Breaking Barriers

The $10 Tool Randy Dowdy Uses To Grow Record Corn Yields

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 19:08:35 GMT

For high-yield corn grower Randy Dowdy, a successful harvest doesn’t start with the combine; it starts with a ratchet strap and an open furrow.

While many growers rely on high-tech in-cab monitors to guide their planting process, Dowdy argues the most critical data they need is found in the dirt behind the planter. By using ratchet straps to hold closing wheels up and out of the soil, he creates an “open furrow” that allows for a level of diagnostic evaluation he believes covered seeds cannot provide.

The Depth Deception

The logic behind this unconventional start to corn planting is rooted in the physical reality of soil settling. Dowdy, based near Valdosta, Ga., notes that even when a grower sets the planter for a standard two-inch depth, the final result often differs from what they were trying to achieve.

“Whenever the farmer goes back and looks at the plant, once it’s emerged, they find the germination depth is not the same depth as they planted,” he says. “Why did they not look at it and set it appropriately in the beginning? Chances are they can read that popsicle stick and measure depth. They know how to do that. But one thing I’ve found is that ground, when it’s been worked... it just settles.”

Whether a field is under conventional tillage, strip-till or no-till, the act of moving soil creates a “fluff” factor that can deceive even experienced corn growers. To compensate for this tendency, Dowdy advocates for planting slightly deeper in tilled or loose ground so the seed remains at the desired depth after the soil settles.

Open Furrow Diagnostics

To verify seed placement depth, Dowdy likes to use an open furrow for evaluation. He says this method allows growers to see exactly how the row unit is interacting with the soil environment without guesswork.

Randy Dowdy likes to check seed placement depth in an open furrow.

(Farm Journal)

“I don’t like to stand on top of my head and scratch for seed and all that garbage,” Dowdy says. “The first thing I want to do is make sure the row cleaners are set properly. I can do that better with an open furrow. I can look at spacing that way. I’m not standing on top of my head scratching, spending all this time trying to find it.”

The open furrow provides a clear window into the planter’s performance. Beyond spacing and row cleaner settings, it allows the grower to inspect for sidewall smearing—a problem that can severely limit root development if the soil is too tacky when the opening discs pass through. The visual check of an open furrow also tells the grower whether the down pressure is sufficient to maintain a consistent planting depth.

The Centering Challenge

Once the open furrow confirms that the row cleaners, meters, and depth settings are dialed in, the focus shifts to the closing system. Dowdy warns that even the best closing wheels can fail if they aren’t perfectly aligned over the seed.

He says standard V-press wheels are known to drift off-center. If they aren’t tracking directly over the seed trench, they don’t just fail to close the furrow—they actively change the planting depth at the final stage of the process.

“It doesn’t matter whose system it is, V-press wheels just do not like to stay centered,” he contends.

When the wheels drift off-center, they often pinch the furrow, leaving a raised ribbon of soil in their wake. This misalignment can create a less than desirable environment for the seed than what the grower intended.

A Systematic Start

Dowdy’s systematic approach—checking gauge wheels, setting opening discs, inspecting the open furrow, and finally calibrating the closing wheels—is designed to eliminate the variables that lead to uneven emergence. For Dowdy, the goal is to ensure that every seed is given the exact same opportunity to start strong, leading to the “picket fence” stands required for high yields.

By starting with an open furrow and systematically lowering the closing system only after everything else is verified, he says other corn growers can eliminate the guesswork that often leads to costly mistakes at planting.

“We’re not done, but this is the process of how we get started,” Dowdy says. “Next, we’ll let the closing wheels down, close that trench and see what we got.”

How Can You Boost Corn Yield Potential? 'Win The First 10 Days'

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 21:50:13 GMT

Randy Dowdy calls the corn plant a factory and the root system its receiving department—and this spring, Dowdy’s factory opened for business in just six days. The benchmark is one he and fellow high-yield grower David Hula say is critical for top-end yield.

“The crop came up in six days,” reports Dowdy, who farms in Brooks County, Ga. “I planted at 2.5” to 2.75” to try and maintain a full 2-inch germination depth. The weather cooperated. The forecast was accurate. And now we’ve got some really good root development below-ground.”

As temperatures dropped to around 32°F and hovered 10 or so days after planting, Dowdy admitted he was “pessimistically optimistic” about potential yield drag. The corn growing point was still safely below ground, so outright loss of the crop wasn’t his concern. What he wanted to know was a bit subtler: How much yield can cold weather take “off the table” when a crop is just getting started?

That question is at the heart of why uniform, rapid emergence matters so much to Dowdy and Hula. Both men argue that if you’re serious about corn yields and return on investment, the first 10 days after planting are critical.

“We’ve never had high-yielding corn when it’s taken more than 10 days for corn to come out of the ground,” says Hula, who farms near Charles City, Va. “You’ve got to realize that in that six-day event when that crop is just coming out of the ground, it’s not using any excess energy.”

That’s important, Hula contends, because the seed only has so much internal energy to work with.

“We say corn’s got enough seed energy to get to V3,” he says. “But if it’s sitting in the ground for so long, it’s burning too much energy. Then, when it comes out and starts photosynthesizing at V3, we’ve already lost some of that energy. With quicker emergence, like Randy had, we don’t lose that energy.”

The takeaway Hula and Dowdy tell farmers to keep in mind is three key things: plant into fit conditions, favor warming trends in the forecast and respect soil temperature.

Stay Focused On Doing The Basics Well

“Everybody’s ‘fit’ is different,” Hula acknowledges. “But warm soil and warming trends—back to the basics—that’s where it starts.”
Keeping the basics in mind, Dowdy says he saw them come together to deliver even emergence of his corn crop.

“We’ve been taking some pictures, and we’ve got some really good root development,” he says. “Some of the things we’re doing in the furrow and 2 x 2 seem to be paying off. We’re building a tremendous root system as we speak.”

Dowdy is unapologetically fixated on roots. It’s a major reason he is careful about buffering the salt load in the furrow to protect fragile root hairs on the corn.

“We’re trying to make sure that we’re not pruning any of those fine root hairs and root development, especially when that plant’s transitioning from seed energy to root uptake,” Dowdy reports.

He says that transition coincides with one of the most critical windows in corn development: the rows around determination.
“People say, ‘How important are the early roots?’ Critical,” Dowdy says. “At V3 to V4 is when rows around are being determined—when they’re being initiated. What that root system does early on is a big deal.”

He uses a simple analogy to drive the point home.

“The plant is a factory and its root system is the receiving department. The larger it is, the more shipments it can take,” notes Dowdy, who says he heard the analogy from another farmer.

Evaluate In-Furrow Products Carefully, Prevent Burn

Hula says he has watched too many growers lean on “traditional” in-furrow products without understanding the long-term potential tradeoffs for root health—especially in dry or marginal soil conditions.

“[Some farmers] talk about using 10-34-0 in the trench as starter. Clearly that’s a cheaper form of fertilizer. If they looked at what they were doing compared to a low-salt program, they might see they’re not getting the full benefit.”

On Hula’s farm, 10-34-0 has largely been replaced by low-salt in-furrow products designed to enhance nutrient uptake and support early root development.

“We don’t even use 10-34-0,” he says. “We use a product like Relay in the trench, which is just kind of enhancing the plant’s ability to extract that phosphorus from the soil, with some other beneficial things—zinc, humic acids—mixed in. We see that root development.”

The danger with starters containing a significant amount of salt becomes painfully clear, he adds, when conditions turn dry.

“In the Delta, I’ve seen guys use 10-34-0 in the trench and dry-seed their crop,” Hula says. “They end up replanting because of the salt load in there.”

Dowdy echoes that concern, which is why buffering salt in the furrow is a central part of his program. Both men argue that in today’s cost and yield environment, the “cheaper” product in the box isn’t always cheaper when you factor in stand loss, root pruning and replanting.

Corn growers across the country will face their own versions of cold snaps, wet soils, dry planting windows, and various input decisions this season. But Dowdy and Hula emphasize one principle stands above the noise: If you want top-end corn yields, the crop has to start fast, even and strong. Everything else—biology, nutrition, crop protection—builds on that foundation.

Listen to Hula and Dowdy’s recommendations detailed during their recent Breaking Barriers With R&D discussion on AgriTalk here.

Don’t Cut the Backstop: Dowdy And Hula Weigh In on Crop Insurance, Budgets

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 21:47:22 GMT

When Randy Dowdy picks up the phone to call his crop insurance agent this time of year, it’s not to see if he can shave premiums — it’s to make sure one tough season can’t threaten the future of his farm. He and fellow national yield champion David Hula want more farmers thinking that same way. They are optimistic that with some attention to the details, growers can put their operations on stronger footing.

Dowdy and Hula hold to a simple, practical blueprint: run the farm with the same financial discipline as any other serious business. That starts with a written budget and continues with a crop insurance plan that’s built around each of their farms’ true risk—not just what feels comfortable when the premium bill arrives.

Dowdy farms in Georgia, where tropical systems are a fact of life, not a rarity.

“For us, it’s not a matter if we’re going to get a hurricane or tropical storm, it’s how many we’re going to get and will we be on the edge or will we be Bullseye central,” he says. “I can’t sleep at night knowing I’ve got $800,000-plus at risk and not have some kind of backstop on it.”

That backstop for both growers is crop insurance. Hula is concerned by how often it’s still treated as a soft target when growers start trimming expenses.

“Growers, if they’re doing budgets—which I know most growers don’t do a budget, unfortunately—but they need to do a budget,” he says. “The sheer cost of production is so high and the risk is there. We all got to service debt. We cannot afford to cut out crop insurance.”

A Working Budget, Not a Guess

Both Dowdy and Hula believe that most operations are simply too big and too leveraged to rely on “gut feel” budgeting. When total corn production costs push into the $600 to $1,000 per acre range, they say every line item needs to be accounted for and challenged.

Hula encourages farmers to use this time of year – winter meeting season – as a springboard to upgrade their financial discipline.

“Growers need to try to capture at least three things when they go to these winter meetings,” he says —whether it’s “something new to try or somewhere to help fine‑tune their budgets.”

For him, that starts with knowing where dollars actually move the needle: fertility, seed, planter performance and risk management. A written budget that ties realistic yield expectations to actual costs per acre then becomes the framework for his every decision – from which hybrids to plant to what coverage levels to buy.

Crop Insurance as a Strategy

Dowdy and Hula say crop insurance should be viewed as the core of a risk management strategy designed around each operation’s exposure.

Dowdy explains how he has traditionally built his coverage and how that thinking is evolving.

“In a normal year we do enterprise [coverage], and normal insurance gets us to that 75% or we buy up 80%,” he says.

After talking with his crop insurance agent, Dowdy is now also considering the benefits of Supplemental Coverage Option (SCO) and Enhanced Coverage Option (ECO).

“He’s talking about the SCO version of it, getting coverage to 86% and then you can go with the ECO version to get it up into that 90‑plus‑percent range. And it’s affordable,” Dowdy says.

For Dowdy, the insurance structure matters too. While enterprise units can help manage premium costs, he believes his farming geography demands a more granular approach.

“We may farm ground 60 miles apart,” he says. “I’ll buy optional units just to keep individual farms’ coverage because of the proximity. I go ahead and spend that $75 to $80 an acre, and it helps me sleep at night knowing I got that coverage.”

His takeaway: Don’t stop at the base policy without taking a deeper look. Sit down with your agent and run the numbers on unit structure, SCO and ECO to find a package that realistically protects your cost of production, not just your comfort level with the premium.

Managing Quality and Catastrophic Risk

The risk picture doesn’t end with yield outcomes. Dowdy stresses that in his environment, a lack of crop quality can be just as damaging as outright yield loss.

With his full‑season beans often ready for harvest in late August or early September—smack in the middle of hurricane season—the window for disaster is wide open.

“If it’s 90 degrees outside and it’s hot and wet, those beans will rot right before your eyes,” Dowdy explains. “It’s a quality issue as much as it is just a wind issue.”

Corn brings its own headaches when storms hit hard late in the season.

“If corn goes down, you aren’t going to get it all,” Dowdy says. “Now, there’s some manufacturers that say, ‘you can use our head, we’ll get it all.’ I call BS on that. I don’t want to have to deal with the process of trying to pick it up and harvest it anyhow.”

Dowdy and Hula’s recommendation: build quality risk directly into your budgeting and insurance conversations. Know how your policies treat quality issues and lodging, and be realistic about what you can—and can’t—salvage when a storm hits.

Population and Fertility: Trimming Where It Makes Sense

While Dowdy and Hula believe crop insurance is the wrong place to cut, they both say there are smart, numbers‑driven opportunities to manage input costs—especially in seed and fertility.

“For me, the take‑home that I’ve seen is in fertility management—let’s fine‑tune that,” Hula says. That doesn’t mean making across‑the‑board cuts; it means using precision.

“Use soil tests, yield maps and response history to put fertility where it pays and pull it back where it doesn’t,” he adds.

On seed, Hula thinks 2026 could be a year to rethink planting high populations.

“A lot of times we think we’re going to push our crop a little bit more, and maybe plant a little bit thicker,” he says. “This might be the year just to dial it back a bit… just dial it back 2,000 plants per acre. You’re not going to see a big change in harvestability, you’re not going to see a big change in the end result of yield, but you can see a little reduction in cost.”

Dowdy agrees with the direction—but wants growers to test populations boldly enough to get clear answers.

“I’m going to take it one step further,” he says. “When you do 2,000, I just can’t see enough response. I’m going to go to at least 4,000 less plants so I can say, ‘did I move the needle, yes or no?’”

Dowdy uses a simple benchmark to judge whether the population used is delivering ROI.

“What needs to drive people is, are you making 10 bushels a thousand?” he says. “If you’re not making 10 bushels a thousand based off your planting population, we need to consider, are we planting it too thick? Are we just doing that much of a poor job on getting simultaneous emergence? Why not fix that piece first, and then consider the reduction in population.”

The Planter: One Chance to Get It Right

Hula reminds growers that an expensive mistake is a poorly maintained planter. He believe economic pressure should drive you to the shop, not away from it.

This time of year, Hula is disassembling, inspecting and rebuilding his planter, replacing blades and wear parts and checking every row unit. The goal is simple: give every seed the best chance at uniform emergence and early vigor.

“It seems like we talk about the planter and planting a lot, but that’s what gets everything started,” he says. “You can only do that right one time.”

Dowdy and Hula share more recommendations on their podcast Breaking Barriers With R&D and in their discussion on AgriTalk. Catch their conversation at the link below:

Why Your Best Crop Investment Won’t Show Up On An Invoice

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 19:45:31 GMT

The advice from champion corn growers David Hula and Randy Dowdy for the upcoming season isn’t flashy, but it is a blueprint for success in a challenging year. In a world often distracted by “quick fixes,” they insist that disciplined execution of the fundamentals—from the planning process to the final pass of the combine—is what can help you capture high yields and ROI this season.

Here are three specific actions they recommend:

1. Build Your Yield House

David Hula often compares high-yield corn production to building a home. You don’t start with the roof; you start with a solid foundation.

“When building a house, you have the design, the foundation, and the framing,” Hula says. “On the farm, those basics look like choosing the right hybrids for your farm, picking the appropriate tillage system, getting your fertility in order, and ensuring your planter is truly field-ready—not just ‘dealer-ready.’”

2. Focus On Timely Actions

A recurring theme for Hula and Dowdy is the distinction between speed and timeliness. In today’s world, equipment allows farmers to cover acres faster than ever, but speed doesn’t equal success if the timing is off or the practice is poorly done.

“You can’t pay for or buy timeliness,” Hula says. “The grower has to be willing and ready to go when he needs to go. You can’t buy back a lost window of opportunity.”

This means your logistics, maintenance, and finances must all be prearranged and in order before they’re needed. When the weather breaks, you should be moving — not deciding on a plan or fixing a planter. This readiness extends through the entire season, Hula adds, and not just at planting or sidedress time.

He shares a powerful example of the payoff when a grower is ready to act. A Midwest farmer called him late last summer and said he had southern rust in his corn crop and asked what he should do.

“I said, ‘go spray,’ and he claims that fungicide application saved him 62 bushels [an acre],” Hula recalls. “That’s the kind of result that could help a person service a lot of debt.”

3. Avoid the ‘Shiny Object’ Trap

With a constant stream of new products hitting the market, Randy Dowdy warns farmers not to let the “latest and greatest” distract them from covering the basics.

“Every day, somebody has a new biological or stimulant they’re trying to get you to buy,” he says. “If everything we were told was worth five to 10 bushels an acre, this job would be a lot easier than it is to make ROI.”

His key message: don’t let products or unknown practices distract you from implementing the fundamentals well. “Test things, yes—but on top of a solid foundation, not instead of it,” Dowdy says.

Dowdy and Hula share more recommendations on their podcast Breaking Barriers With R&D and earlier this week during their discussion on AgriTalk. Catch their conversation at the link below:

4 Ways to Cut Costs Without Bleeding Bushels

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 20:48:36 GMT

As farmers stare down another tight-margin year, David Hula and Randy Dowdy’s key message is straight-forward: don’t wait for the markets to force your hand this year — get out in front of upcoming decisions now.

The two high-yield corn and soybean growers are personally dissecting every acre and every product, looking for places to trim costs on their own farms without trimming bushels. As they do, they’re looking for ways to protect the practices that make money while being brutally honest about addressing the ones that don’t deliver.

Here are four takeaways from their latest Breaking Barriers With R&D podcast:

1. Fertilizer Use Deserves More Scrutiny

Hula is tightening his fertility program this year. Phosphorus (P) is “on the chopping block” in some fields, especially where years of chicken litter use have built up soil reserves. He’s also rethinking how much P he needs to buy and where it’s placed. At the same time, he’s clear that his core program will remain in place.

“The starter has been a key play for us,” Hula says. “I have said time and time again, if my starter, and that’s the side placement, stops working, we’re going to stop the planters.”

Hula is also sharpening his pencil on his overall nitrogen strategy, pushing himself to match rates to realistic yield goals instead of falling back on what he calls application habits.

“Look at your NUE, or look at how many pounds you’re doing; we’re going to fine tune that by looking at what our realistic yield goal is,” he says.

Dowdy adds a different fertilizer consideration for farmers: salt management. He is scrutinizing every fertilizer pass not just on nutrient content, but on how it affects root development in corn, especially.

“We buffer salt every time we put out fertilizer,” Dowdy says.

2. Make The Planter Work Harder And Better

Dowdy refers to the planter as one of the biggest sources of “free bushels” on the farm—bushels that come from doing the planting basics at a very high level.

“If farmers are going to spend any extra time and cut back on anything, they don’t cut back on the planter, what it takes to get free bushels,” he says.

An effective planter pass starts long before the first seed hits the ground, Hula adds. He jokes that he wants to see the planter as being “Randy ready” before spring planting begins by replacing any worn parts and calibrating meters.

Once they’re in the field, both growers put precision ahead of speed. Dowdy says too many growers are still sacrificing free bushels by chasing acres at 8 to 10 mph instead of prioritizing singulation and even emergence. To him, the goal is simple: every seed in the right spot, at the right depth, on the same day, so the crop comes up in as uniform a stand as possible.

3. Know What You Need From Fungicides And Herbicides

On fungicides, Hula’s advice is blunt: if you farm in an area threatened by Southern rust, tar spot or other disease issue, budget as if it’s going to show up this season.

“That application has got to be in your budget, because you can’t service debt if you don’t have bushels,” Hula says.

He also says that he has seen too many growers lose 20 to 60 bushels per acre by not budgeting for a second, later season fungicide application.

Herbicides, by contrast, are where he and Dowdy both see room to tailor and trim. Dowdy talks about moving away from a one‑size‑fits‑all “Cadillac” program and instead aligns his spend in a field with actual weed pressure.

“Maybe, if you’ve been on a Cadillac treatment, go site‑specific… I’m trying to save dollars too, but yet, I know the value of keeping bushels,” Dowdy says.

4. Evaluate How You Manage Field Borders

Hula says his outside passes along tree lines and ditches – where wildlife, compaction and shade detract from yield potential – are no longer treated like prime ground. At the borders of fields, Hula pulls back on planting population and fertilizer, then gradually ramps them up as he moves into the field.

“With technology today, you know that the first pass, the first 40 foot, we just drop population back. The next pass… we raise population a little bit, and then we’ll go to what the field’s geared towards,” he says.

Lime and potash still go on—pH still gets corrected, and basic fertility is maintained—but those border rows aren’t treated like top-producing acres. They’re the logical place to save on high-tech seed costs, Hula adds.

Hear the latest Breaking Barriers With R&D to learn more about Hula and Dowdy’s recommendations at Farm Journal TV and the YouTube link below.

Beyond Bushels: Align High-Yield Strategies With Your Crop Budget

Mon, 29 Dec 2025 20:30:45 GMT

A practical crop budget can serve as a valuable farming playbook, offering essential direction and guidance from planting through harvest, according to farmers and business partners David Hula and Randy Dowdy.

“Return on Investment (ROI) is the primary focus for the year ahead,” says Dowdy, who farms near Valdosta, Ga. “Everybody is trying to figure out how to survive this lean time, because we don’t have $8 corn or $15 beans.”

Start The Season Strong

For Hula, the strategy for achieving both high yields and ROI begins with selecting the right hybrids and using excellent planting practices, followed by consistent nutrition.

“You want to feel optimistic that you’re going to have high yield potential starting out,” he says. “Then, you need to make sure the crop has all the groceries it needs, because if it runs out of juice at any one time, you’ve just hit the minus button.”

Power Of Finishing The Crop

Hula highlights that another critical component of maximizing ROI, even in current tight markets, is finishing the crop well.

He shares that despite having a challenging growing season this year, his dryland acres achieved their third-best farmgate average. He attributes that to ensuring the crop received the necessary resources late in the season, especially a fungicide application.

“We felt pretty confident [the crop] was going to deliver... and that was mostly because we finished it well. We were picking 66.7 to 67 pounds test weight corn at harvest,” reports Hula, who is based near Charles City, Va.

“Finishing the crop is by far where a lot of people leave a lot of yield on the table,” adds Dowdy.

Use ‘Bushels’ To Track Costs

The current market outlook for 2026 necessitates a sharp focus on expense management, Dowdy notes.

“Obviously servicing debt is still on everybody’s mind. A farmer should never cut out anything that he or she knows makes money. But the problem is sometimes they don’t always know what that is,” he says.

When planning the budget, Hula urges growers to shift their perspective away from the cost of the input and toward the bushel return needed to justify it.

He offers, as an example: “For me to do in-furrow, that requires seven bushels. If I’m not going to get a seven-bushel return per acre, I’m not going to do it.”

Hula believes the bushel ROI mindset should be applied to all inputs. By framing decisions in terms of bushels rather than dollars, he says growers can more easily see the economic impact of each investment they make.

Make Every Input Pay Its Way

Hula and Dowdy are spending significant time this winter consulting with growers on budget strategies through their business, Total Acre . In many cases, they are stressing the importance of refining in-season input applications to make them more efficient, rather than cutting them completely.

“We can keep some of the in-season applications and make them more efficient by placement,” Dowdy says. “The goal is not merely to cut costs, but to find better, more efficient ways to invest money that directly leads to a higher ROI.”

Dowdy and Hula discuss their budgeting recommendations in more detail in their latest Breaking Barriers With R&D podcast discussion on Farm Journal TV and YouTube via the link here:

You can also hear Hula and Dowdy’s latest discussion on AgriTalk here:

‘Farmers Can’t Outyield the Balance Sheet Anymore’

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 22:39:11 GMT

Randy Dowdy, high-yield corn and soybean farmer and agronomic consultant, paints a stark picture of the economic pressure bearing down on American farmers.

Fresh from a visit with customers, Dowdy says the same three questions dominate almost every discussion he had with growers:

Where can we cut costs?
Where do we have to spend money to stay in business?
How do we service existing debt when margins are razor thin?

Even with strong yields this year, many of the farmers, he notes, “could not outyield the balance books.” Commodity prices have not kept pace with rising costs, he says, leaving farmers struggling to keep their operations in the black.

Costs Have Soared, Partly Due To Regulations
Dowdy contrasts his early years in farming with today’s reality. When he started farming in 2008, his first tractor cost between $150,000 and $175,000. Now, he says, a similar horsepower tractor “can run roughly three times that dollar amount.”

He traces a significant part of that escalation to emissions and environmental regulations that began ramping up in the late 2000s. He recalls an initial price jump, followed by annual increases of 6% to 8% since then, compounding the burden on farm finances. The complexity that comes with the machinery systems, he argues, also has stripped farmers of their ability to repair their own equipment.

“You can’t work on [equipment] without a computer. Even the technicians can’t work on them without a computer,” he mentioned on a recent AgriTalk segment.

Noting not all of the price jump is due to emissions controls, Dowdy believes the regulatory wave gave some manufacturers cover to raise prices.

Tension Between Policy and Reality
Dowdy’s comments on AgriTalk came following a White House roundtable on Monday tied to a new $12 billion “bridge payment” plan . President Donald Trump said his administration will move quickly to ease environmental requirements affecting tractors and other farm machinery , arguing the changes will lower sticker prices and simplify repairs.

On Wednesday more news followed with Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins and Health Secretary Robert “F” Kennedy Jr., announcing a $700 million initiative for regenerative agriculture .

Dowdy said he’s not opposed to supporting agricultural niches — all of the profitable corn and soybean growers he and Total Acre business partner David Hula met with recently have some kind of specialty angle.

“If there’s a little help for those guys, I don’t have a problem with it. But at the end of the day, the row crop farmers are where the help needs to be,” he notes.

Part of the help has to do with machinery costs. He highlighted cotton pickers as one example.

“The cotton industry’s got one manufacturer that I’m aware of that makes a cotton picker. One. And it’s $1.2 million,” he says. “Where’s the competition that helps make that thing affordable?”

Dowdy doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but he would like a “seat at the table” to have a candid conversation with policymakers and regulators focused on one core goal: bringing equipment and input costs back within reach so farmers can keep their operations viable.

“I’m all for the farmer,” Dowdy says. “If the farmer wins, everybody wins.”

Dowdy and Hula address farmer profitability needs in more detail in their new Breaking Barriers With R&D podcast, available here:

You can also catch the AgriTalk discussion between Dowdy and Host Davis Michaelson below:

Southern Rust Delivers A Harsh Wake-Up Call For Disease Control

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 22:50:46 GMT

Southern rust swept through the Midwest this past summer, taking big bites out of corn yield potential and forcing many growers to consider making late-season fungicide applications they hadn’t budgeted for.

Now, many farmers are asking themselves and their agronomic advisers how to plan for next season. A common question: Is southern rust going to be a significant problem in the Midwest again in 2026?

The answer: No one knows. Southern rust does not overwinter in crop residue – it has to blow in on winds from southern climes to be a problem for Midwest growers. So, what happens next year with the disease depends largely on how Mother Nature behaves.

Another fun weather fact from summer of 2025...
Chart showing why disease pressure was at biblical levels in areas this summer. Over two months of humidity levels WAY above average.

Mid June until beginning of September, nearly every day was above average humidity (blue line)… pic.twitter.com/eFHEDs4hs1
— Pioneer Troy (@deutmeyer_troy) November 18, 2025

Fungicides Paid Their Way
If there’s any silver lining to the challenge many farmers had with southern rust this year it’s that now almost everyone knows how yield-crippling the disease can be and the value fungicides can deliver.

Mary Gumz says she was fielding calls from concerned corn growers as early as the V10 to V12 growth stages of corn.

“It was a very different scenario than we’re usually in most years, and we were recommending that farmers spray earlier than usual,” recalls Gumz, a Pioneer agronomy manager.

With the tough economics farmers faced this season, some opted to forgo an application. But where corn growers made the hard call and applied fungicide, those fields delivered at harvest.

“We got some big yield increases, and you could visually see the difference between those plants where we did make the early call [with a fungicide application] compared to the usual application at tassel timing,” she says.

Another factor that made southern rust so difficult to control this season is that, in many cases, a second application of fungicide was warranted where the disease had time to rebuild.

“You can get about two or three weeks of efficacy from a fungicide on southern rust, but don’t expect you’re going to get season-long control,” says Randy Dowdy, Valdosta, Ga., and partner in Total Acre . “I’m not aware of a fungicide that you can spray at tassel for southern rust and that will last 50, 60 days or until black layer.

Southern rust does not overwinter in corn residue like some other diseases, such as tar spot. Instead, if it shows up in the Midwest, it has arrived via winds from southern climes.

(Corteva/Pioneer)

Proactive Planning For Next Season Can Help
While southern rust is a concern, Kim Tutor, BASF technical marketing manager, encourages farmers to keep in mind those tough diseases, such as tar spot, northern corn leaf blight and gray leaf spot, that are annual disease challenges in the Midwest.

Tar spot overwinters in corn residue, ready to rebuild in corn crops when weather conditions are favorable to its development, and is making its way across the Corn Belt.

“Tar spot can be infecting a corn plant, causing damage internally for two to three weeks before we are able to detect a lesion or see symptomology on the surface of the leaf,” Tutor adds.

She says if you are in a situation where models show significant disease pressure is moving into your area or you are based in an area with tar spot pressure, for instance, to consider making an early application with a fungicide that has residual control during what she calls an optimized application window – as early as V10 and through at least R3.

If you are in an area with heavy tar spot levels or you are looking to push the envelope for yield, Tutor recommends making two fungicide applications in corn, keeping applications 20 to 28 days apart.

As for which fungicide you apply, for so-called driver diseases like tar spot or southern rust, Missy Bauer, Farm Journal Field Agronomist, recommends going with what she describes as “Cadillac” type chemistry, newer technology that features multiple modes of control.

Extension plant pathologists annually update fungicide efficacy ratings for various crops, including corn, via the Crop Protection Network website. You can check the ratings for each fungicide’s performance on various diseases using the Corn Fungicide Efficacy table. Some products work better on tar spot or gray leaf spot, whereas others are more effective on rusts and other diseases.

Given the outlook for grain prices next year, be sure to also check out the new Corn Fungicide ROI Calculator on the Crop Protection Network.
You can use the calculator to look at different scenarios (grain prices, expected yield, disease severity) to see the potential ROI on fungicide applications.

Currently data available in the calculator are from university uniform corn fungicide trials conducted across 19 states and Ontario, Canada between 2019 and 2022. Primary diseases in this data set were tar spot and southern rust.

(Crop Protection Network)

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