BUCYRUS, Ohio – Dave Lutz, the winner of the Ohio Corn and Wheat (OCW) State Wheat Yield Contest, said one of the biggest tricks is knowing your fields, where the higher productive areas are. Cory Atley, winner of the Corn Yield Contest, said there are no easy buttons; it’s just paying attention to the details.

Both men were honored recently at the Celebration of Ohio Corn and Wheat held in Bucyrus to recognize the accomplishments of the organization and the growers who are a part of it.

Also recognized was State Runner-Up in the Wheat Yield Contest, Kent Edwards, and State Runner-Up in the Corn Yield Contest, Carl Atley.

Wheat Yield Contest

Lutz and his father, Raymond, raise corn, soybeans and wheat in Lordstown. They typically have 200 to 300 acres of soft red winter wheat. Most of their wheat is milling quality and it goes to Star of the West Milling Co. in Willard, Ohio, for flour.

“Drainage is probably most important in grain production in our area,” Dave Lutz said. “I know that’s not the case for most farmers but growing crops on well-drained soils is key.”

They plant their crops typically in three-year rotations. Most of the ground is suitable for wheat, but they don’t plant wheat on all their acres.

“We typically try and keep it closer to our home farm,” Lutz said. “It is one of our most managed crops so I like to try and keep it where we can keep a close eye on it and in our best-drained soils. It’s the crop that we make the most applications on with our sprayer; usually it is no less than five and as many as seven applications.”

They are on a 7.5-inch row spacing so they shoot for 1.7 to 1.9 million seeds per acre. They like to have their wheat in the ground by Oct. 5 and most years that’s achievable, Lutz said.

“Last year I think we were done by the third,” he said. “The contest wheat from last year - we had all of that planted before Oct. 1st. Harvest – I like to see that happen before the end of June, normally about the 27th or 28th is a good starting date for harvest for us. We’ll take our wheat off at between 22- and 24 percent dry. The winning field had 136.9 bushels to the acre.”

Corn Yield Contest

Winner of corn yield contest Cory Atley, of Cedarville, Ohio, farms with his dad, Carl, who was the runner-up in the contest. They farm just shy of 8,000 acres of corn and soybeans in Greene County.

“We’re about a 50/50 rotation of corn and soybeans, Atley said. “Just like everything in farming, there is no easy button. It’s attention to the details. We don’t do anything special but we pay attention to the details. We make sure our “I’s” are dotted and our “T’s” are crossed and it starts way back in the winter.”

They plan how they’re going to prepare the soil, how they’ll apply fertilizer, they variable-rate everything depending on the hybrid and what population that hybrid likes, and how good a field it is going on.

“We determine how hard we’re going to push it,” Atley said. “We try to be proactive instead of reactive so we want to keep that corn plant healthy throughout the year; we don’t want to see it have a bad day and then go try to fix it.”

They apply half of the fertilizer that the field needs in the fall and then come back in the spring with the other half. They like to spoon-feed the crop, to not give it too much at one time so it can move throughout the soil profile.

They plant 20-inch rows so they will variable-rate anywhere from 35,000 up to 44,000 seeds to the acre. The winning field yielded 366 bushels. They have on-farm storage so the corn goes there until harvest is finished. Then it will go to Cargill in Dayton, Ohio, to make the corn syrup.

“But you know what? Mother Nature always wins,” he said. “She gave us a helping hand this year. We were able to pull off a great number; there’s been years that we just had to walk away from it and quit attacking the crop because she decided we were done getting rain.”

OCW started the Ohio contests five years ago, said Brad Moffitt, OCW coordinator of yield contest. It runs parallel to the National Corn and Wheat Yield Contests.

They use the data for those entries to place the Ohio winners, Moffitt said. When a producer enters the national contest, they have to identify a judge who goes in the field with the contestant when they harvest. It is closely supervised.

“There has to be a judge approved when the entries are made,” Moffitt explained. “It’s very strict. The plot has to be measured and the judge has to be there. The judge has to inspect the bin on the combine and the truck it’s being dumped into and go with the load to the elevator where it is weighed and tested.”

Interestingly, the state wheat yield winners have come from all over the state. And while there are 300 bushels to-the-acre corn growers all over the state, the state winners have always come from Greene County.

For more information got to ohiocornandwheat.org.