Sam Santini Jr. Supervisors Everett A. Chamberlain County Extension Agent Rutgers University Robert Mickel County Extension Agent Rutgers University Donna Foulk County Extension Agent Rutgers University SAM SANTINI JR. Stewartsville, N.J. 272.9342 BU/A Pioneer 33H05 Harvest pop.: 30,000 Harvester: JD 9450 The Santinis snag the “most winning family” title in this year’s contest. Sam, wife Chris and daughter Stephanie all place, with the women earning second and third, respectively, in the A Ridge-Till Non- Irrigated class. About eight family members total participate in the contest, including Sam’s father and cousins. Sam likes to experiment with new hybrids in his contest plot, while the rest of the family selects from what worked for them the year before. This year his strategy came out on top, with Pioneer 33H05 standing well. Rain came as a mixed blessing this year. “We had rain every week. That was one of the keys to good yield,” Santini reports. “It was just an outstanding year. The corn never went under stress.” The downside, he says, was that the unstressed corn never developed a deep root system. It blew over when Hurricane Ivan tore up the East Coast last September. His plot stood pretty well compared to the rest of the family’s, he notes. Picking corn up off the ground proved the season’s biggest challenge, with Santinis buying a special reel for harvest. To prepare the contest field, Santini chiselplowed 3 tons of poultry manure into the flat, clayloam soil the previous December. He disked once before planting May 1. Santini used 5 gal. of 10-25-10 starter fertilizer on Poncho 1250-treated seed, followed with 20 gal. of nitrogen applied with Harness and Prowl herbicides right after planting. He treats all fields the same, except for planting a little thicker on better soils. Seeding rate on the winning field was 34,000. Like many contest participants, Santini counts corn growing a hobby as well as a vocation. When he first yield-tested, yields came in at 120 bu. “I always wanted to hit 200,” he says. When they reached that about a decade ago, the goal climbed to 250. “Now it’s 300.” He says the keys to top yields are planting early, knowing what’s in your soil and picking the right field. “The way the field lays means a lot,” he notes, citing the importance of soil tests and even how the morning sun hits. “I just make sure everything’s right when I do it,” he says. That includes planting slowly and making sure equipment works perfectly for both planting and harvest.
	Supervisors Mark Kubik Loan Officer Union Bank & Loan Lori Panko Ag Loan Officer Farmers Bank of Cook Karen Hoeferner Ag Loan Officer Farmers Bank of Cook Lynn C. Hazen Vice President Farmers Bank of Cook THOMAS L. SNODGRASS Nebraska City, Neb. 272.1994 BU/A Pioneer 33R78 Harvest pop.: 28,000 Harvester: Case IH 2388 Thomas Snodgrass reaches into the winners circle for the first time, crediting a good hybrid and Mother Nature. “Mother Nature does the most of it, and we were blessed this year with ideal conditions.” His biggest challenge was getting rid of the corn once harvested. Snodgrass treats contest acres about the same as the rest of his corn, bumping up population a bit. “I just do things the way I would normally, maybe put on a little more fertilizer, that’s it,” says this seed dealer whose late father got him into the contest. He selects a hybrid with good disease resistance and top-end potential. The contest field had been in soybeans the previous year. Snodgrass disk-ripped this bottom-ground field after harvesting the beans, cultivated and applied anhydrous ammonia prior to planting corn in spring. He seeded 28,000 Poncho 250-treated seeds to the acre with starter fertilizer around April 16. Fertilizer applications totaled 200 units of nitrogen and 27 units of phosphorus.		Supervisors Dayle Windsor Adult Vo Ag Instructor Commonwealth of Ky. Lindsey Champion Financial Services Officer Farm Credit Services Jay Stone County Extension Agent University of Ky. Extension JOE NICHOLS SEVEN SPRINGS FARMS Cadiz, Ky. 270.6317 BU/A Pioneer 33M54 Harvest pop.: 36,250 Harvester: JD 9610 Beginner’s luck gets no credit for Joe Nichols’ third-place finish with his first entry. Chalk it up to a systems approach and attention to details–coupled with perfect weather. “If you went to bed every night and prayed for a perfect crop year, this is what you’d ask for,” Nichols notes. “We’re not known for big, high-yielding corn in this area of Kentucky.” In his rolling terrain, it’s even hard to find a field that would work for the contest. But experimenting with 20" rows since 1996, he’s watched yields creep upward. Nichols devotes a good deal of time to dissecting problems and seeking solutions. “It just goes back to a total system. You find one problem and you fix it. Then you move on to the next problem and fix it.” For instance, he discovered he was losing 2 to 4 bu. an acre to compaction. So he went to a track tractor with auto-steer technology and installed tram lines so he doesn’t have to drive a sprayer over top of his corn. All corn acres get the same treatment.