Corn yields averaging 282 bushels an acre, with some fields hitting 340, are coming off Future View Farms in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania — despite two stretches of serious summer drought.

Partners Jeremy Railing and Ross Frey started harvest on Sept. 17 and have combined 150 acres so far, all from the cab of a Case 7250 combine. The pair are in their first season farming together, growing row crops on hundreds of owned and rented acres.

"We got the timely rains, just enough to keep it going, and the yields are surprisingly pretty decent considering how dry we were there a couple times this summer," Railing said.

Frey said the numbers don't fully add up on rainfall alone. "Jeremy and I can't quite figure out how just spreading the rains out and getting a tenth or two at times is going to put bushels on your top end," he said. "So, I think it's definitely some of the management decisions we made that helped get us through that."

Foliar feeding gets the credit

The biggest of those decisions, Frey said, was applying foliar fertilizer and stress mitigation products during herbicide and fungicide passes — a practice the farm had never used before.

"Spoon-feeding the crop in terms of fertility throughout the year, that is not something we had done before," Frey said. "And I think that spoon-feeding is really the biggest driver to some of our record yields so far."

For farmers weighing whether the extra pass or tank-mix pays, the Future View results offer a data point: split, in-season fertility delivered record yields in a year when the weather alone wouldn't have.

High yields, tight margins

Strong bushels don't guarantee profit in a year of middling grain prices and high input costs, and Frey said the pair managed costs deliberately. They prepaid propane for the grain dryer back in January, covering most of the crop.

On marketing, Frey has forward-contracted more than 75% of his corn, adding contracts this month when prices spiked. He is holding back the remainder for stronger cash prices.

"I've plugged in yields and harvest moisture into my spreadsheet formula, and so far, it's looking good," Frey said. "I have all costs for the year figured out. I know for a fact that we're making money on the fields that we've started on here. And that's comforting because we were worried that some of the earliest-planted corn would be some of the poorest performing just because of the drought stress this summer. Hopefully, it all stays good, and yield levels hold true to where we are now or a little higher."

Soybeans next, then 2027

Full-season soybean harvest should start within the week. Frey is hoping for 90-bushel beans. Some plants have started to lodge, but he sees a silver lining: lodging means heavy stems, and heavy stems hopefully mean a lot of beans hanging off them.

A weekend nor'easter should help fill out the farm's double-crop soybean pods. Frey estimated 85% of those beans received a fungicide application in August, though he worries recent rains could bring disease pressure as the fungicide wears off.

"As long as the frost stays away, I can pretty much guarantee it will be a record year for double-crop soybeans," Frey said. "We just have to hope that diseases don't get bad."

Meanwhile, 2027 seed decisions are already in motion. "The seed dealers are already calling, offering unit discounts to get their seed," Railing said with a laugh.

Choosing hybrids is getting harder, he said, because breeders turnover numbers quickly. "The seed-breeding companies are constantly coming out with something new, a newer variety, a newer number," Railing said. "They'll only have that one number out, say, for four or five years. And then they'll say, 'OK, this new number here is replacing the old number.' You're always used to the old number. Then you really don't know what you're going to get with the new number."

That uncertainty is why the partners reserve several acres for corn plot testing each year. They planted two full plots this season with more than a dozen hybrids, all planted the same day under the same conditions and treated identically. One plot has been harvested; the other comes off soon. For soybeans, because their air drill is difficult to clean out for plot trials, they rely on test plot results from other farmers.

Yield matters in those evaluations, but it isn't the top criterion. "A lot of those decisions are based upon standability, disease tolerance, drought tolerance," Frey said. "There are some hybrids that went down quicker from the windstorms this year. So, we take notes throughout the year on all of that, and that all goes into decision-making when ordering our seed."

Farmers watching for the next installment should keep an eye on whether the 90-bushel soybean target materializes and whether the frost holds off long enough to secure the projected record double-crop bean crop.