The King of Corn ruled a roller coaster season for Russell Hedrick
It was a roller coaster of weather challenges this past season for Russell Hedrick who farms about 1,000 acres of corn, soybeans and specialty crops in Hickory, North Carolina. Early in the season he went from drought to extremely wet conditions at planting, then an extremely hot period in July where he started to see heat stress, and even some Southern Rust disease pressure towards harvest.
The up and down of environmental challenges didn’t deter Russell, however, who ended the season with a 311 bu/ac yield average on his AgVenture Gold Club Grand Champion winning field.
The winning farm was planted with AgVenture® brand AV9916AM. “We call AV9916AM the King of the Corn, it gets our best ground, the plant health has been extremely good for our area, and the stalk quality’s been excellent as well,” Russell explains. He likes a flex style ear and that this hybrid has shown good late season stand. “For the roller coaster year we had, I’m extremely happy with the entry north of 300 (bu/ac).”
For the past five years Russell has been planting 100% AgVenture seeds on his farm. “I’ve enjoyed working with AgVenture and being able to work with independent seed companies like Sweetwater Creek Seed.” He appreciates being able to run trials and seed plots right on his own farm. “When we start looking at some of our seed plots and try to pick varieties for future years, Sweetwater Creek Seed has been really good at helping us – saving me a lot of time.”
It’s the customer service and the consistent performance that Russell attributes to why he favors AgVenture over other seed brands. “I’ve always recommended AgVenture because of the people, the knowledge they bring to my farm. We also continue to see that AgVenture seed is consistently a better hybrid on our farm versus other brands - giving us a better return on investment.”
Russell is excited for some of the future AgVenture brand seed coming out and being able to plant a mix of both proven winners as well as new hybrids and varieties on his farm. “We’ve got a year under our belt testing AgVenture AV6117PCUE with PowercCore® Ultra Enlist® Refuge Advanced® corn. The defensive disease traits in that variety are top tier, and the yields were there too.”
While you never know what kind of ride the next season can bring, Russell encouraged future AgVenture Gold Club participants. “My challenge to farmers is to pick a seed brand like AgVenture that has great agronomy and results.”
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