Growing Together: World record crop holders sharing knowledge with fellow farmers

Jul. 29—Growers from far and wide gathered Wednesday at Horn Farms in Philpot to share information and hear from two world record crop holders.

Randy Dowdy of Valdosta, Georgia, who holds the soybean world record with a 171 bushels-per-acre yield, and David Hula of Charles City, Virginia, who holds the corn world record at 616.2 bushels-per-acre yield, were there to speak to members of their Total Acre program.

Jessie Horn, who hosted the grower meeting, described it as a "peer group" that gathers together three to five times a year to share ideas while also learning from Dowdy and Hula.

And for farmers, the goal is to maximize yield production regardless of the number of crop acres.

"There was such a demand for their knowledge and people wanted to hear their experiences so they started this group," Horn said. "While you can make a good living farming, you're ultimately limited by the scalability of what you're doing."

In their Total Acre process, Dowdy and Hula emphasize soil sampling, planter calibration, flag tests for emergence, weekly tissue samples, product applications and yield analysis.

"Our focus is small grain, corn and soy," said Hula, who farms around 4,000 acres. "But our program will work with any crop, whether it's cotton or peanuts."

Hula added that farmers can no longer plant the crop and hope for the best.

"We work with growers in viewing their crop differently," Hula said. "It's not just plant the crop like they've always done and then harvest with normal management."

After breaking the records, Dowdy and Hula traveled around the country speaking about their strategies to increase return on investments.

But six years ago, Dowdy said he realized that more time needed to be dedicated to fellow farmers, which inspired the Total Acre program.

"I felt like there was more demand to help the growers than a two-hour meeting," Dowdy said. "The goal was to meet with farmers during times of the year when a lot of decisions are being made for inputs; how to spend money — if you made money — at the end of the year. During the summer, we do field tours to actually see the crops, capturing potential and where they lost potential."

By bringing farmers together several times a year, Dowdy said they can share information with each other, which remains private among the group.

"We definitely attract early adopters and innovators," Dowdy said.

Dowdy said growers can't be single-minded about their operations or how they approach what's growing in their fields.

"People who are looking for a silver bullet, that doesn't exist," he said.