GRAND RIDGE, Ill. — LaSalle County brothers Ralph and Don Walter took top honors in the 2006 National Corn Growers Assoc.’s National Corn Yield Contest (NCYC), with a bin-busting yield of 253.6155 bushels per acre using a Mycogen brand 2T780 corn hybrid.

The Walters’ bountiful corn crop was produced over 114 days using Mycogen’s Herculex Insect Protection/ Liberty Link hybrid, which Mycogen touts as being known for its high-yield performance across many soil types.

“We just tried the 2T780 hybrid on 35 acres, and it was fantastic,” said Don Walter, who told Farm World the brothers plan to boost their use of the hybrid to around 160 acres this season. “Even with our (2006) low subsoil moisture, it outperformed everything we planted and that’s what we want - high-yielding hybrids.”

The Walters, who are assisted in their farming duties by Don’s son, Darren, used a granular rootworm insecticide, sprayed the crop with fungicide and used Liberty herbicide. The family said those applications helped them win the coveted title of Corn Kings in the AA non-irrigated class.

Don Walter said the family used the hybrid successfully after repeated continuous-corn plantings.

“We’ve planted corn-on-corn for years now,” he said. “Second-year continuous-corn appears to be the downside as far as slightly lower yields, and then it seems to get better every year.”

Walter said that aside from using Mycogen’s award-winning hybrid for high harvest yields, he had one pre-planting tip for other producers. “Using nitrogen in the fall, such as ammonia sulfate, really helps to encourage corn stalks to deteriorate,” Walter added.

The Walter brothers competed among 3,000 entries from 46 states during the 41st year of the NCYC, which is the longest-running agricultural production competition in the United States.

The Walters brothers and other state and national contest winners were honored at the Commodity Classic, a combined convention and trade show of the NCGA, the American Soybean Assoc. and the National Assoc. of Wheat Growers.

Mycogen Seeds is a retail seed company of Dow AgroSciences, LLC, a developer and marketer of grain and corn and sunflower hybrids, and is an industry leader in canola, soybeans and sorghum.