Wheat yield contest winner nets 147 bushels per acre

GREENVILLE, Ill. — A Tazewell County farmer earned top honors in the Illinois Wheat Association’s annual yield contest.

Wendell Good averaged 147.73 bushels per acre for first place. Placing second in the contest was Zac Weidner, Macoupin County, 142.30 bpa. Third place went to David Justison, Montgomery County, 141.15 bpa.

The top three winter wheat growers in the Illinois Wheat Association’s annual yield contest were announced during the organization’s Summer Wheat Forum at the American Farm Heritage Museum.

The wheat contest is named in honor of Bob Frank, a lifetime IWA member, in recognition of his time and dedication to the association. Frank’s name is on the first-place plaque and the traveling trophy presented to the company providing the top yield variety.

“So far, this is the highest wheat yield that I’ve had. We missed our target by a little bit but we’re happy with what turned out. You’ve got to keep raising the target, otherwise you don’t get better,” said Good, who placed second in last year’s contest with a 137.33 average yield.

He noted there were several key practices that pushed his winter wheat to the top average yield on his farm in the southeast corner of Tazewell County.

His wheat variety was AgriMaxx 545 that was planted on Oct. 8, 2024, in no-till after the soybean harvest at a seeding rate of 1.8 million seeds per acre in 7.5-inch rows.

Good applied the Harmony Extra SG herbicide (.06 ounces per acre) on April 10. On April 24, the wheat had an aerial application of Palisade (14 ounces per acre), a growth regulator.

The field had two aerial applications of fungicide — Miravis Ace (13 ounces per acre) on May 15 and Tebuconazole (4 ounces) on May 23.

Good’s fertility plan included applying DAP (200 pounds per acre) and 0-0-60 (200 pounds per acre) on Oct. 5, 2024. He followed that up with urea applications (200 pounds per acre) on Feb. 28 and May 17. He also applied AMS at 100 pounds per acre.

“I focus pretty hard on the variety, and then if you’re really going to push the yields, you’re going to need standability. You’re going to need something that doesn’t lodge. That’s a big deal. If you’re going to have a lot of heads out there to get the big yields, you’re going to need a lot of nutrients out there with them, and you’re going to need some Palisade to keep it from going down,” Good said. “And where I’m at and probably everywhere in Illinois, I’d guess, you’re going to need some fungicide or otherwise nobody wants to buy it.”

He works with Brad Zimmerman, Groveland area farmer and founder/CEO of SeedOnomy. Zimmerman helps farmers consistently grow higher yields by implementing easy, cost-effective practices to minimize risk of stress to crops.

“Brad’s been a big help in helping me figure out what we need to do better, what the plants run short of, how we get it on there, how we get the fertility levels up, and the nutrient levels up in the plant and that type of thing,” he added.

Asked if he was going to try for a higher contest yield next year, Good said, “Always, always.”

Return to Farming

Good turned to wheat in his crop rotation after taking over the family farm.

“I actually had gotten washed out of farming in the 1980s and ended up having a business. Dad retired in 2009, so I took over the farm,” he said.

“We had some highly erodible ground, and so I bought some wheat for a cover crop and slung it out there with a spreader. It happened to catch the weather right and it took off really well.

“It was too wet the next spring, and I couldn’t get out there to get it killed. It was looking pretty good and I thought, well, I always wanted to try wheat. Let’s just take it to harvest, see what happens.

“We did and it was 85 bushels an acre or something. It wasn’t bad, but I really liked what it did for the that erodible ground with that cover on there.

“I then planted the double-crop soybeans and, of course, I didn’t know it at the time, but I planted late-season soybeans for the double-crop. Well, that’s true if you’re down south, but if you’re up north, that’s a bad idea. So, it took me a couple years to figure that one out.

“I liked growing wheat and I started working and getting better at it. Then when I started getting halfway decent at it, I thought I’d join the Illinois Wheat Association, get in the contest, and I can learn from all these guys who have been growing wheat forever. They know what they’re doing and so I’ll come down and learn from these guys.”

Good uses a corn/soybean/wheat rotation on his flat ground, and a corn/wheat-only rotation on his erodible ground.