Ontario’s top corn yield contest records amazing 313 bu/ac

The highest yield on the best acre of corn was an astonishing 313 bu/ac in Pioneer’s first all-Ontario corn yield competition. Randy Vandenheede, of Judge Family Farms in Simcoe, harvested the winning yield.

The two winners from the two Eastern Ontario regions were Chris Schouten, of Schouten Cornerview farms, near Richmond and Herb Hart, north of Napanee. Both won last year.

Herb Hart hauled in 250 bushels of corn on his best acre in the area of Belleville to Brockville.

Hart farms almost 3,000 acres and his 2011 corn crop was his best ever. He averaged 171 bushels on 1,260 acres, bypassing that gloriously ubiquitous 2010 harvest when he averaged 168 bushels. While the provincial five-year average is about 150 bu/ac, the average in Lennox and Addington is 120 to 125, Hart said.

He said he credits his good fortune to the timing of the rains, the better than average heat units, a long fall to dry out the corn and his agronomist Julian Suurd, who has "turned around" the farm yield, Hart said. He introduced Vitazyme, a so-called organic miracle fertilizer to excite the seed for rapid growth.

Chris Schouten won top honours for the area east of Brockville. He harvested 242 bu/ac. Last year he won with a yield of more than 260 bu/ac on the same field.

"What allowed him to be in the ballpark of 250 is excellent soil health," said Schouten’s agronomist Scott Fife. "It was achieved through good rotation, careful management of compaction and good fertility over time. They put manure on that farm over the years."

This is the first time that an all-Ontario corn yield competition was held but it’s not a true yield picture as competition is held by Pioneer for farmers growing only the Pioneer seed.

It might mean nothing more than bragging rights but it also helps agronomists find out what works and what doesn’t.

"We try to capture what different production practices people are using to pass them on to other people," said Pioneer Eastern Ontario account manager Lance Gibson. "We want to know what people are doing to achieve these high yields."

Both Hart and Schouten won a trip to the Commodity Classic in Nashville, Tennessee.