Beartail Creek runs a little over 5 miles through Beartail Bottoms in Tate County, Miss., and eventually feeds into the Coldwater River. Daniel Brooks grew up swimming and fishing its clear waters and has been farming cotton and corn in the branch bottomland in proximity to the creek since he was a senior in high school.

Last year he planted DeKalb’s DKC-6744 corn hybrid on a few hundred acres of his 1,500-acre dryland farm’s silt loam soil. Two of those acres were certified as yielding 270.3190 bushels per acre, and he was declared the National Corn Growers Association’s state winner for their 2018 corn yield contest.

Forty-six states participated in the 2018 contest. Fifty-seven seed companies were represented, and 7,258 entrants planted 717 hybrid numbers.

“When I attended my first Short Course at Mississippi State University, Dr. Will McCarty told the crowd the most successful farmers he knew had about the same amount of corn as they do cotton,” remembers Brooks. “That stuck in my head.”

Brooks farmed 70 acres of corn on land rented for him by his grandmother when he was a senior in high school. That was his first crop — last year he harvested his 20th. He waited a few years before adding cotton to his mix.

“I had a neighbor, Mr. Jerry Gaines, who mentored me into cotton,” adds Brooks. “After we picked that first year’s cotton crop, my other farming neighbor told me ‘…bet you learned a lot this year didn’t ya, son?’”

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“The older farmer just laughed and said, ‘…well, you can forget everything you learned, because it’ll be completely different next year….’ He was right.”

His Recipe for Corn

Because of the wet spring in 2018, the twin-row planter did not begin rolling over the 38-inch rows until the middle of April — almost two weeks late. His average plant population was increased from 28,000 to 36,000 after going from single 38-inch row to his current staggered, twin-row configuration.

As he always does, Brooks reviewed two years of Dr. Eric Larson’s Mississippi State Corn Variety Trial data before deciding on his hybrids. “The DKC-6744 was one of three I went with last year. I never put all my eggs in one basket,” laughs Brooks. “Just because a variety was top dog in one part of the state doesn’t mean it’ll be top dog in Tate County.”

Side-dressing his young stands of corn with anhydrous ammonia is standard operating procedure. Brooks has seen more success from that than just slinging urea. He used no fungicide and his consultant, Jim Arrington, checked his corn once a week.

They usually soil test in the fall. “We’ve not been able to get our soil tests in this year because you can’t soil test mud,” laughs Brooks, shaking his head, as he looks toward a field of corn stubble replete with puddles of water. “This weather will probably make us late for burndown.”

The 38-year old farmer admits to doing something a little differently than maybe a few other corn farmers. “I’ve had good success using a blended fertilizer called Rainbow I get from the Tate County Co-op. It comes from Nutrien’s plant in Florence, Ala.,” explains Brooks. “They take all the primary and secondary nutrients, melt them down into a liquid and homogenize it so each granule is uniform in size, shape and weight. It spreads more uniformly, and we’ve seen more consistency in our soil tests through the years.”

Every piece of equipment he owns utilizes GPS and the section control on his sprayer paid for itself quickly because of the high number of odd-shaped fields he farms. “You just can’t make 100-bushel corn work at $4 a bushel, but I knew if I could substantially increase my yields, it would be a game changer,” says Brooks.

Toward the end of the season, he and Arrington pulled some ears at random across the field and they were filled out well. “We knew we’d better get it harvested,” adds Brooks, who was not going to bank on any success until his grain trucks rolled down the new stretch of I-269 and made it to Tunica and Consolidated Grain and Barge. “Not only does I-269 save us some time, it’s much safer than driving through all of those small towns.”

Working Through the Tough Times

Mike Brooks, Daniel’s father, a retired UPS feeder driver, is an invaluable part of the operation these days, despite last year’s stroke that made him start writing down everything he needs to remember.

A few years back, the father and son duo were square bailing hay 10 miles from their hay shed. “Dad had already dropped off four or five cotton trailers full of hay bales when I got a call from a neighbor saying smoke was coming from up under the hay shed roof,” remembers Brooks. “We think a bearing overheated on a trailer. Every fire department in the county came, but I lost over 2,000 bales that day. I welded that date on a post supporting my new hay shed.”

Brooks was filled with pride the day he drove his first combine down Hwy. 305 toward his farm shop. He was navigating the narrow road across Lewisburg bottoms, when he moved over a little too far to let a car pass. He rolled down the roadside and stopped with all four tires facing the sky. Planning to give his insurance man the numbers when he got home, the man told Brooks he could not do anything for him. “I had to find another combine… and another insurance guy,” he remembers. “I was still single and living at home, so it was a little easier getting through that knowing that I didn’t have a house note or a wife and children!”

While also attending to 300 or so mama cows, Brooks is building an increasingly busy hay business. “There’s been an influx of urban folks buying small acreages in Tate and the surrounding counties. Some of them have a few cows and/or horses, so they call me for hay,” adds Brooks.

His schoolmate and friend, Michael Williams, has handled most of the grain side of Beartail Farms for seven years. “We’ve been lifelong friends, and all he wants to do in the summer is farm,” says Brooks. “But, come deer season, he becomes a ghost!”

Farm History and Moving Forward

Daniel’s grandfather raised three girls, Corinne Sneed, Connie May, and Gatha (Daniel’s mom), on profits from a dairy farm he operated until the 1970s. “Then he started farming wheat, soybeans, and corn on a little bit of land he owned right here where I farm today,” says Brooks. “I built my farm headquarters and shop just down the road from here where the dairy stood.”

Brooks wants to keep growing twin-row corn and cotton on 38-inch rows. His friend, Cathey Dandridge, who owned Dandridge Equipment in Somerville, Tenn., for many years, once told Brooks cotton rows are 38 inches because the good Lord saw it fit to make a mule’s backside 38 inches wide. “Like the crop mix advice from Dr. McCarty, that’s something else I’ll never forget,” he says with a laugh.

In 2017, Brooks experimented with 15-inch narrow-row corn, cut it with his draper header but saw he was leaving a lot of corn in the field. “If you’re cutting corn with a soybean header and the stalk doesn’t fall into the header, you can miss a lot of yield,” remembers Brooks. “I do my own marketing and keep my own books, so I always know what I don’t have. It keeps me from getting too big for my own britches!”

All Daniel Brooks has ever wanted to do is farm. He looks at winning the NCGA state high-yield award as confirmation that he is making good decisions. It gives him impetus to keep learning and farming. He wants to continue growing his hay business and increase his corn and cotton yields each year. His vision for the future is as clear as the crystal spring water flowing down the winding creek next to Beartail Farms.