For the second time Dubois County, Indiana farmer Kevin Kalb is a National Corn Growers Association first place yield contest winner. He’ll be honored for his record 374 bushel per acre yield at Commodity Classic in San Antonio in two weeks. Kalb says a number of practices are responsible for that kind of production.
“We’re corn on corn and the big thing is trying to manage the residue and the disease on that corn on corn. Fertility, we have poultry litter that we spread every year to help, we actually use it to help break down corn stalks. And we’re just getting into seeing the real true benefits of starter fertilizer and micro nutrients. We’ve been spraying fungicides for awhile but it 
seems like we’re picking up 4 and 5 bushels here and there on just applying micro nutrients.”
He also told HAT Mother Nature needs to cooperate and she did in 2013. In the other first place year, 2011, Kalb realized 322 bushel corn on the 10 acre plot. He receives an all-expense paid trip to San Antonio, and the time at Commodity Classic is one of the real benefits of participating in the yield contest.
“The biggest thing we learned in 2007, our first year in it, we went to Commodity Classic and we got to interact with David Hula and everybody knows him as the corn king, but guys that have been in this awhile and done really well share their insights in what they try and succeed with. We all kind of help each other out.”
Kalb planted 62-08 on the plot and is now the highest-yielding DEKALB farmer in history.
Hear more in the HAT interview:Kevin Kalb