National Corn Yield Contest Winners to Be Announced Monday (12-15-06)

The entries are in. Results are being tabulated, and results for the 41st annual National Corn Yield Contest (NCYC) will be announced in just three days.

The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) runs the NCYC to educate farmers on improving their methods of production to increase profitability while addressing environmental concerns. The majority of the NCYC classes are conservation tillage, utilizing no-till/strip-till and ridge-till. NCGA has recently improved the program by adding a request for additional information regarding overall corn production compared to the NCYC entry plot to assist in determining if practices are uniform throughout the farm.

This year 3,154 corn growers from 44 states participated in nine production categories.

 “For 41 years the National Corn Yield Contest has given growers the opportunity to showcase their production skills,” says NCGA President Ken McCauley. “The results show just how adept growers are at their craft and their ability to adapt and experiment with new farming methods.”

The NCYC began in 1965 with 20 entries from Indiana, Iowa, Illinois and Ohio. The winning corn yield was 218.9 bushes/acre. NCGA membership expanded from California to New England and North Dakota to Florida as a result. In 2005 the highest recorded yield among contestants was 381.6881 bushels/acre.

Contest winners will be featured in a special edition of Farm Journal magazine in mid-February and recognized at events at Commodity Classic in Tampa, Fla., March 1-3.