The 300 Bushel Corn Future

The first ever AGMasters Conference is being held this week at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana and a good crowd was on hand for the first day on Tuesday, despite the fact that many farmers who might have attended are still out harvesting corn. The conference format, location and date is new, but it is built upon a long history of conferences by the University Extension service that once upon a time were known simply as “Spray School.”

One presenter at the new and improved version of the conference was well-known Illinois agronomist Emerson Nafziger who talked about the potential for 300 bushel corn in the future. Below is a part of a post from the conference blog, which was updated today mostly by student bloggers, with some help from me. They included both ag comm and crop science majors and they did an amazing job – check out the blog here.

Looking back, Dr. Nafziger says that if someone would have told him Illinois corn yield averages for 2004 would be 180 bu/ac, he would have been fairly skeptical. Now looking into the next two decades talk of 300 bu/ac corn is an image, once not imaginable, has become a possibility. The development of new genetics presents this possibility, however other factors might restrain corn acres from reaching 300 bu/ac.

One need of 300 bushel corn that Dr. Nafziger addressed is that of more water. 200 bushel corn requires about 22 inches of annual rainfall, compared to 300 bushel needing 33 inches. The need for increased amounts of water could play a major role, but like most things in agronomy, it depends on the weather. Dr. Nafziger reported that Nitrogen rate does determine corn yields because the organic matter in the soil provides nitrogen. Yet, there is no good way to determine how much nitrogen the soil will provide. Dr. Nafziger also spoke on the topic of corn and soybean rotation. Many reports reveal that the advantages to field rotation are not as spectacular as they used to be. Dr. Nafziger predicts that corn fields in 2030 will look fairly similar to those of 2009. He expects complete canopies, adequate nutrition, and moderate tillage. As for predicting actual yields for 2030, that is a little more challenging: after all, corn yields will always be dependent on the weather.

Listen to an audio interview with Nafziger by crop science major Ross Recker.