Ferrie: Picking Corn Hybrids For 2024? Here Are Five Tips

If you’re wondering how to pick corn hybrids for the upcoming season—after the weather ups and downs of 2023—you aren’t alone. Ken Ferrie says he is fielding a lot of questions from Illinois farmers about where to start the selection process. His advice: begin with yield potential.

1.    Look For A Good Track Record.

“An eligible hybrid for your farm must have a good track record for yield—if not on your farm, then from sources that you can trust,” says Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist and owner of CropTech Consulting, Inc., near Heyworth, Ill.

“Don't worry about traits or characteristics or leaf structure or plant ear type. Don't even consider price or brand loyalty at this point,” he adds. “Return-on-investment is more of a function of yield, not the seed price, so always evaluate hybrid yield potential first.” 

For instance, you might pay $30 less a bag for hybrid A than hybrid B this fall, but if hybrid B will out-perform hybrid A by as little as 5 bushels per acre you’d be money ahead next season to go with the higher-priced product. (based on 1 bag of seed planting 2.5 acres and a price of $4.50 a bushel).

2.    Maturity Groups Can Help Mitigate Risks.

As you put together your draft board, select hybrids for consideration based on their performance by maturity group, realizing that full-season hybrids will tend to outperform shorter season ones—if the season is perfect.

Of course, no season is perfect; weather always plays an important role.

“We mitigate risk by breaking up our maturities, and that means that we plant our early corns first and our later corns last,” Ferrie notes. “Some genetics may have the same GDUs to black layer but then different GDUs to pollination. This is another way to mitigate risk.”

3.    Make New Hybrids Prove Themselves.
Next, don’t build your whole starting lineup with rookies or one-hit wonders.

“Put a few of them on the bench, but keep them on a small number of acres until they prove their way,” Ferrie advises.

“Also, don't throw out hybrids just because you've been told they're old, and that the new kid is here to replace them. Keep those hybrids as long as they continue to perform, and make the new kids earn their way into the lineup through performance,” he adds.

Once your draft board is picked from multiple maturities, and are all-star performers, then group them into early- mid- and late-season hybrids so you have a large pool of hybrid candidates to choose from.

4.    Consider Each Field’s Environment.
Now, look at each individual field and make a list of its strengths and weaknesses.

“As a coach, we need to add players to the team that will help strengthen the weak areas in our present lineup,” he says. “In the process of truly identifying a field's weaknesses and strengths, the farm management, operators, and the pest team must come together and compare notes.”

The reason to involve those various individuals or teams is because each one has a different perspective on what’s important and needed in a hybrid and in each specific field.

“Management may be looking at volume discounts or non-GMO contracts; whereas, the operating crew is looking at how tough it is to get corn up in a certain field or how quick it runs out of water in another. Likewise, the pest team may be concerned about diseases or resistant weeds that they are trying to control,” Ferrie says.

5.    Ask Lots Of Questions. 
Talking to your seedsman and reading his company literature can give you some insights into product performance, but be prepared to ask more questions to get answers to the nitty gritty details about yield potential--especially for those new-to-you hybrids.

“Sometimes you have to read between the lines to figure out how a hybrid will perform,” Ferrie says. “With disease ratings, which can go from 1 to 9, the company literature might only use the 7 to 9 ratings and nothing lower because they know the competition would pick them apart otherwise. A good seedsman knows this information and will tell you the weaknesses to look out for, where to put that hybrid on your farm or whether you should even grow it.”

Also, take into consideration hybrid strengths and weaknesses—like disease and insect resistance, drought tolerance, emergence and standability. “If you identify a top-yielding hybrid, consider how you can farm out its weakness and manage around it,” Ferrie advises.

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