agronomy – Top Crop TV

NCGA Meets with Agribusiness to Discuss Issues

Seth Wood — Fri, 26 Oct 2018 20:33:14 +0000

National Corn Growers Association officers, senior staff and high-level representatives from agribusiness stakeholder groups gathered last week in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. for the biannual NCGA Agri-Industry Council meeting. Over three days, the representatives of 11 leading agribusinesses discussed vital issues facing agriculture, shared information on their companies and sectors, heard from recognized speakers and learned about NCGA’s current initiatives. Established in 2007, the Agri-Industry Council facilitates dialogue between agribusinesses and NCGA to collectively address issues of mutual concern..

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE – by USAgNet – 08/21/2018

Yield contest champs: How’d they do that again?

Seth Wood — Fri, 26 Oct 2018 20:26:13 +0000

BALTIC, S.D. — Meet Eric Watson, a Guinness World Record holder for winter wheat yield.

Watson achieved a whopping 247 bushels per acre (16.79 metric tons per hectare), and was one of more than 20 national and international yield winners attending the Ag PhD field day on July 26 near Baltic.

The winners were celebrities in their own right, meeting the public on a small plot on which they’d directed care, and attracting crowds.

Kevin Kalb, 43, from Dubois, Ind., had a 150-acre cornfield that last year averaged over 340 bushels per acre. Within that, they have 10-acre parcels of land identified for the contests.

Kalb and his wife, Shawn, helped by their kids, have been national winners in the National Corn Growers Association contest nine times, including five first-place and four second-place. They compete in the 2A non-irrigated contest.

A seed corn dealer encouraged Kalb to get into the contest in 2007 and that “kind of hooked us on it,” Kalb says. “We’ve always grown good corn, but we didn’t know how we’d be against Iowa and Illinois. Lo and behold, the first year we were good enough to get second place in 2007.”

In addition to corn and soybeans, they raise turkeys apply turkey manure for fertility.

In 2017, the family had by far their best year, turning five entries over 350 bushels per acre. They had 150 acres that averaged more than 340 bushels per acre — on non-irrigated land in the river bottom. “Normally, we’re pretty happy if those two river bottoms make 250,” he says. He says the farm had an unusually cool August, which made it more competitive with northern Illinois or Iowa.

Kalb starts with a so-called “two-by-two-by-two” fertilizer — banding it with a planter on both sides of the row. “We feel that’s one of the biggest yield-influencers you can have,” he says. He pulls tissue samples when the crop hits 300 growing degree units. “If everything is growing at a normal pace, we try to ‘Y’ drop it,” he says, describing an applicator that puts supplemental fertilizer close to the roots of growing corn plants.

The History of Corn

Seth Wood — Fri, 26 Oct 2018 20:08:30 +0000

It is now growing season across the Corn Belt of the United States. Seeds that have just been sown will, with the right mixture of sunshine and rain, be knee-high plants by the Fourth of July and tall stalks with ears ripe for picking by late August.

Corn is much more than great summer picnic food, however. Civilization owes much to this plant, and to the early people who first cultivated it.

For most of human history, our ancestors relied entirely on hunting animals and gathering seeds, fruits, nuts, tubers and other plant parts from the wild for food. It was only about 10,000 years ago that humans in many parts of the world began raising livestock and growing food through deliberate planting. These advances provided more reliable sources of food and allowed for larger, more permanent settlements. Native Americans alone domesticated nine of the most important food crops in the world, including corn, more properly called maize (Zea mays), which now provides about 21 percent of human nutrition across the globe.

Full Article by New York Times

Corn Warriors featured at Hefty Field Day

Seth Wood — Mon, 22 Oct 2018 20:28:07 +0000

PRINCETON — More than 500 farmers and agribusiness representatives from this part of the Midwest gathered Monday for the first annual Field Day event hosted by Hefty Seed Company — Princeton.

The gathering was planned to take place at the Denton farm on Route 26, just north of Princeton. However, because of rain, it was moved to the Hefty Seed Company — Princeton business location on 1800 North Avenue, just east of the Holland and Sons John Deere dealership, on the morning of the event.

The rain, however, didn’t put a damper on the anticipation many had to hear from America’s top producers of corn and soybeans.

Hefty Seed Company — Princeton hosted the country’s highest-yield farmers who have been featured on the popular documentary television show, “Corn Warriors.”

READ FULL ARTICLE – by Goldie Rapp at BCR News