Improving yield topic for corn farmers at SW Ohio Corn College

By LEAH PHILLIPS

lphillips@wilmington.edu

WILMINGTON — Learn­ing ways to max­i­mize resources was the take­away for 55 farm­ers from eight coun­ties at the 2013 SW Ohio Corn Col­lege held in Wilm­ing­ton in January.

The col­lege, spon­sored by Ohio State Uni­ver­sity Exten­sion and held in the Clin­ton County Exten­sion Room on Nel­son Avenue, fea­tured five speak­ers for what orga­niz­ers called a “cut­ting edge” pro­gram for producers.

The pro­gram was designed to help those in atten­dance bet­ter under­stand pro­duc­tion, profit and Nitro­gen usage.

“We’re want­ing pro­duc­ers to stretch their yield and be effi­cient,” said Tony Nye, the OSU exten­sion agent for Clin­ton County.

Dr. Peter Thomi­son, a pro­fes­sor of hor­ti­cul­ture and crop sci­ence at OSU, opened up the sem­i­nar, specif­i­cally address­ing what it would take to accom­plish a yield of 300 bushels of corn per acre in our area by the year 2030.

Nye said it is of the utmost impor­tance to him and oth­ers alike to uti­lize the acreage farm­ers have avail­able now to improve yield, adding that reach­ing the 300-yield goal in the fore­see­able future can be a real­ity for Ohio farmers.

Dr. Pierce Paul, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of the depart­ment of plant pathol­ogy at OSU, dis­cussed costs as it relates to the use of fungi­cides. Paul talked about the rise, since 2007, in spray­ing corn crops with fungi­ci­dal agents and the cost per acre if used. Fungi­cides are now used to pro­tect the yield.

Dr. James Cam­er­ato, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of the agron­omy depart­ment of Pur­due Uni­ver­sity, talked about the use of Nitro­gen being added to the soil and its reac­tion. He also spoke about com­monly used sources of Nitro­gen, the impact of soil type, plant pop­u­la­tion and hybrids.

Barry Ward, an assis­tant Exten­sion pro­fes­sor and leader pro­duc­tion busi­ness man­age­ment with OSU, and Alan Sun­der­meirer, the OSU Exten­sion edu­ca­tor for Wood County, dis­cussed the cost of an upcom­ing pro­duc­tion year and the impor­tance of cov­er­ing crops to enhance profitability.

Tate Cock­er­ill, who rep­re­sented a sales team from south­west Ohio with Pio­neer Hybrid said he enjoyed the program.

“I’m glad to see local grow­ers. They con­firmed some data our com­pany is con­duct­ing research on,” Cock­er­ill said.

(Leah Phillips is a senior at Wilm­ing­ton Col­lege study­ing communications.)

Posted by Tina Murdock on Feb 24 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.