18 December 2023
The world record holder for corn, known in America as ‘King David’, is anything but idle. The Kalb family also strengthened their grip on the yield competition.
There must be something different in the soil and water of Charles City, Virginia, because this year the corn yield world record holder, David Hula, improved his own mark by harvesting 623,8439 bushels per acre (more than 39 tons per hectare).
According to the American agricultural publication Progressive Farmer, this is almost half a ton more than his previous record of 615,1953 bushels per acre (38,616 t/ha) set in 2019. Moreover, it comes after a season in which total rainfall on Hula’s Renwood Farms between April and September was 16,8 inches, or 426,72 mm. The average is 23,7 inches (just over 600 mm).
Hula is the only producer in the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) yield competition to have surpassed 600 bushels per acre and he has done it three times: in 2019, 2021 and 2023.
This year, Hula entered the Pioneer hybrid P14830VYH R. The hybrid is a newcomer to Renwood Farms and is not yet widely commercially available.
Following in his father’s footsteps
The NCGA has sponsored the yield competition for 59 years and this year produced 27 national winners from 15 states in nine production classes. There were 6 883 entries from 46 states, with verified yields averaging 269 bushels per acre (16,9 t/ha).
Hula’s son, Craig, won the no-till irrigation division with a yield of 590,0198 bushels per acre (37,0383 t/ha), the second highest in the entire competition.
A family competition
The Kalb family from Dubois in Indiana won three of the nine divisions. Kevin Kalb won the conventional dryland division with 425,8619 bushels per acre (32,9480 t/ha), the third-highest yield in the competition.
Shawn Kalb, Kevin’s wife, won the no-till division under dryland corn with 399,7812 bushels per acre (25,0961 t/ha), while their daughter Rhylan won the strip-till, minimum-till and ridge-till division under dryland conditions with 363,1221 bushels per acre (22,7949 t/ha).
