers with R&D podcast with yield champs David Hula and Randy Dowdy on YouTube or Farm Journal TV and on AgriTalk.
Your next read: Farmer Finds A Silver Bullet For High Corn Yields

5 Critical Insights From The Southern Rust Rampage In Midwest Corn

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 18:34:36 GMT

Northeast Iowa farmer Elliott Henderson sprayed a fungicide on part of his corn crop three times this season and nearly all of his crop twice, battling to break the chokehold of southern rust in his fields.

Henderson, who farms in Buchanan County, wasn’t alone in his struggle to contain the disease. Iowa State University (ISU) Extension estimates southern rust reached all 99 counties in the state.

Most corn growers were aware of the disease but hadn’t experienced the ruthless destruction it could cause.

For many, that changed this season.

The farmers Henderson routinely connects with are finding extreme yield losses now, as they start combining a corn crop that in many cases dried down and died prematurely. What occurred is common to southern rust – the disease pustules ruptured corn leaf surfaces, making it hard for plants to retain or regulate moisture.

“I made some calls around to see what guys are getting, and yields are down. I mean, we’re talking 30 to 60 bushels,” says Henderson. “We’re seeing guys with a 240-bushel APH, and they’re talking 180-bushel corn.”

An update on this field. The kernels are many but extremely small. The cob is almost rubbery. One ear doesn’t tell the full story, but this field did not handle southern rust well. #ISUCrops https://t.co/QDDtBWHa0r pic.twitter.com/fiYUboKN1E
— Meaghan Anderson (@mjanders1) September 12, 2025

Yield losses of up to 45% can occur from southern rust in severe cases, according to the Crop Protection Network (CPN).

Along with the yield loss, Iowa test weights are also taking a hit and could result in lower prices for growers. The official minimum test weight in the U.S. for No. 1 yellow corn is 56 lbs. per bushel and for No. 2 yellow corn is 54 lbs. per bushel, according to Purdue University Extension.

Henderson says he’s hearing farmers share test weight numbers well below those.

“We’re seeing lows in the 40s, some upper 40s, so it’s definitely being affected,” he says.

A Perfect Storm Of Disease Pressure
Plant health issues were the biggest challenge many corn growers in the Midwest encountered this season, Randy Dowdy contends.

“It was not a pollination issue. It was not a kernel development issue. We didn’t see the tight tassel wrap. It was disease pressure — that was by far the limiting factor for growers this year,” says Dowdy.

When he participated in the Pro Farmer Crop Tour in mid-August, Dowdy says he saw corn crops from Ohio to Iowa that were affected by multiple diseases. The four main ones were southern rust, gray leaf spot, northern corn leaf blight and tar spot — sometimes all four were on the same leaf in Iowa.

“Those growers that sprayed and stayed on it and understood that a fungicide couldn’t last but for 21 days at best, and made multiple applications, I think they’re going to reap the benefits,” says Dowdy in this week’s Breaking Barriers With R&D podcast.

You can watch this episode of the podcast on YouTube: Breaking Barriers with R&D: Late-Season Wins and Soil-First Strategies

The Crop Protection Network map shows where southern rust was confirmed in counties across the U.S. as of September 16. Notice how far north the disease traveled in Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

(CPN)

Both Dowdy and David Hula, business partners in Total Acre , lament that many Midwest growers didn’t take a cue from their southern brethren and spray fungicides multiple times this season.

“Industry, in general, says if you spray at VT or tassel time, you can get by with one time. That is mostly accurate under a normal weather year,” Hula says. “But this year [some Midwest states] just had that explosion of southern rust, so they were dealing with a disease that’s historically not been a problem. You just had the environment for it.”

With growers beginning to plan what to do next season, Dowdy and Hula spent some time this week considering how growers can build an effective agronomic management plan for 2026.

Here are five of their key takeaways:

1. Formalize a plan to address disease (and pests, too).

“You have to stay proactive with your scouting and be willing to go with earlier fungicide or multiple applications, depending on what shows up,” Hula says.

In the process of being prepared to make multiple applications, keep in mind that you might not need all of them. While tar spot overwinters in stubble, southern rust doesn’t. The latter might not be a severe problem next season, as it is blows in from warmer climes.

Dowdy believes the weather system bringing southern rust to the Midwest this season originated in the Delta.

2025 Colfax County Nebraska Crop Tour results: 12 dryland fields, 207.5 bu. 2nd highest yield on record (2021 was 214). Stands were slightly lower than expected. Tar Spot lighter than expected. Southern Rust probably will reduce this yield. #25croptour pic.twitter.com/72VZCFMdZQ
— Chris Clausen (@ChrisClausen34) September 11, 2025

“Let’s face it, the incubator for you was the fact that you were wet and then had high, nighttime temperatures. It was hot, and you had corn everywhere, and you had a perfect environment,” he says.

Henderson agrees, noting moisture at the wrong time and too much heat were factors.

“We had a lot of heat right after pollination into that blister stage. We were stacking GDUs up really fast on that early-planted corn,” he recalls. “I do think some of this later planted corn is probably going to have a better experience finishing out.”

2. Work with like-minded farmers, agronomists and industry experts.

Be aware of disease pressure that is around you or headed in your direction by tapping into a local agronomist or groups such as the Crop Protection Network, and stay abreast of what’s happening in other regions.

“Everybody here is on pins and needles about southern rust every season, and we are constantly getting feedback from county [Extension] agents and industry, who are pushing the information out to the farmer, because everybody is well aware of the ramifications of southern rust,” Dowdy says.

Henderson, who works with Dowdy and Hula via their Total Acre program, also has a network of farmers in Iowa that he connects with on a regular basis.

“It’s a network of dozens of us farmers that call each other, bounce ideas off each other,” he says. “The things we’re talking about are often time-sensitive. It can be a daily thing.”

3. Understand how to use fungicides for maximum ROI, if you have given them little consideration in the past.

“It’s all about coverage,” Dowdy says. “Drone applications can be fine, but no matter what you do, if a guy is spraying two to three gallons, and you compare it to a ground rig spraying 15 to 25 gallons, I mean, there’s just no comparison in that coverage.”

Another aspect of coverage, Hula adds, is making sure the fungicide gets into the plant canopy far enough to have the desired effect.

“Fungicides have a tendency to work from the leaf they’ve come in contact with and move up,” Hula says. “So, if you’re trying to protect at least that ear leaf – and I like to protect the leaf opposite and below the ear – you’ve got to get penetration with that product.”

For a drone application, Hula says growers might have to spend a couple extra dollars to get sufficient volume for the product to get down below the canopy.

“If that’s what needs to be done, let’s do it,” he encourages. “If I’m spending $30 or more an acre, then I want to at least have the success that I’m paying for.”

4. Use products labelled for the disease issue you face.

That sounds like a no brainer, but in the heat of battle the wrong product can get applied, or you can select a product that isn’t up to the task.

With a tough disease like southern rust or tar spot, using newer chemistries with more than one active ingredient is also a plus.

5. Stay with your crop throughout the season; don’t walk away.

Today’s corn genetics tend to have more back-end potential to add yield through kernel fill.

It’s a key reason to evaluate what a fungicide application can do for a crop that’s advanced into one of the later reproductive stages, say Hula and Dowdy.

Brian Herbek, who farms near DeWeese, Neb., has leaned into their advice the past few years.

“I found out a couple of years ago, there’s a lot of hidden yield out there that a lot of us leave on the table,” Herbek reports.

What he learned from Hula and Dowdy is corn has the genetic ability – some hybrids more so than others – to pack starch into its kernels late-season to create higher test weights.

He scouts corn late-season to decide where to make “the finishing pass,” an application of fungicide or nutrients or some combination of the two.

“It’s not for every field. I’ll tell everybody that right now, there are certain fields that don’t deserve that attention,” Herbek says. “But if you know what you’re looking for, and you have that potential, that application does makes sense, but you’ve really got to know what’s out in your field.”

Dowdy and Hula share additional thoughts on how farmers can improve next season’s corn crop in the face of disease pressure in the latest edition of their Breaking Barriers With R&D podcast on Farm Journal TV and YouTube .

More ideas and recommendations are available from the two corn yield champions on the Tuesday morning edition of AgriTalk with Host Chip Flory. Catch their discussion here:

Your next read: Farmer Finds A Silver Bullet For High Corn Yields

Corn Ear Drop Before Black Layer Signals Yield Loss Is Ahead

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 20:28:41 GMT

A cute bassett hound with droopy ears might be endearing, but corn hybrids with drooping ears before black layer are a dog of a different kind and costly.

“I saw too many corn ears hanging down in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois fields, and man, that is a hybrid failure in my opinion,” says Randy Dowdy of his experience evaluating corn crops on the eastern leg of the Pro Farmer Crop Tour in late August.

He ponders that, perhaps, a genetic attribute in some hybrids helps counterbalance long ear shank weakness, such as drought tolerance or disease resistance.

“There’s likely some characteristic that got that hybrid advanced to be part of the [company’s] production lineup,” Dowdy tells David Hula during their recent Breaking Barriers With R&D podcast.

“The seed companies are aware there is no perfect hybrid for every year, for every occasion, in every environment. It doesn’t exist,” Dowdy adds.

There can be several contributing factors beyond genetics that cause early drooping of ears, including drought stress, high temperatures, poor root development and planting population, according to Aaron Nygren and Jenny Brhel, University of Nebraska Extension educators.

Keep Nutrients Flowing To The Ears
Dowdy likens the problem of drooping corn ears to getting a kink in a garden hose you’re depending on to deliver water to garden vegetables. When a kink occurs, the water can’t move through the hose and get delivered to the plants. The same scenario exists when corn ears drop prior to black layer.

“You need all the starch, all the sugars, all the nutrients that you can possibly muster to drive yield, and if that ear shank is getting long, then that’s a problem,” he says. “No. 1, you didn’t maximize the weight of the ear, then you can lose it to wind or in the harvesting process — just because the long shank made the ear vulnerable.”

Many farmers associate drooping corn ears with crop maturity and drydown. Those are OK things to see in the field but only after black layer and just prior to harvest, notes Hula.

“We do want those ears to come off the stalk really easy, just not before we pick it or if a wind event goes through,” he says.

Check Hybrids In Preparation For 2026
If corn ears droop prematurely or fall to the ground during the harvesting process, growers are leaving yield – and money – in the field.

The timing of the onset of droopy ears determines the magnitude of the expected yield loss, according to Bob Nielsen, Purdue University professor emeritus and former Extension corn specialist, in an online article.

If grain fill is totally shut down at the full dent stage of grain development (milk line barely visible at dent of kernels), the yield loss can be as much as 40%, he writes in an online article . If grain fill is totally shut down at the late dent stage of grain development (milk line halfway between dent and tip), Nielsen says yield losses for the affected ears can equal about 12%.

One of Dowdy’s concerns is how prevalent droopy, long-shanked ears were in the corn crops he evaluated while on the Pro Farmer Crop Tour. “I saw it in probably 50% of the fields I was in,” he says.

“I told all the scouts on [my leg of the] tour, ‘I hope you will never be able to unsee this problem. I want you to go out and be looking for this as part your yield assessments from now on,’” Dowdy adds. “After I said that, man, I had pictures being sent to me left and right and people coming back to me saying, ‘Man, I had no idea this is a problem.’”

Because each leg of the tour went through at least four states, Dowdy believes the issue of long shanks is probably in a range of hybrids. He encourages growers to look for the issue now, as they start evaluating and selecting seed corn for next season.

“Go look at some of these variety plots and strip trials that the seed companies are doing and see if some of those hybrids are having this problem. Maybe avoid them next year,” Dowdy advises. “You don’t want to be the one buying that hybrid, in my opinion, even if it is the highest yielder in the field. I just don’t see a win with that longer shank. It’s just too risky in my mind.”

David Hula talks with Chip Flory on AgriTalk about how the use of fungicides this season preserved corn yields for many growers. You can listen here:

You can watch this episode of Breaking Barriers With R&D on YouTube.

Your next read: Four Pro Tips To Help You Harvest More Soybeans

Four Pro Tips To Help You Harvest More Soybeans

Mon, 18 Aug 2025 18:32:20 GMT

Talk with Marion Calmer for 10 minutes, and you’ll walk away with a handful of practical ideas you can take back to the farm and use – things that will help you simplify tasks and improve efficiency.

Calmer, a fourth-generation Illinois farmer and natural-born innovator, is the CEO of Calmer Corn Heads. He is known among U.S. corn growers for building the first 12- and 15-inch corn head, the world’s largest corn head (in 2013), and other state-of-the art harvesting technology and practices.

In 1985, Marion founded Calmer Agronomic Research Center, an independent, self-funded research center, with the goal of finding ways to reduce input costs and increase profitability for himself and other farmers.

(Marion Calmer)

Calmer is also known for freely sharing information and insights to help farmers take more of their crops to the bin. That was the case when he joined yield champs David Hula and Randy Dowdy recently on their Breaking Barriers With R&D podcast.

While the three farmers talked corn at length, Calmer also shared some soybean harvesting tips and techniques with Hula and Dowdy. Here are four you can use this fall:

1. Consider changing the sickle size on your bean head.
Calmer recommends using a 3” sickle so residue is able to flow better, as compared to a 2” sickle, especially in no-till or high-residue environments.

He says running a 3” sickle (that’s the distance between two snake heads or sections of the sickle) can help prevent plugging from last season’s corn root balls sometimes present in a corn-bean rotation.

“I think a 3” does a better job of cutting beans than a 2” sickle, because the window to retrieve the next plant is wider and bigger,” he tells Hula and Dowdy. “I also think a 3” sickle cuts cleaner.”

2. Keep beans in the threshing chamber longer.
Calmer says with soybeans increasingly being harvested at a higher moisture level with still-green pods and stems, it’s useful to keep them in the threshing chamber longer. One inexpensive way to do that is by modifying a 55-gallon plastic barrel.

“Take a jigsaw and cut a plastic band out of the barrel and then place it underneath the first 6” or first 12” of any color of combine, and that’ll hold those green pods up in the chamber. We just use a ratchet strap to hold that plastic cover plate in there,” he says. “Doesn’t cost anything, but oh my gosh, this makes the combine so much easier to set.”

Plus, Calmer says you will get fewer green pods going into the grain tank. “The pods can set off a chain of events when they get into the grain bin. They’ll all slide to the outer edges and rot and so on,” Calmer explains. “This is just a simple, commonsense kind of thing that can help you.”

Soybean harvest starts in the rotor area of the combine, according to Calmer. “In years past, I never even opened up the side of the combine. I’d just go reset the sieves and the airspeed and take off, and I was never happy,” he says. “I focus on the rotor area more than I used, and it’s made my combine work better.”

(Marion Calmer)

3. Consider adjusting the combine head at harvest to cut beans lower.
This is a good practice, Calmer says, if your beans are podded closer to the ground this fall because you planted lower populations last spring or because of weather that occurred during the growing season. With pods closer to the ground, more harvest loss frequently occurs because the cutterbar was operating too high.

This practice of adjusting the head can be both a bit of art and science to do well. Michigan State Extension offers a detailed article on how to set the combine head lower to achieve the results you want and need.

4. Synchronize reel speed to ground speed.
The goal is to help prevent shattering or pushing plants away as they go into the header. The reel RPM should be 10 times ground speed, Calmer says. A simple example of this: 4 MPH ground speed = 40 RPM on reel. Use a piece of tape or spray paint a bar of your reel to easily count RPM from the cab.

And finally...this idea might not help you take more beans to the bin, but it will help you manage residue: Before you roll into the field, be conscious to start harvesting on the downwind side of the field, Calmer advises. By harvesting downwind, the wind will spread straw more evenly and away from the uncut soybeans.

Listen to this edition of Breaking Barriers With R&D at Farm Journal TV to hear more money-saving tips and ideas from Calmer, Hula and Dowdy that can help you as harvest gets underway this fall. You can also catch this episode of the podcast on YouTube .

Your next read: Farmer Uses Late-Season Fungicide, Nutrients To Beef Up Corn Test Weight

Farmer Uses Late-Season Fungicide, Nutrients To Beef Up Corn Test Weight

Mon, 04 Aug 2025 21:47:55 GMT

Corn growers sometimes walk away from their crop at this point in the growing season, thinking there’s little to nothing they can do now to influence final yield and harvest outcomes.

It’s a mentality David Hula says he understands, especially this year.

“We spent a lot of time getting the right hybrid in the right environment, controlling the weeds, controlling insects, and getting the fertility out, and in that last quarter some growers, you know, sometimes they lack experience or are just tired of spending money,” Hula tells business partner Randy Dowdy, in the latest edition of their Breaking Barriers With R&D podcast.

Yet the two champion corn growers say there is still time to influence harvest outcomes.

Late-Season Yield And Test-Weight Potential
Brian Herbek, who works with Hula and Dowdy via their Total Acre program, has leaned into their advice.

“I found out a couple of years ago, there’s a lot of hidden yield out there that a lot of us leave on the table,” Herbek reports.

What he learned from the two corn yield champions is corn has the genetic ability – some hybrids more so than others – to pack starch into its kernels late-season to create higher test weights.

As a result, the Deweese, Neb., corn grower says he started scouting fields late-season to determine which ones are candidates to receive what Hula and Dowdy call “the finishing pass,” an application of fungicide or nutrients or some combination of the two.

“It’s not for every field. I’ll tell everybody that right now, there are certain fields that don’t deserve that attention,” Herbek says. “But if you know what you’re looking for, and you have that potential, that application does makes sense, but you’ve really got to know what’s out in your field.”

When Nitrogen And Fungicide Use Makes Sense
Farm Journal Field Agronomist Ken Ferrie recommends checking fields to consider what an insufficient amount of Nitrogen (N) at this point in the season could mean to yield results.

“Plants running out of N at R4 run the risk of tip abortion,” he notes, as a for instance. “At R5, tip kernels are going to get light, and if it’s a D hybrid, it’s going to cost you in late fill.”

Ferrie describes D hybrids as those that need nitrogen during grain fill to max out yield.

”Depth of kernel comes at the end of grain fill — the last half of the 60 or so days after pollination through black layer,” Ferrie explains. “They need to stay green as long as possible and finish the season strong. Many new hybrids are D types.”

Hula says a fungicide application now can help make sure corn leaves and stalks stay greener longer, putting more energy into kernel development.

“If we can pick up a half a pound or a pound more test weight, that’s a bonus,” he says. “The other thing I want to say about green stalks, particularly for guys where residue management is a problem – the green stalks at harvest are going to deteriorate or decay much faster than those that are not green.”

Why Care About Test Weight?
Test weight is commonly used by buyers as a way to evaluate grain quality. A higher test weight indicates a greater proportion of the grain’s volume is filled with the nutrient-rich endosperm, meaning more available energy and nutrients, says Todd Whitney, Extension educator at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, in an online article .

High test-weight corn is generally more valuable to buyers, though the extent of this value can vary. Some buyers prefer higher test-weight grain due to its higher starch content and better storage properties.

One thing to note here: While hybrid genetics play an important role in test weight determination, there is no correlation between test weight and yield potential of a hybrid. Corn grain in the U.S. is marketed specific to a 56-lb. bushel regardless of test weight.

“Corn farmers are often concerned with low test weight because that means local grain buyers may have to discount the market grain prices paid. In addition, if you were to deliver a semi-load of low test weight grain (e.g., 52 lbs/bu) then this specific load would contain less ‘56-lb bushels’ and you would be paid less for the load on a per volume basis,” explains Dan Quinn, Extension corn specialist at Purdue University, in an online article.

“Whereas, if you were to deliver a semi-load of high test-weight grain (e.g., 58 lbs./bu.) then that load would contain more ‘56-lb. bushels’ and you would be paid more for the load on a per volume basis,” Quinn writes.

What To Look For In The Field Now
Here are some of the factors Herbek takes into consideration as he evaluates which fields warrant another pass of fungicide, fertility or both:

Crop Quality: More yield potential or a heavier test weight has to be available for product applications to provide sufficient ROI. Plant tissue tests can help identify nutrient deficiencies and guide late-season applications.

Additional factors that affect crop quality that Herbek considers are pest and disease pressure, standability and stalk quality, and moisture availability.

Crop maturity. Hybrid maturity and planting date have been found to influence susceptibility to yield loss from foliar diseases, writes Mark Jeschke, agronomy manager for Pioneer, in this online article .

He says later planted fields and/or later maturing hybrids can be more vulnerable to yield loss because they are still filling grain while disease development is peaking in late summer. Therefore, these later fields are often more likely to benefit from a fungicide application.

Herbek says he also takes into consideration each hybrid’s growing degree days, and how long he has before his crop reaches the finish line.

“We’ve got, I’m guessing, probably 45 to 50 days yet to put something in that kernel and give us some extra test weight,” he says. “So we still have some time to influence it yet.”

Herbek also offers some thoughts on how farmers can improve next season’s corn crop by prioritizing their planter and planting practices. You can catch the details on Breaking Barriers With R&D at Farm Journal TV and YouTube .

Your next read: Breaking Barriers with R&D: Split the Planter, Split the Risk

David Hula Shares Risk Management Strategy to Address Corn Pollination Challenges

Tue, 22 Jul 2025 19:15:54 GMT

As corn growers are evaluating pollination, more reports of problems resulting from the “overly tight tassel wrap” phenomenon are trickling in from farmers and agronomists, with pictures and commentary now posted to social media and various websites.

Reigning world corn yield record holder David Hula says he is seeing the issue in some Virginia fields and also hearing reports on the problem from fellow corn growers in states along the Eastern Seaboard.

“Some farmers have been walking fields thinking they’re getting plenty of rain and are going to knock it out of the yield park with this crop, but we’ve got pollination problems,” reports Hula, who’s based near Charles City, Va. “I walked a bunch of fields this past weekend to make sure I still want the plane (to fly inputs) on certain fields.” he adds.

“This isn’t happening just in Virginia, I know it’s happening in the mid-Atlantic… in Delaware and Maryland and the Carolinas. I don’t know how far West this goes…” he told Randy Dowdy on their new episode of Breaking Barriers with R&D podcast.

"Tassel wrap" showing up in WC Indiana (photos taken July 10), joining the party seen across much of the Midwest. Seems linked to hybrid, planting date, and pre-symptom temp swings. Potential pollination issues also observed ~10 days after symptoms.@PurdueAgronomy @PurdueAg pic.twitter.com/qVKDr7m1Th
— Dan Quinn (@PurdueCorn) July 21, 2025

The Culmination Of A Perfect Storm?
At this point, no one has a clear handle on how extensive the pollination problem is across the Corn Belt.

Farm Journal Field Agronomist Ken Ferrie says he is seeing the issue occur in parts of Illinois as corn reaches about V6 or V7 up through tassel – as the crop goes through rapid growth.

“This corn is growing like crazy, putting on an inch and a half of root a day, putting on a node every three days, that type of thing. The tassel can get wrapped really tight, and usually it’s triggered by some type of stress. Your hope is that that tassel gets out of the tight wrap before pollination starts, and usually it does. But this year, we have some hybrids that are really struggling to get that done. Unfortunately, the tassels are still wrapped tight, and the silks are out and they’re waiting for that pollen.”

Mark Licht, Extension cropping systems specialist at Iowa State University, reports tassels shedding pollen while still wrapped in the flag leaf is an uncommon occurrence in Iowa and across the Corn Belt and that he has only seen it once in the past 20 or so years.

In an online article , Licht says the problem does not seem to be brand-specific but does appear to be hybrid-specific.

“We believe this may be a form of rapid growth syndrome occurring at the end of the vegetative stages, likely triggered by a combination of high temperatures, ample moisture and non-limiting nutrient availability,” he writes.

BREAKING: There are concerns about pollination issues in cornfields, particularly in the Midwest. Tassels are not emerging normally, and silks are abnormally long, potentially impacting yield. The cause is unknown, but it may be genetically related and could result in reduced… pic.twitter.com/uchasksbfb
— Cornelius Seed (@PlantItProfit) July 17, 2025

Ferrie says he has seen the issue in previous years and thinks it might be influenced partly by wide swings in temperature during a 24-hour period. “You’re up in that 85- to 90-degree range during the day, and then you crash into the 50s at night. That seems to trigger this.”

Licht is trying to get an idea of how widespread the problem is in corn. Farmers in Iowa and across the country can help him gain insights on this issue by completing his wrapped tassel questionnaire .

🌽#CropWatch25 #corn has either pollinated or is doing so now. Only potential issues reported are out of western Iowa, where the top leaf and the tassel are intertwined. Pollination impacts are unclear for now. Otherwise, corn looks good, plenty of moisture for most fields. pic.twitter.com/5a4wgyGwzL
— Karen Braun (@kannbwx) July 21, 2025

Address Silk Clippers In Compromised Corn Crops
Unfortunately, there is no counter measure farmers can take to correct or improve poor pollination.

One step Ferrie encourages impacted growers to take is to look for feeding from silk clipping pests. Japanese beetle and corn rootworm beetle species are two of the key pests he is seeing in fields feeding on silks now.

“When you’re under this much pressure to get corn pollinated, if you’ve got any beetle silk clipping going on on top of this problem, you may have to go in there and do a preemptive strike,” Ferrie says. “Clean up your silk clippers if they’re there. Aphids can be part of the problem, as well.”

Ferrie offers more insights from his perspective on what is contributing to the problem in his discussion with Farm Journal’s Tyne Morgan and Clinton Griffiths in their latest podcast.

A Good Way To Minimize Risk Next Season
Hula believes in minimizing production risks with strategic use of his corn planter, and he encourages other growers to do the same. His objective: plant hybrids with similar Comparative Relative Maturities (CRMs) – also sometimes referred to as Relative Maturity or RM – but with different flowering dates.

This is information he can usually access via seed company product catalogs or a company representative.

“Between companies, some of their CRM models or numbers are a little different, so you have to take that into account,” Hula says.

Assessing Growing Degree Units (GDUs) in the flowering process also plays a role in Hula’s hybrid selection methods.

“If I’m using the same genetic package from the same company, we’ll look for a six-day range of pollination,” he notes. “And if I’m changing companies, then we just try to find when they’re silking and come up with their best strategy. I want similar CRMs, but I’ll go with as much as two CRM differences.”

Hula usually splits his 16-row planter with two hybrids – eight rows of one hybrid and eight rows of a second hybrid – to go across the field. This year, he used three hybrids at a time in the planter.

“That helps spread out the risk, as we find some maturities are having pollination problems and others aren’t,” Hula says.
Ferrie explains that if the grower uses at least two different hybrids in the planter and the hybrids sync up at silking, growers are able to mitigate risk, “because the one hybrid pollinated the other one for you,” he says.

Hula goes into more detail on how he uses hybrid selection to mitigate production risks in Breaking Barriers With R&D. Watch it on YouTube: Breaking Barriers with R&D: Split the Planter, Split the Risk

Flying High and Digging Deep — Precision Ag from the Sky to the Soil

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 20:40:27 GMT

Josiah Garber found tar spot lurking in one of his cornfields the last week of June. The southeast Pennsylvania corn grower says that was a first for his farm.

“I’d never found it in July before, much less the end of June. I think the pressure this year is going to be intense with all the moisture around,” predicts Garber, who’s based in Lancaster County, Pa.

Tar spot commonly overwinters as spores in plant residue. During the subsequent growing season, rain and high humidity can promote spores which can be splashed onto corn plants and then develop into what is often called homegrown tar spot.

Tar spot spores can also become air-borne in a field and blow into new fields.

How significant tar spot infections become in any given season depends on the disease triangle – the interplay between a susceptible host, a pathogen and the environment.

A Two-Pass Program Is In Place

Garber’s plan to address tar spot – along with any other disease pressure that’s present – is to make two fungicide applications 21 days apart. This year, the first one went on the crop with a ground rig just before tassel and the second application will be made right after tassel, which was underway last week.

“This is the first time we went with a fungicide application this early, but I’m glad we did since we found the tar spot,” Garber says.

For the past five-plus years, he has been investing in two fungicide applications annually, with both made post-tassel.

“We found that that pays, and once we saw that it would pay, it just became part of our program,” Garber told David Hula and Randy Dowdy during their latest Breaking Barriers with R&D podcast, available now on Farm Journal TV. This episode offers farmers some serious actionable insights to help improve ROI.

To achieve good coverage with the ground rig, Garber says he applies a fungicide/water tank mix at 20 to 25 gallons per acre.

“We’ve been working really hard on our applications, trying to cover below the ear leaf to get optimum performance,” he says. “That’s our goal.”

Droplet Size Impacts Coverage And Efficacy

The goal of getting fungicide placed in the crop where plants can readily use it is what Matt Crabbe shoots to achieve with aerial applications. He typically uses 2 gallons of water per acre as the carrier, depending on the products being sprayed.

“I hear a lot of times people talking water, water, water, but a lot of water can go to the ground and take the product with it if you’re not careful,” cautions Crabbe, owner of Crabbe Aviation, with locations in North Carolina and Virginia.

“Because you’ve got bigger droplets with the plane, you’re putting out a little more volume, and it’s not going to necessarily stay with the plant like I found it does with the lower volumes,” he tells Dowdy and Hula.

To help ensure product stays on plant leaves, Crabbe usually applies products like foliar fungicides at 3’ to 8’ above the crop canopy, maintaining a consistent speed of between 150 and 160 miles per hour.

“I try to keep the application in that range, because our test results show that sets up the droplets at the right size for optimum coverage,” he says.

Get As-Applied Maps For Your Records

Dowdy asked Crabbe whether he provides customers with as-applied maps for their reference and records, post product applications.

“You know, there’s a lot of people that want to overlay yield maps, and then some people just want to trust but verify the good old Ronald Reagan way,” Dowdy says.

Crabbe says modern technology is making as-applied maps easier to provide to growers than in previous years.

“If you place an order on my website, I can press ‘done’ when I finish spraying a field and the system will give you a look at the as-applied map,” he explains.

Crabbe recommends farmers ask their aerial applicator directly about their mapping system as many now have digital platforms where you can get a password to access your specific maps and view application details immediately after completion.

Hear more about getting the biggest bang out of your fungicide buck from Dowdy and Hula on YouTube at Breaking Barriers With R&D: Flying High and Digging Deep — Precision Ag from the Sky to the Soil and on AgriTalk, with Host Chip Flory:

Your next read: Is 600-Bu.-Per-Acre Corn in the Cards This Year for David Hula, the Reigning World Record Holder?

Is Water Quality Sabotaging Your Fungicide's Success?

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 17:27:03 GMT

You probably already know water quality can impact the performance of crop protection products, including fungicides. But do you take your aerial applicator the water needed for the application? World champion corn grower David Hula does.

“We take a load, either in shuttles, a tanker load or truck to the airport, and then the applicator is pulling out of that,” says Hula, who bought a 12,000-gallon tank for this purpose.

“The only thing our applicator does is add the crop protection portion to the water. Right now, that’s fungicide and insecticide, and I don’t want to leave those products in the tank very long [because they start to degrade],” he says.

The Crop Protection Network advises using fungicides soon after the agitation process, as product efficacy can start to decline soon after mixing. The Network adds that poor water quality can reduce fungicide performance and that of other crop protection products, too.

Control All The Controllables

Hula and Randy Dowdy, business partners in Total Acre , routinely tell the farmers they work with to know and use what the product labels recommend. That includes knowing what pH is needed in their water or carrier of choice.

“Ask your supplier and your sales representative what the carrier pH needs to be for maximum efficacy,” advises Dowdy, a national corn and soybean yield champion based in Valdosta, Ga.

“Most farmers don’t know what the pH is in their own water source,” Dowdy adds. “They certainly don’t know what the crop duster or the helicopter or drone is spraying and what their carrier pH is. It can be mind-blowing how ineffective a fungicide can be when it’s put in the wrong environment where the water pH is not correct.”

The ideal water pH for fungicide mixing is approximately 7.0, according to the Crop Protection Network . Fungicidal activity can be reduced if mixed with water with a pH that is too high (alkaline) or too low (acidic).

Acidic water is of particular concern. If the pH is greater than 8.0, the CPN advises using a pH buffer to correct unfavorable pH levels, adding the buffer to the tank before the fungicide.

It’s All About ROI

Hula focuses his efforts on the return-on-investment, always important and especially critical to corn growers this season.

“If you’re going to spend $15 to $20 an acre on a fungicide or other pesticide, I want it to work,” says Hula, who farms near Charles City, Va. “I don’t want to just be paying the applicator.

“I need to control all the controllables,” he adds. “I’m not making the application, but I’m going to make sure what goes in that tank on the plane is going to be right, so when that product works we get full benefit from it.”

Hula says Virginia corn growers routinely use fungicides to address issues including common and southern rust, anthracnose, northern and southern leaf blight and gray leaf spot.

“Those are some of our bigger issues in corn, but so far we haven’t had to deal with tar spot,” he says. “It’s not a matter of will we use a fungicide here in the South, it’s more of a question of how many applications we’ll need.”

Add Products To The Tank In Correct Order

If you’re including more than one product in the tank, consider whether the combination is compatible. In addition, make sure you add multiple products to the spray tank in the correct order.

The order CPN recommends follows:

1. Compatibility, buffering, or defoaming agents,
2. Wettable powders (WP) and dry flowables (DF),
3. Water-soluble concentrates (WSC or SC),
4. Emulsifiable concentrates (EC),
5. Soluble powders (SP), and finally,
6. Adjuvants or spray additives.

For more insights from Dowdy and Hula on getting the best ROI from your product applications, check out their Breaking Barriers with R&D podcast. Watch the latest episode here on Farm Journal TV or on YouTube .

The two yield champs challenge farmers to think differently to improve their corn and soybean performance. While known for growing record-breaking corn and soybean yields, their primary focus is maximizing profits on every acre.

You can also catch their latest discussion on AgriTalk with Host Chip Flory here :

Your next read: 3 Tips To Keep Corn Growing Strong Mid-Season

Add 75+ Bushels Of Corn Per Acre With Better Closing Wheel Performance

Tue, 13 May 2025 11:37:01 GMT

A single oversight at planting often costs corn growers 75 to 100 bu. per acre, yet many don’t even know they have a problem that needs solving. The problem? It’s poor planter closing wheel performance.

Closing wheels are supposed to deliver good seed-to-soil contact by eliminating air pockets, gently firming the soil around the seed corn and closing the furrow.

When those final steps in the planting process are done poorly, corn germinates unevenly and there’s no way to go back and undo the damage. For the rest of the growing season, you’re left with a crop that can’t perform up to its potential.

Corn yield champions David Hula and Randy Dowdy say they see the issue routinely when they check corn emergence and do stand counts with farmers.

Simple Calculations Help Pinpoint Losses
“Each row is an individual and producing income for you, and when you took and did the math, I remember seeing 190-bu. swings across the planter,” Dowdy tells Hula. “But just how many times do we see 100 bu. swings?”

Hula agrees that he has seen 190-bu. yield losses occur in extreme cases. He adds that even the best farmers incur some losses from poor closing wheel performance.

“I would say the average [has been] closer to 75 to 100 bushels,” he says. “The best one I saw was a farmer we worked with in Iowa, and they had spent a lot of time on his 12-row planter, and he still had a 27-bu. loss per acre,” adds Hula in the latest episode of the Breaking Barriers podcast.

You can also watch the podcast at Farm Journal TV - Agriculture video on demand.

Centered Over The Row
Closing wheels need time and attention to bring them into alignment just like any other part of the planter. Dowdy says even new planters with all the latest technology still need to have their closing systems checked.

“I was vetting a new 24-row planter in Michigan this spring, and on five of the rows the V-press wheel on one side was running in the furrow. That’s 20% of the rows, a problem perpetuating itself across every field,” he says.

“Those V-press wheels have a tendency to walk left and right because the bolt design that manufacturers use just won’t keep them centered,” adds Dowdy, who’s based near Valdosta, Ga. “It doesn’t seem to matter which manufacturer’s V-press wheels we’re using, either.”

If V-press wheels are set correctly over the row, Dowdy says they will leave a slight ridge or berm of soil above the planted seed to help ensure good seed-to-soil contact.

“But if you’re not centered that little ridge will not be directly over the seed and that’s problematic,” he says. “That will change your seed planting depth and impact emergence. No way will those corn plants all emerge at the same time and they won’t yield the same.”

Do The Job Other Farmers Won’t Do
Hula, a five-time world champion corn grower, suggests that farmers “trust but verify” their closing wheel system is performing well as they plant every field.

“I know that takes time, but think of how much revenue you’d gain by being willing to check and make some adjustments during the planting process,” says Hula, who farms near Charles City, Va.

The best way to check closing wheel performance is to do some digging behind the planter, notes Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist.

“We dig a cross-section of the row and work until we can find the seed and observe how it was placed in the soil,” Ferrie explains. “In ideal conditions, you want to see the seed at the bottom with enough firm soil over the top of it to keep the seed area from drying out.”

Do You Have The Right Closing System?
Another consideration, Hula says, is farmers need to determine whether they are using the best closing wheels for their situation. In the evaluation process, he says to look at your tillage system, soil texture, field conditions and weather.

“We can’t just throw dollars around at these market prices, but if you can get a better closing system that adds more revenue to your bottom line, that will pay for itself quickly,” he says.

Hula has been using a two-stage closing wheel system for the past six years and believes it significantly improves corn planting performance compared to traditional closing wheel designs.

“We have seen our emergence uniformity improve significantly these past few years,” he says.

Hear more from Hula and Dowdy on a recent episode of “AgriTalk.”

Your Next Read: Master The Use of Growing Degree Units to Boost Corn Yield Potential

Master The Use of Growing Degree Units to Boost Corn Yield Potential

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 16:12:09 GMT

The calendar used to play a significant role in David Hula’s decision on when he would head to the field and start planting corn. That’s not the case anymore.

“I’m not so hung up on the date now as I am on the temperature at which we’re putting seed in the ground,” says Hula, owner of Renwood Farms near Charles City, Va.

That doesn’t mean he pays no attention to the calendar, though. Sometime during the last week of April through the first week of May is usually the sweet spot to start planting corn, Hula says.

But that’s not always true. Experience has taught him that it’s more important to focus on the extended weather forecast than the date, making sure he has a soil temperature above 55°F at planting time and growing degree units (GDUs) that are accumulating quickly.

“Fifteen or so years ago, we used to talk about wanting to get 40 GDUs in a five-day forecast after planting,” he recalls. “Now, as we’re getting into these higher-yield environments, I want an even higher GDU accumulation in those first five days after planting.”

That kind of attention to detail has helped Hula achieve top honors in the National Corn Yield Contest 12 times over the years. His 623.8439 bu.-per-acre yield in 2023 marked the fifth time he set the record for U.S. corn yields.

The More GDUs, The Better For Emergence
While the required amount can vary somewhat by hybrid, a common range of GDUs needed for corn to emerge is between 100 to 150 GDUs, according to Ken Ferrie, Farm Journal field agronomist.

Ferrie says referencing GDUs offer growers a more reliable method to predict corn emergence as well as key development stages during the season than the use of calendar days.

“The amount of GDUs a specific corn hybrid requires to reach each development stage during the growing season remains constant from year to year,” he says. “However, the amount of time a specific hybrid needs to accumulate those heat units can vary considerably each year due to planting date, field conditions, soil temperature and weather conditions.”

Those factors, which can be highly variable, are why Hula focuses so much on having a good extended forecast at planting. “We want that corn to come up out of the ground fast,” he says. “In our best yielding years, that’s one of the things we’ve had.”

Hula defines fast as seeing the crop spike at between six and (not quite) seven days, emerging in a uniform, picket-fence stand across the field.

Scrutinizing management and agronomic details and tweaking them as Mother Nature dictates instead of just relying on a calendar date makes fast, uniform emergence achievable, he tells fellow corn yield champion and Total Acre business partner Randy Dowdy, who’s based near Valdosta, Ga.

Planting Practices Impact Corn Development
Something Dowdy and Hula say other corn growers could benefit from is paying more attention to planting depth and germination depth. Ideally, they end up being one and the same.

“I want my seed to be planted at 2”, and I want it to germinate at 2” and stay there,” Hula says. “I don’t want a scenario where all of a sudden we get some rain, and the soil is compressed, so now that seed germinates at 1.5”.”

Planting corn at a depth of 2” when soil moisture is adequate is ideal for nodal root development , according to Paul Yoder, Pioneer field agronomist. Nodal roots are vital for structural support and are responsible for most of the water and nutrients the plant needs. Five sets of nodal roots are optimal for maximizing potential.

The Mystery of Shifting Soils Explained
Dowdy tells Hula that corn growers are often puzzled by how their corn roots have developed when they check fields a month or so after planting. The growers are certain they planted their corn at 2”, but the evidence says otherwise.

“We’ll be digging some plants, and we’ll see a lot of brace roots above the ground,” Dowdy says. “That initially makes me wonder if the farmer had a wind event or some type of stress, because there’s a lot of issues with the root development.”

More often than not, Dowdy says the issue is the soil above the seed settled – either because of poor attention to detail while the farmer planted or from a significant rain event. If the ground settled, then the corn likely germinated and emerged at a soil depth shallower than desired.

“It often depends on what type of tillage you’re using, if you’re running trash sweeps, or a no-till coulter, and then what kind of closing system you have,” Hula explains. “A lot of times people don’t want to believe that, but it happens.”

Dowdy adds that it’s not just the conventional growers who experience the problem of the ground settling.

“It happens in all scenarios, whether in vertical till, strip-till or even in a stale seedbed,” Dowdy says. “Year to year, we just don’t know how much that ground is going to settle.”

A Pro Tip For Checking Planting and Germination Depth
Corn growers can simulate ground settling with a practice Dowdy and Hula use for that purpose: they smack the soil.

“Take your hand and use the bottom of your palm to hit the soil just above where you planted the seed. That’s going to simulate a rain event and give you a good indication of how that ground would or did settle, and what your emergence depth is,” Dowdy explains.

For growers in the process of planting corn, Hula encourages them to get off the tractor and check the quality of their planting practices.

“Check every corn row, not just one of them,” Hula advises. “Every row is an individual, so take time to check each one and make sure they’re all the same. Adjust as necessary for uniform planting.”

More Insights Available In Breaking Barriers Podcast
Dowdy and Hula are sharing their agronomic insights in their Breaking Barriers podcast to challenge growers to think differently to farm better and maximize profits.

In this week’s discussion, they address a variety of timely topics, including:

reasons to plant three or four different populations of corn in a field
how to use a flag test to evaluate emergence and development
the value of setting yield goals to reach higher yield levels
using tissue sampling in-season to add more yield

Watch the podcast at Farm Journal TV - Agriculture video on demand

For more insights on Hula and Dowdy’s planting progress and agronomic insights, check out their discussion with Chip Flory on Breaking Barriers - AgriTalk

Your next read: Want to Boost Soybean Yields But Not Costs? Sunlight Can Help

Farmer Finds A Silver Bullet For High Corn Yields

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 23:56:20 GMT

A lot of corn growers look for a silver bullet, some type of product or practice that can help them grow higher yields. Randy Hughes is confident he has a solution that will always deliver a payoff – an answer simple to articulate but sometimes difficult to implement: Education.

“I’ve always wanted to educate myself to do better,” says Hughes, a fourth-generation corn and soybean grower based in northeast Nebraska, near Royal.

Hughes started farming with his dad in 1977 and now works alongside his son. Together, they have steadily increased yields, partnering with independent agronomic advisers over the years to add more bushels.

“They’re focused on your farm’s success, not on a particular product or service, which gives them a lot of credibility,” he says.

Today, Hughes is working with national corn yield champions David Hula and Randy Dowdy at Total Acre . Under their tutelage, Hughes says corn yields across the family’s farm have increased 40 bu. to 50 bu. per acre. His highest yield has been just under 300 bushels per acre.

“Genetics have certainly helped, but a lot of it’s just been our increasing knowledge of timing and how to manage fertility better. Those have been huge,” he says.

Hughes recently joined Hula and Dowdy for their inaugural podcast, Breaking Barriers With R&D, for a lively discussion on growing high-yielding, profitable corn crops.

Click here to listen and watch Breaking Barriers , or sign up for a free trial to Farm Journal TV to access the podcast.

A Lifelong Student Of The Crop

Hughes says the first big step he made, based on Hula and Dowdy’s recommendations, was adding micronutrients to his corn fertility program about six years ago.

At the time, his highest corn yield topped 263 bu. per acre, largely a result of fine-tuning nitrogen, phosphorus and potash .

“We went on a five-year tear to figure out micronutrients,” Hughes recalls, initially applying dry iron (Fe), with soil test results and weekly tissue tests guiding the process.

University of Nebraska (UNL) Extension reports that iron deficiencies in Nebraska corn crops are most likely to occur on highly calcareous soils (pH higher than 7.8) or on soils leveled for irrigation where the subsoil has been exposed. Hughes grows both dryland corn and corn under center pivot irrigation.

UNL Extension adds that profit potential is especially good from a foliar application of iron when corn is expressing symptoms of iron chlorosis.

Soil pH Levels Are Vital To High Yields

Hula and Dowdy encourage farmers to keep soil pH in the neutral to 6.8 range across corn acres, and they recommend pulling soil tests in 1-acre grids to guide fertility decisions.

“If people are used to going across the field and watching a yield monitor vary significantly, say from 300 bu. down to 200 bu. in a pass, there’s a reason why that is and a lot of it has to do with soil fertility,” says Dowdy, who farms near Valdosta, Ga.

“Pulling samples in a 1-acre grid can help you identify where that variability is in the field better than a 2.5-acre grid or a zone sample can. It’s like the more detailed information you can get from an MRI versus an X-ray,” says Hula, who farms near Charles City, Va.

Another new practice Hughes recently implemented was adding humic acids in-furrow and again when sidedressing. That combination, he says, has made an 8-bu. to 10-bu. improvement to overall corn yields.

Dowdy says he’s confident, based on his own on-farm trials, that such products can support soil biology.

“I’m big into feeding the biology and having a carbon source out there, so I [always include] humic and fulvic acids,” he says.

Hughes says he’s still a couple of weeks away from planting corn, and he plans to continue refining and improving his fertility program this season.

“Everybody has some restraints, financially or maybe with the people you’re working with who do or don’t want to make changes. Those things are always factors, but these additions in our program have done us a lot of good,” he says.

Your next read: 300-Bu. Corn Has a Big Appetite for N, P and K

Boost Corn ROI: Focus On Fertilizer Timing And Placement

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 15:44:16 GMT

Corn roots will tell you whether they are getting adequate nutrients to reach high yield goals this season – if you go out in fields, dig and look.

High-yield corn growers David Hula and Randy Dowdy say they routinely walk farmers’ fields and dig where fertilizer was broadcast applied and evaluate corn root development. The evidence often tells them the roots and fertilizer had little or no connection.

“If 40% of your fertilizer never touches a root, what good did it do you?” says Dowdy, who’s based near Valdosta, Ga.

That significant of a disconnect between corn roots and fertilizer sounds unlikely, given today’s high-tech machinery, tools and agronomic sophistication, but Dowdy and Hula say it happens all too frequently.

It’s just one reason they’re telling corn growers to bear down on the 4Rs of nutrient use this season – right source, right rate, right time, right place. Where they see farmers stumble most frequently is with the right time and right placement.

“Farmers are trying to be as efficient as possible this season, so we’re focusing on how to turn those fertilizer applications into dollars,” says Hula, who’s based near Charles City, Va.

Relay Fertility Helps Build Yield

Dowdy says he and Hula like to use a relay approach to fertility for corn – where one application of nutrients supports corn growth and development until the next round of nutrients can take the baton.

“When the plant needs fertilizer, it needs it, and we don’t want it spending a lot of energy going to look for it,” Dowdy says. “We want corn to have luxury feeding on fertilizer, and we want it to be in that root zone and be available immediately.

“So, placement of the fertilizer is a big deal. Ask yourself, when we place that fertilizer, how long is it going to last? Will it be there when the plant needs it, as it goes from growth stage to growth stage? What’s the corn going to tap into when it’s determining the number of rows around, or when it’s determining ear size?” Dowdy asks.

Have A Timing and Placement Strategy

Hula says he has changed what he did traditionally with fertilizer applications in corn, back when he farmed with his dad. Historically, they would broadcast some fertilizer in front of the disk and then use some starter.

“From the time I can remember, the tractors had fertilizer tanks on them. And now, to me, starter placement is 2” beside the seed and 2” below the seed, and not in the furrow.”

However, he adds, there are a huge number of options for corn growers today who are using strip-till, his go-to system.

“We can portion fertilizer before we plant. We can portion fertilizer in the seed trench, in-furrow, and then we got the starter application,” he says. “We want to put fertilizer in a position where the plant can utilize it, and that’s where the starter comes into play.”

Some of the options growers have for fertilizer applications are not convenient, Hula acknowledges.

“I get growers; they don’t want to stop their planter when it’s go-time. They want to plant now,” he says. “So, you got to have a position. You got to want to do something.

“We put out 26.5 gallons with a side placement. Even with a 16-row planter on these small field sizes, we can get roughly 150 acres a day, and that’s a long day. But in that fertilizer, we got nitrogen, we got phosphorus, sulfur, zinc, boron, and then whatever properties we want to go in there. These are just a couple things that growers could be looking at,” he adds.

Rain, Rain Go Away

Hula says with warm temperatures in his area last week, some neighbors north of him started planting corn. But then rain moved in on Sunday.

“That corn came up out of the ground, and it’s going to wish it was back in the bag today,” Hula told Chip Flory, host of AgriTalk, on Tuesday. “We won’t start planting corn at the earliest until next week.”

He says pythium, damping-off, is a big problem for local corn growers and something he wants to avoid.

Dowdy says an overabundance of rain is an issue in his area now, too, so he’s holding off from going to the field.

“We got some guys down here that’s planting corn in April, and I have never made high-yield corn planting in April in Georgia,” Dowdy says. “I’m not interested in getting started on a bad foot. Getting that corn coming out of the ground fast, and coming out of the ground timely and uniformly, it’s a big deal.”

Here’s some perspective for farmers itching to get into fields on what the U.S. weather outlook is for the rest of this week. This chart was pulled from X, formerly Twitter, and it’s live. You can click on the maps to get more details.

🇺🇸This is what the weekly Drought Monitor doesn't show you. Good to keep in mind as U.S. spring planting ramps up. Recent rains have heavily hit corn, soy & cotton areas.

FYI: % planting complete by April 30, recent 5-year averages: #corn 29%, #soybeans 17%, #cotton 16% pic.twitter.com/IkaAWqwYy6
— Karen Braun (@kannbwx) April 9, 2025

Get more of Dowdy and Hula’s perspective on growing high-yield corn on Breaking Barriers - AgriTalk

Your next read: Is The Planting Light Red, Green Or Yellow?

300-Bu. Corn Has a Big Appetite for N, P and K

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 13:06:53 GMT

Hang around national corn yield champions David Hula and Randy Dowdy for any time at all, and you realize how much fun the two farmers have giving each other a hard time.

Case in point. Dowdy, who’s based near Valdosta, Ga., just recently purchased some timber ground in Michigan that he cleared last year, put into cover crops and is planting to corn this season. On a frosty March morning, he’s asking Hula for advice on what kind of fertility program to use to fuel the crop.

Big mistake. A mischievous grin sweeps across Hula’s face.

“Knowing you, you’ve probably got a 500-bushel goal, or maybe 650, so just slow down a little bit,” Hula tells Dowdy, who laughs and retaliates in kind.

“Yeah, well, yours is probably 624 this year,” Dowdy says.

Both men laugh and then get down to business, discussing their favorite topic – how to grow better and bigger corn yields.

Start With A Yield Goal

“You’ve got to set a yield goal on that ground,” Hula tells Dowdy who finally shares that he’s shooting for 300-bushels per acre this season.

“I’m assuming you did soil samples and got that ground all tiled and you got the irrigation,” Hula replies. “But, with that ground coming out of timber, you’ve got a long way to go. I’d focus first on soil pH, that’s No. 1.”

It’s the same advice the two yield champs say they routinely pass along to other corn growers looking to boost yields and nutrient use efficiencies.

They say it’s important to have a soil pH in the neutral to 6.8 range across all corn acres. “An old timer told me a long time ago, ‘the cheapest fertilizer you’ll ever buy is lime,’ because it’s going to help you get the maximum efficacy from all your nutrients,” Dowdy notes.

Consider Lime Type And Source

Not all lime is created equal, and some types are better suited to a spring application than others.

“Understand the source of lime, whether you need magnesium or not and also understand whether it is a coarse or a fine-textured lime,” says Hula, who’s based near Charles City, Va.

The finer textured lime is what’s needed for spring application. A coarse lime can take a couple of years to break down and become available for soil uptake.

Farmers who applied a coarse lime last fall or anytime last year need to be aware of that, so they don’t over-correct on lime applications this spring. “You don’t want a situation where it all kicks in on the same year,” Hula cautions.

“Likewise, don’t use that as an excuse to not lime, if what you applied two years ago still hasn’t shown up. Understand what kind of lime or other fertility need your soils have now going into the season,” Dowdy advises.

Check Off All The Nutrient Boxes
Hula likes to remind farmers that while fertilizer efficiency is important, to reach your yield goals you have to fuel the crop adequately.

“We’ve got to realize that it takes pounds to make a crop, even if you’re using them in an efficient way,” he says.

Every grower knows corn crops depend on adequate amounts of macronutrients, especially nitrogen (N). But not every grower knows the specific amount needed for a 300-bushel crop.

Mark Jeschke, Ph.D., agronomy manager for Pioneer, says corn grain removes approximately 0.67 lbs. of nitrogen per bushel harvested, and stover production requires about 0.45 lbs. of nitrogen for each bushel of grain produced.

With that in mind, for a 300-bushel per acre corn crop, the nitrogen requirement is around 336 pounds per acre. Only a portion of this amount needs to be supplied by N fertilizer; N is also supplied by the soil through mineralization of soil organic matter, Jeschke says in his article 7 Management Practices for 300 bu/acre Yields in Corn.

Ken Ferrie says corn’s phosphorus (P) requirements are nearly as important as its need for N. “The right timing and placement of phosphorus can boost yields 30 bu. to 40 bu. per acre, especially in years of late planting,” says Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist.

Hula says he increasingly is giving potash more credit for helping him hit record corn yields. “Corn is a crop that just loves potash. It’s a luxury consumer of it,” says Hula. “We like to front-end load our entire potash in the first part of our rotation.”

Hula’s Potash Strategy For High-Yielding Corn

To front-load potash applications and improve nutrient uptake, Hula says to focus on these key strategies:
1. Apply potash primarily during the corn rotation year, as corn is a heavy potash consumer.

2. Use humic acid alongside potash to:
· buffer salt indexes
· help chelate nutrients
· improve nutrient absorption by the crop
· provide a food source for soil biology

3. Distribute enough potash to meet the nutrient demands of your entire crop rotation, including subsequent small grain or soybean crops.

4. Leverage the corn crop’s residue as a “holding tank” for potash, which will break down and provide nutrients for following crops.

5. Don’t neglect soil sampling, especially deep soil samples, to understand your soil’s potassium retention characteristics, particularly in clay-heavy soils.

Learn more about how Dowdy and Hula grow high corn yields and work as partners in their Total Acre program.

Your next read: With Soybean Seed Quality A Mixed Bag, Agronomist Says This Is The Year To Use Seed Treatments

Dip Your Big Toe Into the Process Of Trimming Inputs

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 21:42:36 GMT

A concept corn yield champions David Hula and Randy Dowdy often share with other growers is the idea that you can’t save your way to prosperity when producing corn, soybeans or any other crop. Their perspective: there is a baseline investment in fertility, and often other inputs, that a crop needs in order to produce and deliver the yield outcome you need.

But beyond that baseline, the two high-yield growers encourage farmers to look at where they can fine-tune practices and products used and reduce their out-of-pocket costs.

Here are four considerations they shared during their latest agronomic discussion on AgDay-TV that you can use to guide some of your key decisions this season.

1. Set specific yield goals for corn or other crops, then set those crops up for success with adequate nutrients.

Understand that “it takes pounds to make bushels,” says Hula, who’s based near Charles City, Va. “Let’s not just routinely cut out potash and other nutrients, we’ve got to have adequate fertility in place to fuel the crop. I always keep that fact in the back of my mind.”

2. Evaluate planting density and whether you can dial back the population.

With corn specifically, Hula is firm believer in fine-tuning plant populations to optimize quick emergence and the development of picket-fence stands.

“You know, if we’re not getting that 8 to 10 bushels of yield per 1,000 plants, then maybe you’re planting corn too thick,” Hula says. “If that’s the case, let’s consider dropping that population down slightly. When you start doing that, you’ll be saving some costs.”

Dowdy counters with a different perspective: “Let’s do a better job with the planter and get the plants all up at the same time,” he tells Hula.

3. Consider the timing for any fertility reductions you plan to make.

Hula says to give corn and soybeans adequate fertility on the front end so they get a strong start. After emergence, he says, is the time to evaluate stands and consider your options for nutrient reductions. He looks at stand quality on a field by field basis.

“Once the crop is up, game on. If you have poor emergence, then that’s just production corn or production soybeans, so you manage them like you normally would,” Hula says.

4. Conduct small-scale trials this season to make informed decisions about where to trim product investments.

“I’ve said many times, farmers never cut out anything they know that pays,” says Dowdy, who farms near Valdosta, Ga. “Sometimes the challenge is doing enough trials on your own farm to know if something pays for itself.”

In Dowdy’s case with growing corn, he has done enough on-farm trials that he is confident there’s a payoff using certain products that support soil biology. “I’m big into feeding the biology and having a carbon source out there, so I won’t cut out humic and fulvic acids. It just won’t happen.”

Whatever product or practice you use, he says if you haven’t evaluated its performance on your farm you run the risk of making cuts that could turn out to be costly instead of providing a benefit. It’s why Dowdy encourages growers to use a flag test to evaluate crop stands.

“If farmers use a flag test, they will understand which acres they can push,” he says.

The basic premise of using a flag test is to mark the corn with different-colored flags as soon as the plants emerge. Using flags, you can keep track of which ones emerged on the same day and which ones emerged in following days. From there, you can track how emergence timing impacted crop performance throughout the season.

Your next read: Corn Yield Champions Share Their No. 1 Tip

Hula and Dowdy: Planter Calibration Sets Up Your Season For High Corn Yields

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 19:33:38 GMT

David Hula says farmers are often puzzled when they talk to him about the condition of their corn planter that they just pulled out of the shed and want to take to the field.

“A lot of people will say to me, ‘When I put my planter to bed last year, it was planting just fine. Why wouldn’t it be ready when we’re ready to start planting again?’” says Hula, based near Charles City, Va.

The world champion corn grower says his experience is planters need annual evaluation and calibration to perform their best in the sandy soils that dominate his farm ground.

“This year, we’re rebuilding, putting all new blades on double disc openers, no-till coulters, starter blades and shoes,” Hula says. “You know, we’re even having to redo the closing system, we’re having to replace the blades this year. And it’s just a whole methodical process getting the planter ready, you know; it’s a system.”

From The Hitch Pin To The Closing Wheels
Taking a systems approach to getting planters ready is what Farm Journal Field Agronomist Missy Bauer has helped many corn growers use to achieve higher corn yields over the past decade. She says the key is checking each facet of the planter and making adjustments before and during the season.

Missy Bauer says it’s common to pick up several thousand additional corn ears per acre by doing planter prep ahead of planting.

(B&M Consulting)

“I tell farmers to inspect everything involved with the seed transmission: chains, sprockets, bearings, idlers and clutch assembly, including all seed metering components as well as the meter itself,” Bauer says.

Another important aspect on the planter is on the down pressure side of things. Bauer says she has seen a big improvement with airbags compared to springs and even greater improvement with the move to hydraulics.

“We want to make sure we’re running a good down pressure system on your parallel arms. It’s important not to let these get too loose or start to get wear,” she says.

Another significant problem area Bauer sees on planters today is with gauge wheels not being set tight enough. That’s an issue Hula and corn yield champion Randy Dowdy also encourage farmers to address.

“If you’ve ever seen Randy walk behind a planter, one of the first things he does is he’ll pick up the gauge wheel, pull it all the way up, and then he’ll let it go. And if you hear it just fall and hit with a thump, then we know we’ve got too much of a gap there,” Hula says. “Sometimes that gap comes because the blade has a wobble. Now, if we can keep the gauge wheel close to the blade, not too tight, but close enough they kind of drag going down, that’ll prevent you from allowing dry dirt to fall into the trench.”

“You want true contact with the disk opener,” Missy Bauer says. To test this, lift up the gauge wheel and when you let go, you should hear it rub down the disk. If there’s a gap between the gauge wheel and disk opener, then the wheel will move back and forth. That gap could be large enough to allow soil to gather inside the wheel.

(B&M Consulting)

Bauer agrees, noting, “When I try to pull the gauge wheel, get it to wiggle back and forth and there’s no slop in here, that tells me it’s pretty good and ready for the field.”

Bauer offers her 10-point planter checklist here, and you can also download a printable version of the Farm Journal’s Planter Checklist .

From Good To Great Yield Potential
Attention to the details can mean the difference between average corn yields and bin buster results, Hula notes. “We’ll take the time to make sure the double disc openers are not warped, for instance. These are aftermarket blades that are supposed to be true,” he says.

This year, Hula ended up checking 267 blades to find 32 blades that he felt met his standards for use. “The wobbles were less than 38,000^th, so the companies are doing better job because we’re asking more of them. We pay attention to those type of details, and that’s key to us,” he says.

The ultimate goal with the corn planter is to get seed placed in the soil in a manner that results in more uniform emergence and better ear counts, Bauer notes. “Uniformity comes from two main principles, what we call picket-fence stands and photocopy plants and ears,” she says.

“Every 1,000 ears per acre is worth 5 bu. to 7 bu.,” she adds. “It’s common to pick up several thousand ears per acre as a result of good planter setup.”

Even a 7 bu. per acre yield increase would pay for the grower’s time invested and small repairs to a planter. At $4 a bushel over 500 acres, you could pick up an additional $14,000, dollars that are more important than ever this year given the tough economics in farm country. ($4 x 7 x 500 = $14,000)

Think Through Any Technology Adjustments
As farmers consider adding technology to their planter or even replacing a worn part, Bauer says to think about how that might affect uniformity of seed spacing, emergence and overall ear size. Those factors are affected by what she calls the micro-environment around the seed.

“Any little change, whether it’s in planting depth, seed-to-soil contact, residue being pitched down, pressure settings, gauge wheels not being set right, closing wheels not being correct, or even an issue with the seed bed, can affect this micro-environment around the seed and, therefore, cause variability in germination out in the field,” she says.

How well your planter performs impacts the micro-environment in ways either good or bad for seed corn.

(B&M Consulting)

Uniform germination and plant emergence sets the pace for a corn crop for the entire growing season, according to Georgia farmer and yield champion Randy Dowdy.

“We pay so much for this seed, so we have to get that uniform plant emergence,” says Dowdy, who farms near Valdosta, Ga. “These plants have to come up simultaneously, from the first emerger to the last one, and that’s a big deal.”

Dowdy says there are so many variables Mother Nature routinely throws at a corn crop that farmers need to make sure they control what they can in the planting process. Failing to control the controllables can have unwanted consequences.
“Say you don’t get the seed trench closed just right and dry dirt falls into it, you could be changing the seeding depth and the environment around that seed,” Dowdy explains. “Attention to details really matters and is what I believe separates a good farmer from a great one.”

Earlier this week, Dowdy and Hula joined AgriTalk Host Chip Flory to discuss their personal steps to planter preparation for this year’s corn crop. The discussion, which is scheduled for every other week, is part of the yield champions’ new program, Breaking Barriers with R&D, on Farm Journal TV. You can catch the AgriTalk conversation with Hula and Dowdy here:

Randy Dowdy Says The Profit Sweet Spot For Soybeans Is 100 Bu. Per Acre

Tue, 11 Mar 2025 19:16:27 GMT

Soybeans may be viewed as the ‘poverty pea’ to some farmers, says Randy Dowdy, but the reality is there’s some real money to be made in soybeans. Dowdy says the sweet spot is the 100-bu.-per-acre range.

“The money is at 100 bu. [per acre]. It’s glamorous and it’s fun to make 150- or 200-bu. beans. When you technically look at it, for the amount of time you’re spending and for the amount of money you’re putting at risk, it’s just not worth spending it,” says Dowdy, the original founder of Total Acre, who’s known for pushing the envelope and big yields. “But 100-bu. beans are very attainable. We’ve got a lot of growers who have surpassed 100-bu. field averages on beans within Total Acre.”

Dowdy points out the first thing farmers need to explore is where they can get those “free bushels.” He says the most important factor is planting date, specifically the need to plant early.

“June 21 is the longest day of the year, last time I checked,” Dowdy says. “We need beans to be completely through flowering, or at least setting and filling pods, in the longest days of the year. So, planting as early as you can physically get in the field [is important].”

Habits are hard to break, and one of farmers’ long-held habits is planting corn first. Dowdy suggests planting corn based on soil conditions, and not based on the calendar. However, soybeans are a different story.

“Corn cannot have a bad day, but beans are tough. If they can survive that frost, I’d almost plant beans before I’d plant corn. It’s that simple. I plant beans first, and there’s a lot of people across this country that are adhering to that,” he adds. “Beans are just tough. We need the longest days of the year to make us some money there.”

The next piece to harvesting free soybean bushels, according to Dowdy, is singulation.

“One of the biggest things that everybody covets in a cornfield is that picket fence stand,” says Dowdy. “Corn needs to come out of the ground, it needs to be uniform, and it needs to be equidistantly spaced. Well, it’s equally important in beans, but that’s often the crop that everybody’s trying to get through with.”

Since soybeans are often planted last instead of first, farmers are in a rush to get the crop planted, and aren’t focused as much on solid stands when planting.

“Some farmers want to plant soybeans six, seven miles an hour. If they plant corn at five miles an hour, they’ll plant beans at six, just to get done with this poverty pea. But there’s a lot of free bushels to be made just by singulation, as well.”

Your Next Read: Corn Yield Champions Share Their No. 1 Tip For Growing More Bushels