The second time was the charm for Aaron Porter’s farm in the Bootheel of Missouri, as new corn hybrids pushed past the 300-bushel mark in the MU Variety Testing Program.

Porter, a farmer who participates in the MU Variety Testing Program, posted the top yield this year on his irrigated land at 347 bushels per acre. Perhaps more impressive is the overall average of all 40 corn hybrids in the trial was 319.6 bushels per acre.

The Dexter location showed a huge lift from last year when the top variety hit just 271.2 bushels. Porter credits growing conditions in 2021, complete with good weather and low pest pressure, for the increase in yield.

Plot management specs

Porter uses conventional tillage on his southeast Missouri farm. On the university plot, he plants on 30-inch rows, but he admits the rest of the farm is 36-inch rows due to cotton planting. Researchers used a 38,000 planting population, which is about 5,500 more seeds per acre than Porter can do on the rest of the farm. “If I could plant on 30-inch rows,” he says, “I would.” The plot went in the ground in mid-April.

When it comes to inputs, Porter treats the MU Variety Testing plot the same as the rest of his corn acres. This year, he applied nitrogen four times during the growing season — preplant, sidedress and two aerial applications in-season. Porter also put on insecticides and fungicides, and then flew on some trace elements and more potash through the season.

This is the Stoddard County farmer’s second year with the MU Variety Testing Program. “It's kind of nice to be able to see on my ground, the way I farm, what these hybrids will do,” he says. “It is helping the university, but it's also kind of nice to see for myself.”

And while his corn is planted on wider rows with lower populations, he uses the university plot data to extrapolate how the varieties would yield for the rest of the farm.

Yields across the state

It wasn’t just irrigated corn hybrids trending higher this growing season.

At John Williams’s farm in Henrietta, nine corn hybrids pushed yields above the 300-bushel threshold, with the top one from Nutech Seed 68A7AM at 322.2 bushels per acre. Near Norborne, Kyle and David Durham’s plot saw five corn hybrids above 300 bushels.

However, dryland corn yields in the southwest region of the state were lower, in the upper 170s to 180s, with a few hybrids at the Lamar location reaching into the low 200s. In the central region, the Columbia location was not included in the average because hybrids were damaged.

To see how corn hybrids performed, click through the slideshow, which includes the Top 10 hybrids by region. For individual site data, visit varietytesting.missouri.edu.