north central Ohio | ehoff - 12/8/2025 11:27
Easiest part of that question is if your corn is tipping back and or your kernel counts arent reaching sub 65k per bushel you arent reaching potential.
If you dont set a goal any road will take you there.
If you set a goal you have to start figuring out what is holding you back.
Take your harvested ear population multiply by rows around and row length gives you kernels per acre then start dividing by 80k kernels per bushel, 70, 60, 55. That gives you potential then with tissue testing we figured out what nutrients we were short of and all had impact on late season fill.
28000 harvested by 16 around by 36 long divided by 65k is 248. None of those 4 factors are unreasonable. We are next to the missouri ozarks with rock, eroded clay, terraces and some good dirt all in same field. We increased our highest farm average on corn last year by 44 bu an acre. The interesting thing is when we made changes our yields got better even in the dry years. You could visually see the improvement in crop health.
It wasnt all fertility but the majority was. It was also putting into place what we learned about planter maintenance and operation. We thought we were doing a good job of that until we learned from the record holders.
It takes alot of work!
Are you leaving checks to determine what you are doing is benefiting your bottom line or just you think it is with no replication? Statements such as it yield 40bu better then it ever has means little when varieties keep improving and different weather year in and year out. Had a farm set a new record this year by 35bu/ac. Previous record was 164 this year 199. Did not farm it any different then before so it was all weather and/or newer varieties. We are seeing a lot of what you describe as crops getting better in dry years and keeping a higher low end yield in these newer varieties released in past 7-8 years. We farm mainly 1-1.5% om soil with 6-8” of topsoil. |
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