54 / SEEDWORLD.COM JUNE 2019 Will the 400-bushel-per-acre contest yields that seem so futuristic today be a routine achieve- ment in the next 50 years? If we use the history of yield contests as an indicator, 400-bushel yields are entirely probable. Optimizing corn yield requires individual field data and the technology to analyze the data to produce useful crop production information. Factors that should be in place include water man- agement (drainage, conservation and irrigation); sound insect, weed and disease management; soil pH in the optimum range with adequate levels of phosphorous and potassium. Seed suppliers increasingly look to provide farmers with technical agronomic support through the collection of data and then processing and analyzing that data. “Our goal is not necessarily to have all cus- tomers produce 400-bushel corn,” says Mike Kavanaugh, an AgReliant Genetics agronomy man- ager for AgriGold. “Our goal is to know everything we can about our genetics and to help farmers understand everything they can about the genet- ics they plant and how to place and manage them. “We have pre-commercial research trials that overlay with our commercial testing. This allows us to test elite germplasm throughout our entire terri- tory. We get a lot of data. Sometimes the low yield results are as important as high yield results to help us understand genetics-by-environment trends. Knowing where not to place a hybrid can be as important as knowing where to plant it.” Kavanaugh’s goal is to use technology to help customers manage genetics to best reach their genetic potential. One of those technologies is tissue sampling, a practice that’s becoming more common for high yielding, progressive corn operations. “We have three years of validated data tissue samples by yield environment for our new releases,” Kavanaugh says. “It makes a difference. “As we look at 150 to 300-plus bushels-per- acre yield environments, we can see a difference just in tissue samples.” AgReliant’s agronomists, interns and sales- people take samples six times during the summer. This information is then matched with final yields of tested areas. Whole plants are analyzed when plants are young, while leaves are analyzed when plants are older. Randy Doudy, the first grower to record a corn yield over 500 bushels, encouraged AgriGold to start this project. “This is all about identifying and removing limiting factors,” shares Doudy, who farms in Georgia. “The more years we collect field-specific data, the better we can understand yield-limiting factors.” SW 542 bushels per acre, the all- time highest corn yield, was achieved in NCGA’s 2017 National Corn Yield Contest. >349 bushels per acre is the 2018 veri- fied average yield of 18 winners in six production categories.