By DAVE BLOWER JR.
Farm World Editor

SUBLETTE, Ill. – The average yield for the 90 corn hybrids tested on the northern Illinois seed trial site in Sublette was approximately 245 bushels per acre.

Many of the tested hybrids scored much higher than the average. Heritage Seeds hybrid 8390VT3 earned the best mark in the early season test with a yield of 283 bu. per acre. The Heritage hybrid had a moisture level of 30.4 percent and an estimated gross income of $810.90 per acre.

The hybrid strongly outpaced the second-place finisher, Channel Bio 207-07VT3, which earned a yield of 268.6 bu. per acre. Beck’s Hybrids 5244VT3 came in third in this test with a 267.7 bu. per acre yield. The test was conducted by Farmer’s Independent Research of Seed Technologies (F.I.R.S.T.) earlier this harvest season. In the full-season test, DeKalb hybrid DKC62-54 finished first with a yield of 274.3 bu. per acre. Its moisture content was 32.4 percent, and its average gross income per acre was valued at $772.20.

The test was on the Lee County, Ill. farm of Randy Faber. The soil was a Muscatine-St. Charles silty clay loam. The field was well drained and non-irrigated.

F.I.R.S.T. manager Jason Beyers planted the field on May 2 at a rate of 35,100 seeds per acre. He harvested 30,800 plants per acre on Oct. 20. “This was a very nice location considering that the average moistures were so high,” Beyers reported.

“The corn was all very tall and standing well. Kernel size was large and set deep into the cob. Some stand was lost due to green snap in a July storm.”