A Shadow In Every Row

The story was originally published in 2014.

It is a well-told story. Brooks County, Ga., farmer Randy Dowdy, who did not grow up on a farm, has in eight years shot into the upper ranks of the nation's best corn growers. That acclaim is supported by his 400-bushel entries in the National Corn Yield Contest, including multiple 400-bushel-plus entries in 2014.

Dowdy, 42, also broke into the elite ranks of soybean growers three months ago with three certified 100-bushel yields. He is the first grower anywhere to produce a 400-bushel corn yield and a 100-bushel soybean yield in the same year.

Dowdy's high-yield formula is simple: Plant stress equals yield lost. "You either eliminate stress, or you address it," he says. "I try to treat every acre so it can give me all it can."

As a teenager, Dowdy racked up field time--and earned money for school clothes--picking watermelons and tobacco. Seeing up close how crops thrive, or don't, in the field is paying a dividend today. Finding and eliminating holes in his crop-management plan in real time is money.

"The best thing I can see in my corn field is my shadow," he once told a reporter for The Progressive Farmer. With searching eyes, he checks his fields growth stage by growth stage for yield-limiting trouble, and he works quickly to limit any damage.

"You need to understand what's going on in the field," he says. He looks for even emergence, the efficacy of seed treatments, disease pressure, leaf architecture and other things. "If I have 20 leaves (at VT), I have more factory there," he says. Those places are opportunities for Dowdy to invest resources that may tease out additional yield.

How far he went into 400-bushel corn territory this year remains to be seen. On a hot August day in South Georgia, the air thick with invisible clouds of tormenting gnats, he has admitted to more than he probably should.

The National Corn Grower Association (NCGA) urges growers not to divulge yields ahead of the organization's mid-December announcement of winners in this 50th edition of the yield contest. "I wish I could tell you," he says, and his voice trails off. But his body language belies his poker face.

If Dowdy is indeed a repeat winner two years in a row, his work will stand as a testament of how intense crop management results in high yields. In 2013, he took second place in the corn contest's irrigated class with 405.1249 bushels and third in the no-till/strip-till irrigated class with 417.3254 bushels.

Fast start.

Dowdy produced his first crop of corn in 2006. He notched his initial National Corn Yield Contest prize in 2010 with a best-in-Georgia yield of 279 bushels per acre. The following year, Dowdy placed second in two national classes with yields of 363 and 352 bushels per acre, respectively. In 2012, he placed first in the contest's irrigated division with 372 bushels per acre and second in the strip-till irrigated division with 374 bushels.

All this production came from dirt that is the worst in all of Georgia, or so he was told shortly after purchasing the land. It's only good enough, neighbors teased, to hold the earth together. The ground was an investment, purchased to hunt white-tailed deer and tend green fields. Today, out of the 1,700 total acres, Dowdy grows 470 acres of corn, 300 acres of peanuts and 200 acres of double-crop wheat and soybeans.

"I am naturally inquisitive, naturally competitive and naturally not status quo," he says. "I came out of my mother's womb asking 'Why?'"

Scouting has yielded new insights.

For instance, Dowdy is convinced, and there is a University of Georgia study to back him up, that an over-the-top herbicide application on rapidly growing corn between the V6 and V8 growth stages can penalize yields by more than 20 bushels per acre. "I don't know if it's the surfactants or the herbicide itself," he says. So he has opted for a different strategy and uses a lay-by sprayer to apply Roundup and atrazine under the crop's leaf canopy and down the row middles.

Dowdy also believes that the insect thresholds established for corn and soybeans may not hold true in high-yield environments. Any insect damage damages yield. "If they are eating my leaves, they are eating my factory," he says.

Targeting earworms.

In 2014, Dowdy went after corn earworms. The pest eats silks and kernels, opening the door to mold and mycotoxins. He tested one of DuPont Pioneer's new Optimum Leptra hybrids against it. It combines three insecticidal traits with adapted Pioneer hybrids-Herculex I (Dow AgroSciences and DuPont Pioneer), YieldGard Corn Borer (Monsanto Company) and Agrisure Viptera (Syngenta). Syngenta says its technology produces an average yield gain of 7.3 bushels per acre.

Dowdy likes what he saw. "It works," he says, a two-word answer that begs a follow-up question. How well did it work? "No feeding versus feeding," he says of trials that pit Optimum Leptra against less-protected hybrids.

Dowdy plants population trials at rates from 28,000 seeds per acre to 52,000 seeds in twin rows and in 30-inch rows—the latter to learn if the wider row spacing is competitive with twin rows. Most fields are planted at 42,000 seeds per acre and below, with maturities of 112 to 120 days. He finds a 31-bushel-per-acre yield boost with twin rows compared to 36-inch rows.

Emergence effect.

Dowdy says he has learned a great deal from his field trials but notes that one lesson stands out from all the rest: 400-bushel corn starts with a 400-bushel stand. "When you see a plant come up 24 hours later than the others," he says, "you now have a weed with 25% less grain on it."

Dowdy says he can prove the value of even emergence to other farmers. Here is his practice and what he recommends other farmers try: As the corn emerges, at about 100 to 120 growing degree units (GDU), walk off a 20-foot row of the crop. Put a colored flag beside every emerged plant. Return in 12 hours, and put a different colored flag by any newly emerged plants. Repeat the process every 12 hours with different colored flags until all the plants in the row section have emerged. At the end of the season, collect the ears from that row section. Divide the ears into groups, using the flags to identify each group. Count the kernels and weigh the ears in each group. "This will be your 'ah-ha' moment," he says. "You will understand the cost of variability and lost yield from Day 1."

This Georgia grower is not out to win contests, he says, although he is rather good at it. He says his cropping experimentation concentrates on return on investment. He chases a difficult result. Practices applied to 32,000 plants per acre may not work with any expectation of mathematical proportionality at 40,000 plants. The financial exposures from disease, insect and weed pressures rise quickly as plant populations increase and $350 bags of corn are consumed. But basic rules still apply. Good seed placement and spacing are critical. Nutrients levels are key. Water-stressed crops make no sense under irrigation. "I irrigate until it rains," he says. "But in the end, God is the finisher."

Today's hybrids have the potential for 500 to 600 bushels per acre, Dowdy contends. As a result, he is targeting a verified yield of 500 bushels (from a contest or a variety plot), 45 bushels more than the current record. That Dowdy has already increased his contest yields 138 bushels per acre between 2010 and 2013 shows remarkable progress. To reach 500 bushels, Dowdy expects he will need to challenge conventional wisdom, including his own. Ultimately, he says, the answer to reaching that target yield is in the field. There, you'll find Dowdy's shadow moving down every row.