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Photos by Holly Spangler MIND OVER YIELD: “The hardest part about high yield is not the science. It’s not the blend of fertilities,” says LaHarpe, Ill., farmer Matt Swanson. “In the Corn Belt, on better soils, the hardest part is the operator. You have to change your mindset in order to make 300-bushel corn possible.” What’s the point of yield contests? Yield winner Matt Swanson says in the good years and the bad, he still learns and turns high yield into high profit. Matt Swanson is a winner. Or at least, he was in 2019. That was the year he won first place in the National Corn Yield Contest, topping out the no-till nonirrigated class with 330.43 bushels per acre on his LaHarpe, Ill., farm. ....
Photo credit: XtremeAg XtremeAg farmers Dan Luepkes, Chad Henderson, Lee Lubbers, and Melissa Yocum share their thoughts as the new year starts. Meetings look different than usual but are still important for operations. Learning never stops in agriculture. Dan Luepkes - Oregon, Illinois A fifth-generation Illinois farmer, Dan was raised on a small 200-acre dairy farm. After the family got out of milking cows, he picked up a few small farms and continued to grow, eventually saving enough money to buy challenging, low-productivity, sandy farms that no one else wanted. On the road again, we drove to North Carolina to share new ideas with our XtremeAg group. It’s always good to share new ideas, what worked and, more importantly, what didn’t. It’s great to be a part of a like-minded group of progressive growers on the cutting edge. I always learn new ideas and come away with great information. ....