Locator: 49075CORN.
See update; important post.
Think:
- ethanol
- corn syrup
- cattle feed
- chicken feed
Link here.
USDA shocked the market with the August World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimate (WASDE), in particular the record corn yield of 188.8 bu., which was well above trade guesses and nearly 10 bu. above last year. But they also surprisingly raised harvested acres pushing corn ending stocks back over 2 billion bushels. The report was more friendly for soybeans with a net decrease in carryout.
North Dakota corn yield, bushel per acre, plants 4.6 million acres:
Iowa corn yield, bushel per acre, plants 13.5 million acres:
Record yield:
David Hula may not break that record this year. Link here.
Two questions:
- dollar margins on these record yields vs "average yields" in the midwest;
- to what extent could AI increase "average yields" in the midwest;
OpenGPT prompt:
Corn. US. Yield per acre. David Hula is recognized as the king of corn production, yield per acre, based on intensive methods, see: https://www.agweb.com/news/crops/corn/600-bu-acre-corn-cards-year-david-hula-reigning-world-record-holder. The question is whether his methods are transferable to the midwest (Iowa, North Dakota) and whether David Hula's methods are cost effective, or significantly different than profits from corn production in the midwest.
Open GPT reply:
Short answer first: Yes — many of David Hula’s techniques are transferable to Midwest corn acres, but not all, and not without cost.
Hula’s approach is a systems approach (genetics + placement + nutrition + water + intensive in-season management). Parts of it scale profitably on Midwest farms; other parts (extreme rates of inputs, daily monitoring, heavy irrigation, contest-style management) are expensive and show rapidly diminishing returns on large acres. Below I summarize what he does, what transfers well, what doesn’t, and how to evaluate whether it makes sense on a particular Iowa / North Dakota farm.
Bottom line:
-
Transferable: genetics, planter/stand optimization, better fertility timing, precision ag, scouting — these are low-to-moderate cost changes with good upside.
-
Not broadly transferable (or not profitable at scale): contest-level input intensities, heavy irrigation dependence, and the extreme labor/management intensity applied to single yield-contest plots.
-
Best approach: run small on-farm trials, use extension budgets to model profitability, and adopt the high-value, low-risk pieces first.
What is corn used for?
