Kalb again Heads to Commodity Classic a Yield Winner

Kalb 331 corn

Kevin Kalb and familyThe name Kevin Kalb is a familiar name during recognition for the National Corn Yield Contest each year. The Hoosier farmer from Dubois, Indiana in Dubois County will again head to Commodity Classic next week as a winner, placing 2nd overall in the AA Non-irrigated category after achieving over 331 bushels per acre. He was happy with the yield during a challenging year.

“You know most of the Midwest had water issues and we weren’t exempt from that problem,” he said. “Considering a lot of the farms around here with river bottoms were zero due to flooding, we were really tickled to still be able to reach that high of a yield with 331.”

The contest fields on his farm are in a creek bottom where he consistently gets good yields. The fields are his best draining and earliest planted each year. Kalb planted DEKALB DKC65-71RIB Complete and is currently fine tuning changes he’ll make to the fertility plan to continue improving the yields.

“We learn so much on this contest, different things that work and don’t work. It’s a lot cheaper to play around on a few acres than what it is to change your whole farm at once, and it seems like about every year we learn something different that we apply to the farm every year.”

Kalb told HAT that’s why it’s not just a contest but a learning experience.

“The bottom line is to make your farm more efficient and being in this contest and talking to the other good growers and what works for them, you just learn so much from this contest.”

A different hybrid seed will go in the ground this spring.

“Last year we had DEKALB DKC65-71 which is a new number for them and I haven’t decided yet what number of DEKALB is going in this year but it will be another DEKALB number.”

Kalb includes fungicide and foliar treatments on the contest acres in addition to taking weekly plant tissue samples.

In the AA No-Till/Strip-Till Non-Irrigated category, Indiana farmers took 1st and 3rd place. Jeannie Linneweber of Vincennes went to 318.9243 bpa with Pioneer P1257AM and Robert Little of Hebron hit 302.5995 with Pioneer P1197AM.

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