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10.18.05

By JEFF MORELAND

Richard Ashley has been farming for about 16 years in Felton, Del. He grew up on his family’s farm, but hasn’t always worked on it. It wasn’t until he met his wife that he started working on his family’s farm, as well as her family’s farm. Since that time, the couple has purchased his wife’s family’s operation, Woikoski Farms.
Ashley recently retired from his career with the Delaware State Police after just under 22 years of service. Being relatively new to farming compared to some folks in the field, he had never entered a corn grower’s contest before last year, and he only entered then after being urged to do so by representatives with Augusta Seed. Ashley was growing his first crop of Augusta 5337 corn, and the results were so impressive, people driving along the road in front of his house were stopping to look at the crop.
“I’d never done any contests before,” Ashley said. “They (Augusta) came down and looked at it, and they wanted me to enter the contest.”
Ashley was up for it, so he entered the National Corn Growers Association yield contest in 2004 and brought home second place in the state. Not bad for a beginner. Actually, it was quite good. In his first test, Ashley’s crop was measured at a 263 bushel-per-acre yield. According to rules of the contest, any yield above 250 bushels per acre must have a second test, and that total came up at 251 bushels, just behind the winner, a Middletown, Del., farmer who produced 253 bushels per acre.
“My first test would have won last year,” Ashley said. “There are a lot of things you need to do for these contests, and I’d never been in one before, and I didn’t even know how it worked. It was fun, so I decided this year to try to win.”
The results of the 2005 contest will not be available until December, but Ashley has to be pleased with his efforts. This year, he spent time talking to area farmers to find out what they do differently to their crops and see if he could boost his yield. The only thing he did this year that he didn’t do last year was “put a little extra nitrogen where I’d cut my contest corn,” he said. “Just to see what our ground was capable of producing.”
That extra nitrogen must have paid off. Ashley reported a yield of 285 bushels on his first test, and then on his mandatory second test he actually saw an increase to 288 bushels. So what lies ahead? Aside from awaiting the final results of this year’s contest, Ashley is also preparing for next year. He said he’s had some suggestions from his Augusta Seed representatives, and he thinks he’s going to take the advice.
“Last year the sales rep recommended that I use fungicide at tasseling, but I didn’t think I needed the cost, and the Augusta corn didn’t look like it needed it,” Ashley said. He also grows some of Augusta’s competitor’s corn, and that corn was stressed.
“I never gave it a thought because the Augusta corn looked so good,” he added. “I’m not in to selling things and stuff like that, but I’m a firm believer in this Augusta 5337.”
Reaffirming his belief in Augusta is the 230-acre strip of land in front of his house. Ashley said he grows Augusta on both ends and a competitor in the middle. On 140 acres of Augusta, he averaged 219.15 bushels, from both the contest and non-contest corn. He had another 64 irrigated acres that brought yields in the low 130s from the competitor. The remaining 101 acres of competitor corn was dryland corn, which he said is being reported for a crop insurance claim.
Ashley said he pays more for his Augusta corn, but he has quickly learned that he gets what he pays for. He explained that he saved $23 or $24 per bag in the beginning when he bought his corn, but added that in the long run, that ‘savings’ cost him between $180 and $200 per acre.