Last spring, McGehee farmer Matt Miles worried that one of his Desha County soybean fields was doing so badly, it was going to have to be replanted.
But patience, teamwork and cooperative weather turned the 47-acre field around - to the point where a 5.5-acre section produced enough soybeans to give Miles and his wife, Sherrie Kay, a share of a $50,000 prize for being among the first Arkansas farmers to grow more than 100 bushels of beans per acre.
“Everybody was watching that field do bad and it finally straightened up and did well,” Miles said, noting this particular field had been in his wife’s family since 1935, before the couple bought it from her father six years ago, and had always been a high-yield field.
The Mileses are one of three Arkansas growers so far this year to pass the 100-bushel mark in an incentive contest sponsored by the Arkansas Soybean Association called the “Race for 100.”
For the past five years, soybean growers have competed to see whose fields would be the first to officially break the 100-bushel-per-acre mark.
The first to break the mark was Nelson Crow of Dumas. His 5.433-acre plot yielded 100.82 bushels per acre on Aug. 30.
Then came the Miles plot that generated 107.63 bushels per acre when it was harvested Sept. 13.
That was followed three days later by Rob Dunavant of Eudora when his plot was verified at 100.07 bushels per acre.
The contest plot yields are more than double the statewide average soybean yield of 43 bushels per acre in 2012 and the 2013 estimate of 42 bushels, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.
Overall, Arkansas growers are expected to harvest 3.3 million acres of soybeans this year, and produce 138.6 million bushels.
While much of the state’s row crops got off to a rocky start earlier this year because of a wet, cold spring, Arkansas’ southeastern counties managed to get past the early weather issues.
Wes Kirkpatrick, chair-man of the Desha County Cooperative Extension Service staff, called this year’s growing conditions in his county “ideal.”
“The weather was perfect for setting fruit on our crops,” he said, adding that the weather, especially cool nights, combined with skilled farmers, consultants helping with management decisions and good soil all contributed.
“This has been a heck of a bean harvest this year,” Kirkpatrick said. “I’ve been hearing yields that are just astronomical.”
Any grower who bests the 100-bushel mark this year will get a share of a $50,000 pot in the Arkansas Soybean Association contest.
“The ‘Race for 100’ was set up five or six years ago and it’s just been hanging out there waiting for someone to hit it,” said Dawn Howe, executive director of the Arkansas Soybean Association. The association sponsors two contests for growers that are funded by the Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board.
The association also sponsors the annual “Grow for the Green” program that rewards the top producers in each of several regions around the state. Its top prize is $10,000, with $7,500 for second place and $5,000 for third.
Prize money in the contests is provided by the Arkansas Soybean Promotion Board. Howe said about 120 growers are entered in the “Race for 100” and most of those also participate in the “Grow for the Green” program as well.
While it’s good for farmers to have a goal to shoot for, the two programs also encourage the sharing of information about successful farming methods, Howe said.
High yields don’t just earn bragging rights, they also mean good income for growers. Soybean futures for November delivery closed at $13.395 per bushel Thursday at the Chicago Board of Trade.
“Financially it’s a big bonus because average yield is somewhere in the 40s,” Howe said. “If you’re able to produce double, you’re doing really well.”
In the “Race for 100,” growers, with the help of Cooperative Extension Service agents, private consultants, seed company representatives and others evaluate fields to map out five- to seven-acre plots that will be used in the contest. Once the plots are marked, the combine used to harvest the beans and the truck used to transport the crop are cleaned and inspected to ensure they are empty before being used to harvest contest plots.
Once harvested, the soybeans are taken to an elevator for measurement. The results must be verified by a team of qualified extension agents and certified crop advisers.
Matt Miles was modest about his achievement, saying his field benefited from relatively few hot days combined with cool nights that let the plants “rest” during the growing cycle. And, he said the support he got on a day-to-day basis from his workers and crop consultants, as well as extension agents, seed companies and others, made the high yield possible. Overall, the 47-acre field averaged 96 bushels per acre, he said.
And he noted that farmers across southeast Arkansas are seeing bumper soybean crops.
“We’re averaging the best beans we’ve ever averaged, and I mean community wide. It’s not just me,” Miles said. “It’s just good Delta dirt.”
Crow’s entry came from a section of a 207-acre field. He expects the variety he planted, Pioneer 93Y92, has the potential result in an overall yield from the field of 85 to 87 bushels per acre. Crow said in a release that he hadn’t planned to enter this year, but changed his mind when his crop began to look “really, really good.”
Dunavant, like the Mileses, used the Asgrow 4632 variety for his contest entry.
He attributed the yield “to some good dirt,” saying in a release his didn’t do anything special this year to get such a high yield.
Gus Wilson, chairman of the Chicot County Cooperative Extension Service staff, agreed that growing conditions were good this year in southeast Arkansas.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a couple more. It’s not over yet,” Wilson said, since the soybean harvest will continue for another three to four weeks in south Arkansas.
Wilson said he didn’t have a good answer for why it’s so tough to hit the 100-bushel mark.
“It can be done, but that’s pushing yield potential to the max,” Wilson said. But, he said there has been a trend toward higher yields in recent years, given the availability of irrigated fields, better seed varieties and precise farming techniques as well as better fungicides, insecticides and seed treatments.
“It’s the advancements from equipment to seed that are just phenomenal,” he said.
Whether the success of growers in the state’s southeast counties will be matched by those in more northerly counties is still to be seen, said Jeremy Ross, a soybean agronomist for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.
“Overall, it was a late year,” Ross said. While the southern counties saw crops planted more or less on time, other parts of the state saw two- to three-week delays as April and May showers interfered with planting, he said.
Wilson agreed, saying growers to the north had more extreme wet weather and lower temperatures.
“You’ve got to start out of the gate strong” for higher-than-average yields, he said. “We came out of the start gate a little stronger. They got more adverse weather than we did and it’s going to show at the end.”
Business, Pages 73 on 09/22/2013