Along the banks of the James River in Virginia, David Hula is harvesting some real bin-busters.
The NCGA National Corn Yield Contest is an annual tradition that dates back to 1965.
But in that time, no one has had quite the sustained success as Charles City, Virginia’s David Hula, who has won the contest with record-setting yields on four separate occasions.
In this episode, we talk to David about his formula for success, which includes a combination of precisely-targeted fertilizer applications and a blend of strip-till and no-till.
Plus, we discuss the unique environmental challenges he faces as he works tirelessly to preserve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and how his farm traces its historic roots back to a time when growers planted a dead catfish with their corn seed.
David Hula:
I like to say there's three great things that produce high yield and corn. A good Lord blesses you. Number two, you got to have Pioneer seed. Number three, you got to have John Deere paint. So with those, that's easy. But it's a whole system, Jon, that takes it from the planter to in-season management to harvesting.
Dusty Weis:
Hello and welcome to Wherever Jon May Roam, the National Corn Growers Association podcast. This is where leaders, growers, and stakeholders in the corn industry can turn for big-picture conversations about the state of the industry and its future. I'm Dusty Weis, and I'll be introducing your host. Association CEO, Jon Doggett. From the fields of the Corn Belt to the DC, Beltway. We're making sure the growers who feed America have a say in the issues that are important to them, with key leaders who are shaping the future of agriculture.
Dusty Weis:
The National Corn Yield Contest is an annual tradition that dates back to 1965. And with thousands of entries every year from across the country, earning any recognition in this competition is noteworthy. But winning it four times and regularly setting new yield records, well, David Hula from Charles City, Virginia is pretty unique in that distinction. In this episode, he'll tell us about his historic family farm, what techniques he uses, and why real sustainability is at the heart of what he does. But if you haven't yet, make sure you're subscribed to this podcast in your favorite app. Also, make sure you follow the NCGA on Twitter @nationalcorn and sign up for the National Corn Growers Association newsletter at ncga.com.
Dusty Weis:
And with that, it's time to once again introduce, Jon. Jon Doggett, the CEO of the National Corn Growers Association. And Jon, today we're going to be talking about the highlight of every growing season since about 1965, NCGA's National Corn Yield Contest. Every year, thousands of growers toss their hats into the ring to see if they can grow like champions. And win state or national awards in nine different classes covering different soil types, irrigation, and tillage methods.
Jon Doggett:
Dusty the yield contest. It's just a lot of fun. It's fun for its entrants. And it's fun for those of us that get to watch it and to see the great things they're doing. It's an important demonstration of just how innovative and ingenious growers are by pushing that envelope of corn production. The contest opens the 1st of May, runs through mid-August. We average about 7,400 entries nationwide. Now, just think about that. You got that many people out there competing and doing their best and trying some really cool and neat and innovative things.
Jon Doggett:
So joining us today is a man who's really responsible for some true bin busters, David Hula from Charles City, Virginia. He's a four-time record holder. He continues to top his own record yields. This is what I think is interesting. His grandfather was one of the first in his area to break 100 bushels. Then his dad broke 200 bushels. Then David was the one of the first to break 300, and then 400, and then 500. And back in 2019, he raised 616.195 bushels per acre. Now, let me repeat that because that's just pretty cool, 616.195 bushels per acre. Now, that is just amazing.
Jon Doggett:
And then, David, you had 602 bushels per acre in last year's contest. You're the only grower to surpass 600 bushels per acre not once but twice. So David, welcome. Tell us about you. Tell us about your farm. Tell us about how you ended up there. We had a little of that conversation before we started. So tell us about who you are.
David Hula:
Well, Mr. Jon, it was my late granddad, then my dad, and then we've had success, but wouldn't you hate to be my son? Just imagine the pressure on that.
Dusty Weis:
Set a high bar.
David Hula:
That's exactly right. So I am fortunate. I got to farm with my late granddad and my dad. And my uncle. He since passed away. Farming's a dangerous occupation to start out with. And we had a tragedy here on the farm and lost my uncle. And my dad just passed away last December. COVID got him. So now it's just myself, and I have one younger brother that farms with me and a son. And then we got some full-time employees.
David Hula:
But the history here at Renwood Farms is unique in that, our ancestors came from Czechoslovakia. They landed in Baltimore. And everybody was going West, go West, go west. Now, this wasn't in the 1600s or 1700s. This was in the 1800s, late 1800s. And they went West. They went out to Kansas. They passed all that fertile ground from Baltimore to Kansas. And they just had a string of bad weather. And then my great-grandfather moved to Missouri and that's where my great-grandmother passed away from the Spanish flu. And then he took three kids and moved all the way to Texas. And then the drought followed him. And then he came back to Virginia. And that's where they were farming some ground. And then they bought some ground here on the banks of the James River. And it's kind of where we've resided ever since.
David Hula:
And we farm. When you think about it, you think of Jamestown, oh, you think of the James River, you think of Jamestown. And if you ever watch the Walt Disney movie called Pocahontas, you get the little bit of the story of Captain John Smith coming across the Atlantic Ocean and landed on the island. He came up the Chesapeake Bay, landed on Jamestown Island. And I'm like, that would be my luck. I'd float across the Atlantic ocean land on an island. Well, they did that on purpose because they didn't know what kind of enemies they were going to be combating. So just the safety net. And that was in 1607. And 1609 they left the island and started farming.
David Hula:
What's now called Mainland Farms. And it is the oldest continuously farm ground here in the US from the Western civilization. And we've been farming that. So it's been farmed every year since 1609. And it's the second place Jon, that we recorded 300-bushel dry land corn. So when you think about how good stewards we are. We've come from digging a hole, putting a catfish down and three or four kernels, a maize or corn seed on top of that catfish, that was a fertility program to producing 300-bushel corn. And that ground's been cultivated for 400 plus years. That's just unique in itself there. And it's just a great area to raise a family and I'm just ever grateful. We didn't chase and try to find gold, we were just trying to make a livelihood back then when they came back.
Jon Doggett:
You know, when people say corn production isn't sustainable. Well, the European settlers have been doing it since the early 1600s and the indigenous people did it for 100s of years before that. So I think we got it down and it's still around. So tell us a little bit about... I think you have some unique challenges or opportunities. I'm not sure which they are, farming near Jamestown. You have some folks that like to come and dig around on your property, don't you?
David Hula:
Well, you think about what's happened here in Virginia, you had the Indians and then you had the revolutionary war. Then we had the civil war and just all kinds of maybe some conflicts. And then of course we got the city folks or the urban sector there. And along the James River, you have the plantation houses. And some of those were where some civil war battlefield actually occurred. And in that, they have these civil war reenactments, or they may have some kind of gathering where a bunch of folks get together. So that just entices Relic Hunters. And we would get Relic Hunters come out and they may find a musket ball. They may find a belt buckle, just all kinds of stuff. So it got to be a point where, as time went on, some of these artifacts became of some value and some of these Relic Hunters would come by boat, come off the river shore, night vision goggles and stuff just to go out and Relic hunt because sometimes you'd give them permission and sometimes you wouldn't, because you might have a crop out there.
David Hula:
You don't want somebody branching through your corn field or your wheat field to look for some musket ball. So it annoyed me enough to where in a lime pile, I just went and got a bunch of old washers and nuts and threw it in the lime pile and broadcasted it across the field. So that deterred most of those Relic Hunters. And I hope I personally don't ever want to pick up Relic Hunting because I know what I'm going to find.
Dusty Weis:
So that's one way to do it. David, they came in with night vision goggles. I didn't realize that the Relic Hunters were that well equipped.
David Hula:
Well, you think about it. Some of that stuff that they can find can be worth several 1,000 dollars. So it can become lucrative to some but most folks that Relic Hunt. As long as they'd fill the hole back up, ask permission. We probably wouldn't have nearly the issue, but when they don't fill in the hole and they tramp through your field. So yeah, that becomes a problem.
Dusty Weis:
You know, my grandfather on my mother's side ran a tree farm in Northern Wisconsin pretty much his whole life until he passed away. And I used to go out with him, walking the fire breaks after we would plow them and we'd just have our heads down in the dirt, looking for Indian arrowheads. And for him, it was always such a cool reckoning back to the history of the land that he had the privilege to be a steward of. And I would imagine that, when you're going through, you're breaking soil, getting ready to plant in the spring, do you ever get a chance to just walk through those fields and see what you turn up?
David Hula:
Well, we used to, years ago. Now that we've transitioned in more to continuous no-till, we're not breaking that ground, the farm there at Mainland Farms right next to Jamestown. Since we've been farming in the early 1990s, we turned it into a continuous no-till, but somebody came out there with like a one or two bottom plow and they figured that this had to be a particular spot to find some Indian artifacts. So they plowed up a section without permission just went out there. And I'm sure they found some artifacts of some sort, but we go out there when we were doing some tillage, we'd find some stuff along the river shore. On a low tide, we can find some arrowheads. And, and then just looking at the edges of some of the fields.
David Hula:
We have one particular farm called Gospel Spreading Farm. It's got revolutionary forts as well as civil war forts, just in the edges of woods right there. So you think about all that and think about where we've come. I mean we're in the epicenter where all these battles where the country started and then freedom continued. So it is neat.
Jon Doggett:
That has to be a really interesting component to what you do. So let's talk about what we're going to talk about and the secrets to your success. How have you been able to do what you've been able to do, which is truly amazing. So tell us about how you got started in the contest and what you have done to be so successful.
David Hula:
Well, Jon, I guess it started back... I remember first of all, just riding on the fender. And that, nobody rides on a tractor fender planting anymore. Cause we got cabs and all that. But as a kid, I was riding on a tractor fender with my dad and he was planting corn. And I think that was a time in which I said, Hey, I want to farm. And you know, we would talk and I'd just see all that and see how detailed he was. So went to North Carolina state left there, came back to the farm, then left the farm for a little while and started working in the water quality industry for the Chesapeake Bay folks here in Virginia. Because when you think about, we got all this history, but we have ground zero for water quality. The Chesapeake Bay was probably the first watershed that they started cleaning up. And I've become a nutrient specialist and covered a large geographic area of Virginia and got to talk with a lot of great growers.
David Hula:
There's one in particular in Ronnie Russell. And he was a yield contest winner in the state for many years. And had the chance to learn from folks like him and other growers, came back to the farm, started implementing these things because good Lord. It gave me one mouth and two ears. So I was a sponge pitching ideas to my dad and granddad and they say, "Yeah, that might work. Maybe it might not". So as we would try things, I would just pick and choose. I started networking and creating this group of folks around myself. And from the fertilizer industry to the seed folks, John Deere equipment folks, Pioneer seed or nutrient, you just... All kinds of specialists and then entered the contests. And I think we came in third the first time and I thought that was a good feat.
David Hula:
And then we entered again and we came in first and got a chance to take a little trip somewhere. My wife and I, and then they sent us to... I think it was the first time they had the actual Commodity Classic. I think it was in Phoenix maybe. So we went out there and it's like, "Hey, this is awesome". So that was kind of the drive, Jon, Hey, we got to have a trip, all expense paid trip, little vacation. And then we started talking to growers, and that opened up the possibility like, Hey, we're in Virginia, but here's guys in the Midwest that are producing a 100 plus bushels more than we are. Why can't we do that? So we just started pushing it and then I don't remember what classic it was, but I was sitting on a bus. And the late Francis Childs got on the bus and he sat right across the aisle from me. And he called me by name and he introduced himself and he was like an idol to me.
David Hula:
He's like, Oh my goodness, here's Francis Childs, and we're talking and he said, "David, get over your Eastern mentality of a corn ear. You don't need one big ear. You just need a lot of good medium size ears". And just with that, it rejuvenated me to where we would try different things and wouldn't have that stereotype of, hey, this is the only way we can do it. So it opened up all these possibilities.
David Hula:
And having that ability to talk to growers there at the Classic and just network, gave us the drive to continue. And I know those that watch this podcast, everybody wants to know what is that one silver bullet that we do. And unfortunately, there is no silver bullet. I like to say there's three great things that produce high yield and corn. A good Lord, bless you. Number two, you got to have Pioneer seed. Number three, you got to have John Deere paint. So, with those that's easy. But it's a whole system, Jon, that takes it from the planter to in-season management to harvesting. I can talk hours about that, but we sure don't want to bore the audience with all the details, but I know they want to know some of the secrets and tricks of the trade.
Jon Doggett:
You know, one of the things I just heard it from you and I've heard it from other corn yield contest winners. And number one is you don't do it by yourself. You do it by talking to a lot of different people. And it's amazing to me how much information you guys share with one another. I keep hearing that over and over again. The other thing you said, was we keep trying new things, and you find yourself willing to make mistakes in order to find out what doesn't work in order to find out what does work. And that kind of mentality of working with others and being willing to change and trying new things, that can help you raise a lot of corn can also help you in the rest of your life.
David Hula:
So, I will say that, probably the one big difference between myself and a lot of other growers that either participating in the corn contest or just growers in general, I've failed more times than I've had success. I don't mind failing. It's just, you want to learn from your mistakes. It's clearly cheaper to learn from somebody else's mistakes than your own, but we do lots and lots of trials. It might be a small strip trial to where I've taken the corn planter, jacked up the closing row and hand-planted seed, just to see the differences of how the seed orientation is. I've taken two and a half-gallon jugs and side dressed corn. And we pull tissue samples and then we do trials. And we do plots and then things that we see, we start putting on maybe a bigger trial and then more acres.
David Hula:
So to get to where we are today has taken decades. I see Randy Dowdy, from Georgia first guy to break 500 bushels. And he'd sure don't mind letting me know that, but he came in from no farming background, but he only sourced out information from successful folks. So he just streamlined all that to where growers like myself, I'm in a routine. We have this preconceived notion. So it's hard to get out of that norm, but we have failed a huge amount, but we've learned from those failures,
Dusty Weis:
You know, David, I had the chance at Commodity this year to talk to a couple of different yield contest winners. And it made me chuckle a little bit, because the systems for keeping track of successes and failures, essentially keeping track of your data and learning from what works and what doesn't are so different. I talked to one person and she said, "Oh yeah, I've got just spreadsheets on spreadsheets on spreadsheets. It's as complicated as the IRS over here”. And I talked another fellow and he said, "Don't write anything down. It's all up here". So what's your system for keeping track of the data there?
David Hula:
Well, unfortunately there's some data that we just lose because we forget about where we've done a trial, but the neat thing about the technologies that we have and the planters and then the sprayers and then the harvesting equipment. All that can get downloaded, not a big guy that likes to use the cloud. I'm not an expert on technologies, but if we can enter the information correctly, either in whatever implement we're driving, whether it's the planter, the strip till machine.
David Hula:
Because we like to use a soil warrior or the sprayer. And then when we go to harvesting, that's one way we track, but in all the equipment, we still have a notebook, because irregardless that technology could be there, but something could happen to where we lose that information. So we're writing things down, we split the planter up. So I might be making a pass like we're planting corn today and half the planter's got one hybrid, the other half's got another hybrid. We're also doing trials with different in-furrow and how it impacts each one of those hybrids. So we write down, but then we also use some of the current technologies available to us.
Jon Doggett:
So David let's step back just a little bit, because obviously we know what the corn yield contest is. And a lot of people do, but tell us about the corn yield contest is at a 100 acres, a 1,000 acres, half an acre. What do you do? How do you enter? All of those things. Walk us through some of that.
David Hula:
Well in fact, we've already planted two areas that we are anticipating to have be part of the National Corn Growers Association Yield Contest. So first of all, it's got to be a minimum of 10 acres continuously of one corn hybrid. And a lot of times if you've had success or you have a good relationship with your seed provider, they may either discount it or give you some seed to put into the plot. So that's one way to save some money, particularly in the cost area. I say, hey, I'm going to push some corn, how about throwing me a few bags of seed? And then we try to hedge our bets. We don't ever know if it's going to be a sunny year or a cloudy year. So we don't know what population to plant, but you got to have 10 acres of a continuous one hybrid.
David Hula:
And then when it comes time to send in the entry form, we go online. All this has been streamlined makes it so much easier. I remember it used to be to where you actually had to pick the field, pick the hybrid before you entered nowadays, all you have to do is pick the particular hybrid. So is giving you a little bit more flexibility, but if it's irrigated, it's going to be in that particular field. So we send in the entry form, they ask hybrid information, planting information, seeding information, some equipment information, some fertility, and then also just some basic agronomic information, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, and fertilizer. And then, after you've got that submitted, they send you a nice letter or email say, "Hey, your entry's been submitted". And then just prior to harvest, you have to also designate certain folks to be supervisors.
David Hula:
Because the neat thing about the national corn contest is that, there are folks that are either certified or have credentials to verify that that yield is actually occurring. And you know, with that in mind, to me it gives it comfort. And we've had great success. We've had a lot of folks from the National Corn Growers Association come in. Whether they come from the home office or they come from other states or DC, they come down and they observe it. But you have these supervisors that are out there watching you harvest. So the neat thing about the harvest is you go out there, you have to harvest at least one in a quarter acres. So out of that 10 acres or not a huge amount of it, but based on your header width, we just run an eight-row head.
David Hula:
So we'll pick eight rows in this plot. And then when we get to the end of the area that we're going to stop, they measure it. And if we have not harvested at least an acre and a quarter out of that, then we have to skip three header widths. So we're skipping 24 rows and then we harvest again and we keep doing that until we at least get an acre and a quarter to where we can put in the truck and then take to the certified scales and all the testing done. But the supervisors, they go in, they look in the back of the truck, make sure the truck's empty. They look in the grain tank, make sure the grain tank's empty. And I remember years ago, one of the fellas that came and supervised his name was Paul. Can't remember his last name, but he is like, "Hey Dave, go ahead and swing the auger out and then turn the unload auger on."
David Hula:
And I looked at him, I was bewildere like, ""Okay, I'll do that". I'm like why? As you just saw, he said, "Well, just want to make sure everything's empty". I'm like, "Well, that's great". So we turned to unload auger on. Maybe a handful of corn comes out of it. And nowadays what they do is they ask you, engage the harvesting equipment, turn the header on, turn the combine on, swing the unload auger out, run it, make sure there's no grain captured anywhere. That's just another form of checks and balance. And I clearly understand all this. And then after they do that, then you start harvesting. And then when you dump it into the truck, the supervisor, we have at least one supervisor riding with us. The neat thing about the equipment nowadays, Dusty, is there's a co-pilot seat on everything.
David Hula:
So got a supervisor riding, another supervisor's running a measure wheel that's been certified or checked where they lay a tape measure out. A 100-foot measuring tape. They calibrate the wheel, make sure it's all legit. And we do our acre and a quarter, dump it in the truck. Then the supervisory either rides in the truck or follows the truck, goes to the granary. Wherever we're getting it weighed. And then they collect samples, run it through their certified moisture samples and truck gets dumped, unloaded. They have a piece of paper and fortunately, Jon, we have to do it all over again. So have to do that recheck.
Jon Doggett:
I would be reminisce if I didn't acknowledge that Linda Lambur is on with us. And she runs this program for NCGA and she's out of our St. Louis office. And the details that the entrants have to follow, she's the one has to make sure that that winner is announced, that that's the winner and she does a super job for us. And so it's really great to get her perspective, talking about all the different people that she works with from Virginia clear out to California. And it's really pretty neat, but that's a lot of detail. I had not thought about, oh yeah, you got to run the auger for at least a few seconds to go ahead and make sure that is not...There could be certain amount of corn in there. That's pretty neat.
Dusty Weis:
Yeah, Jon, we joked earlier about being as thorough as the IRS here. And when it comes to the National Corn Yield Contest, you got to make sure that you're as thorough as the IRS there. It is worth noting here that as of Monday, May 2nd, the contest will be open for 2022 entries. Anyone who's interested in that can go to ncga.com and click on the Get Involved tab up at the top of the website there. And the National Corn Yield Contest is right on top there. So anybody who's hearing about that. Now's the time to start thinking about getting involved in the 2022 contest.
Jon Doggett:
David, one question, what's your goal for this year? What's your goal for the contest into the future? You must have some goals, don't you?
David Hula:
Well, first of all, yes, we do have goals. And to see four, five, now 600 bushel. That's all a success. I don't care what grower it is. I got some ground. If I just see 200-bushel, I get excited about, but for high yield stuff, again, just to see 600-bushel, I think is an accomplishment, because right now there's only one farming operation that has reported it. Now I'm not naive to think other growers have not seen it, but to have it recorded and documented. Based on what I share with growers, when you're out harvesting a field and you see your yield monitor get to a level, the first thing you should do is stop the combine, get out and look and see what's different about that corn versus the rest of your field. Hey, I even got a soil sample probe in our combine.
David Hula:
I'm going to pull a soil sample. What was special about that fertility and that soil that might have done it? But then if you see a yield that your monitor gets to and just like everybody else, I got a cell phone. I can play with the joystick, take a picture of a high yield, send it to my buddy, say look what we're picking. But if you see a yield that's kind of high and it stays there for a little while, that should be your new target. And we've seen levels into the upper 600s. I've seen the monitor jump to 700. Now I think that was partially because a lot of corn was on the header and it all went in. So that yield is attainable and somebody will get to it at one point in time.
Jon Doggett:
David you're on the James River, you're close to the Chesapeake Bay, everything that flows off your farm flows into the bay. I paddle a kayak a lot. And the bay is important. It's a really big thing out here on the east coast. And there's a lot of people that will point to people like you and say, "Oh, you just dumping all that fertilizer on that corn". And just so you can win a contest and what are you doing with the rest of your ground? So what do you say to those folks? And what do you say to folks that are saying, "You're just in it for one or two years". I think you've proven that you have a bit of a longer view, but talk about your sustainability, not only your environmental sustainability, but your family sustainability, your community sustainability. When you farm right on one of the most important watersheds in the country.
David Hula:
Well, it's important to me because I remember as a kid, I’m just under sixty years old now, and when myself and my two younger brothers were annoying, my mom, she'd just say, "Y'all go outside, go swim in the river". Well the river was polluted back then. And over time it has really cleaned up. We, as producers have done a tremendous job in the '80s or ‘70s we started transition to a little bit of no-till. In the fall of 1986 my dad started a project to where we were going to take one field and continuously no-till it? This particular field is three miles to the east of us down a dirt road. And it was far enough away, that if we committed to it, we didn't have to look at it every day. But if it worked, we were going to start implementing it on more acres. And from that time on that field has not been tilled since the fall of '86 and we continuously pull good crops off it.
David Hula:
So we're being good stewards from erosion control. And then now with technologies that we have, with the planters, the technologies ability to put fertilizer on one or two sides of the corn row, below the soil surface, fertilizer in with the seed. And then we also have started implementing what we call strip-tilling. We're using a soil warrior to where we're working up a small piece of dirt, 4, 5, 6 inches wide, putting some fertilizer down there, we've controlled some erosion because we have all the rest of the area that is in what we call no-till or we have the cover. We're just working up that seed zone. And we've allowing to put our fertilizer there. Then we are even more efficient to where we're making multiple applications of nitrogen. We have equipment to put fertilizer right beside the corn row. We do that at specific times in the season.
David Hula:
And then in their irrigation environments, we use irrigation as a tool we'll fertigate. And we look at what our yield goal is, we understand what nutrient requirements we have for that, and then we just make applications accordingly. So when we think about sustainability, I need to protect my soil. I don't want to pollute the environment. And I want to have something to pass on to my son and for him to continue on because I'm the third generation here. And a fourth generation here in Virginia. But the third on this farm, I got my son, Craig is a fourth. I got a grandson.
David Hula:
Hopefully he may want a farm one day. So the only way we can do that is protect our soil, protect our environment and we have to make it profitable. So all these things work hand in hand, because the neatest thing when you think about this term sustainable, and sometimes I feel like it might be overused, but environmentalists as well as good agronomic practices that we as producers, they go hand in hand and they are usually very economical. So we focus on return on investment. I like to think that all the things that we do, that we are not only producing high yield, but we're also protecting the environment. And no, we do not just dump fertilizer on a piece of field just to try to get a high yield, that doesn't work.
Jon Doggett:
The price of fertilizer being what it is right now, is probably your highest non land cost. That fertilizer doesn't do you any good out in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, you want to keep it on the farm? So that's one of the things I keep reminding people in the environmental community, is we don't overuse fertilizer just to have it go down the streams.
David Hula:
One funny thing I like to say is when you look at the Chesapeake Bay, when you look at the map and you look at where the James river is, where the last tributary feeding into the Chesapeake Bay, before it dumps into the Atlantic ocean. And then I oftentimes point to the Northern part. Up there where the Potomac is. And that's where DC is. And I like to share with folks and say, you do know what flows downhill, right? So we're recycling, whatever nutrients that may be flowing down the river.
Jon Doggett:
I've paddled a lot of the Potomac and a lot of the Chesapeake bay area. And I can tell you, going by a farm, the water is a lot different than going by a subdivision and certainly The Great Plains area up north of you up the Potomac, it’ a different deal, but really interesting to talk about sustainability and at the same time, talk about sustainability with these yields that are just so incredibly amazing. And 10 years ago 600 bushels was really out of sight. What do you think it's going to be another 10 years, David got any projections?
David Hula:
Well, I remember, the late Francis Childs, he was 400 and some bushels, and then Randy Dowdy went to 500, and Steve Albrecht, the late Steve Albrecht from Hart, Texas, he was up into that 400 bushel range as well. I'm not great on a computer, but I do like Google and you type in what is the theoretical potential yield of corn. And at some point in time, they said years ago it was 500 bushels. Well, I found a Professor Tollenaar said that by some 2030 or 40, the theoretical yield of corn could be somewhere in that 1,311 bushels.
David Hula:
I'm like where in the world did you get 1,311? So I figured that'd be a great Pioneer hybrid one day 1311QZRT, whatever acronym behind it. But we're clearly over 500, we're over 600. We're not at 1300. So I feel the yield of corn is somewhere in that 8, 900 bushel range and, Dusty, if their theoretical yield is 8 or 900 bushels and our country averages only 170 some bushels, We ass growers are not doing a very good job. So there's a big gap, but I think as time goes on, we're going to start seeing their yields increase. Because farmers in general are just great innovators and they're going to continue to push the envelope.
Dusty Weis:
Well, and a lot of that pressure falls on your son too.
Jon Doggett:
And I'll bet somebody by the name of Hula will be involved in some of those great future successes. So thank you, David, for sharing your story about how you are so productive on your corn farm, and what it looks like in a part of the country where people don't naturally assume that you're raising corn. So that's really pretty neat. I want to close by thanking the contest premier sponsors BASF, Corteva and John Deere, and the 18 seed companies that cover membership and entry fees for the contest, and our outstanding network of yield supervisors who keep the contest going year after year. I'm Jon Doggett, I'm the CEO of the National Corn Growers Association and we hope you'll join us again real soon for the next episode of Wherever Jon May Roam, the National Corn Growers Association podcast
Dusty Weis:
That is going to wrap up this edition of wherever Jon May Roam, the National Corn Growers Association podcast. New episodes arrive monthly. So make sure to subscribe in your favorite app and join us again soon. Visit ncga.com to learn more or sign up for the Association's email newsletter. Wherever Jon May Roam is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association. With editing and production oversight by Larry Kilgore III. And it's produced by Podcamp Media. Branded podcast production for businesses, podcampmedia.com for the National Corn Growers Association. Thanks for listening. I'm dusty Weis.
