CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Fred Below, a University of Illinois crop science professor, is looking for ways for farmers to narrow the gap between average yields and record-breaking yields.
It is a pretty big gap, he said, noting how much higher Randy Dowdy’s record-breaking yield of 190 bu./acre soybeans in Georgia is compared to the U.S. average of 53 bu./acre.
David Hula set the world record corn yield at 616 bu./acre in Virginia, compared to the U.S. average at 177 bu./acre. Neither Virginia nor Georgia are known as leading corn and soybean states, Below said.
“The gap presents you with an opportunity to increase your yields,” Below told farmers attending Agronomy Field Day in Champaign Aug. 19.
Tools to help narrow this gap include planting the best “racehorse hybrids” at high density and using other research-proven practices to reduce plant stress and help plants reach their full potential.
For soybeans, “planting early is the single best thing you can do to increase yields,” he said.
A lot of people are planting soybeans before corn now and using seed treatments, he said. Early leaf development is important for soybeans.
Eight years of research has shown that every day after April 23 when soybeans are planted, half a bushel per acre of yield is lost.
Below noted the record holders aim to reduce plant stress as much as possible. All the winners used both irrigation and biologicals, he said.
For corn, “despite the high seed costs, plant populations need to go up” to raise yields, he said. In the future, they will be planted in narrower rows than the common practice of 30-inch rows today, he said.
Plant placement will also be more important as more densely planted corn has fewer roots. This will require better fertilizer placement to get to those roots, he said.
Scott Foxhoven, a research agronomist and graduate student on Below’s team, said that banded fertility, applied with a toolbar directly below the future crop, mimics strip till. It increases efficiency and reduces nutrient losses. Four of the top 10 yields in 2019 used strip till, he said.
Any emerging corn plants which don’t get needed nutrients are stunted and act more like a weed than yield providers, he said.
In 2021, the university’s corn fields with banded fertility got off to a good start.
“It will pay,” Foxhoven said of the practice.
For higher yields, hybrids matter. Foxhoven is betting on “racehorse hybrids” with smaller roots and banded fertility to win the yield race this year.
Choosing the right biologicals is also essential to high yields, said Connor Sible, a graduate research assistant on Below’s team. Again, the goal is to reduce plant stress.
“They (biologicals) will not replace good management,” he said.
Below and his research team highlighted potential practices and tools for closing the yield gap, noting that intense management is one of those tools.
