February 28, 2000
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King of Corn Wins Yield Prizes,
But His Methods Are Criticized
By SCOTT KILMAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
MANCHESTER, Iowa -- For most of his 60 years, Francis Childs
tended a farm here in obscurity. But this winter, his fellow
farmers are lining up to hear him speak, academics are studying
his ways, and a seed company is putting him in its
advertisements.
In an industry that rarely has any stars, "he is a legend," says
Joe Welsh, an Iowa farmer attending a recent Childs lecture.
What Mr. Childs has done is raise people's notions of just how
much corn can be coaxed from an acre of ground. The average
farmer in Iowa grows around 150 bushels an acre, and although
many do a little better, many scientists have long felt that the
theoretical maximum, under ideal conditions, would be 400
bushels.
No farmer ever came close to that until last October, when a
small crowd gathered here to watch Mr. Childs harvest an acre
that was so thick with vegetation that his combine had to move
at a crawl. Then came the weigh-in at the grain elevator, and
the posting of the number: 394 bushels, smashing a 14-year-old
record. "It was exciting, like watching Mach I almost being
broken," says an Agriculture Department official who was
present.
This October, Mr. Childs vows to shatter the 400-bushel barrier,
and few are betting against him. Mr. Welsh, who has a small,
110-acre corn farm about 60 miles to the north, says that Mr.
Childs "shows there is hope for the small guy."
If so, it is a strange sort of hope.
The promise is for higher output. Mr. Childs's modest-sized
320-acre farm grows more corn than the average Midwestern farm
twice its size. With profit margins on corn and everything else
that Midwestern farmers produce now razor-thin, getting higher
yields and thus having more to sell is a goal to which every
farmer aspires.
Too Much
There is just one hitch in this. Heavy production is the very
reason those profit margins are so thin. The world is awash in
corn, thanks partly to advanced agricultural methods pioneered
by innovative U.S. agriculture and since adopted abroad. If
every farmer learned to produce like Francis Childs, one can
only imagine what would happen to today's already deeply
depressed corn prices.
Then there is the matter of how the corn-growing champion gets
those yields. Some of his techniques are proprietary -- he says
that "it would take six years for anyone to learn my methods."
But others he explains in public lectures, and they aren't
things likely to enhance the romantic notions that some citified
supporters of the small farmer have.
For one thing, he plows deep into the soil, easing the way for
roots to grow. But this also leaves the topsoil more vulnerable
to erosion by wind and water, which is part of the reason most
Midwest farmers no longer use traditional plows at all.
His strategy also involves heavy usage of chemical fertilizers
and pesticides that boost growth, but that critics say can
escape into groundwater. And, like many corn farmers, he uses
seed that is genetically modified to resist insects. This has
one environmental plus -- less need for chemical pesticides --
but in the minds of some environmentalists it also carries a
risk of unintended consequences, such as the spread of a
gene-induced trait to other plants.
"He's like an athlete on steroids," says Dave Lubben of
Practical Farmers of Iowa, a group dedicated to minimizing
plowing as well as use of fertilizer and pesticides.
For these reasons, "Francis Childs isn't a good role model,"
contends Dennis R. Keeney, senior fellow at the Council for
Agricultural Science and Technology in Ames, Iowa. Recurring
gluts of corn mean that all farmers ought to be concerned less
about boosting production and more about cutting costs and
diversifying into other crops, says Dr. Keeney.
But farmers don't think collectively. And in the short term, one
way for a single corn grower to compensate for lower crop prices
is to produce more -- a cruel irony of the commodities market.
And so, the Childs effect is already evident at farms across the
Corn Belt. After phoning Mr. Childs from his farm in Indiana,
two states east, Robert Little this year has big plans for
boosting production, including use of the same type of
deep-cutting plow that Mr. Childs employs. "What Francis has
done is truly amazing," says Mr. Little.
Indeed. Every season since 1997, Mr. Childs has produced more
corn from a single acre than anyone else who farms nonirrigated
land, giving him three consecutive "dry land" victories in the
National Corn Growers Association contest. For the past two
years, he even beat the top tiller of irrigated land, which
often does better because it has a steady moisture supply.
Agronomist Norm Larson of Case IH, a farm-implement maker, is in
awe: "To me, he is like Neil Armstrong," Mr. Larson says.
Mr. Childs's string of championships, touted on the bug screen
of his pickup, has won him tens of thousands of dollars in
corporate prize money and gifts. He also gets free equipment.
After he praised a particular plow in a trade-magazine article,
its sales jumped. Now, "we make sure he gets whatever he needs
from us for free," says Mike Lickteig, co-president of the
plow's maker, Wiese Corp. in Perry, Iowa.
Instead of any financial incentive, though, what seems to drive
Mr. Childs is the challenge. "I like corn," he says. "I like to
push it." Most Midwestern farmers rotate their crops, usually
alternating between corn and soybeans, a practice that is good
for the soil and helps keep weeds and insects from getting out
of hand. Mr. Childs plants only corn.
At 320 acres, his northeast Iowa farm sits among operations
three and four times its size. A recent visit finds Mr. Childs
willing to talk about corn and little else. Personal questions
start him gazing at the horizon. A shy man, he seems more
comfortable around plants than people.
He is the third generation of his family to grow corn on this
farm. As a young man he competed in demolition derbies and
tractor pulls. Only later in life did he take up "corn racing,"
as the yield contests are called.
Moon Glow
The contests began as an educational exercise in the 1930s, when
university plant breeders were trying to get farmers to give up
home-grown seed for hybrids. The secret weapons of the early
competitors included buffalo-manure fertilizer and planting by
the phases of the moon. Now they use fancy hybrids that have
turned corn into a racehorse of the plant world, able to grow
three inches on a humid June day and yield ever-more bushels of
grain.
But as agribusiness tries to make hay out of the corn
competition, "there's a big debate about whether the contest is
just becoming an advertising vehicle for companies," says Jeff
Meis, an official of one contest sponsor, the Iowa Crop
Improvement Association.
Mr. Childs won a state contest in his second year of trying,
1967. For the next two decades he refined his formula. It jelled
for him in the 1990s, when he won his class in the Iowa contest
eight times and in the national contest the past three years.
Because winning depends a lot on weather, and rainfall can vary
from farm to farm, three straight wins is an astonishing feat.
And it isn't just the streak but his margin of victory. His haul
in October beat the second-place farmer in his class by 142
bushels, or 56%. It topped the old, 1985 record by 7%.
Corporate Goodies
This maestro of maize sprouted at a time when seed companies,
their market flat, were trying to steal one another's customers.
Delighted to hear that Mr. Childs used its seed, Pioneer Hi-Bred
International Inc. (now owned by DuPont Co.) lavished gifts on
him, including a jacket bearing the seed variety he won with
last year: 34G82. Pioneer also features him in its ads.
Meanwhile, the seed unit of Switzerland's Novartis AG recently
was offering $100,000 to any farmer who won with its seed, until
contest officials, concerned that such prize money might
encourage cheating, capped it at $10,000.
But for some financially stressed small farmers who look up to
Mr. Childs, the hoped-for prize is simply survival. Could his
techniques help them? To find out, farm groups from across the
Midwest are inviting him to speak. He lectures about once a week
during winter, for $200 a shot plus mileage on his pickup.
At a lecture on a snowy night in the Iowa town of Waukon, all
132 seats in the Vets' Club are filled. Before he speaks,
several farmers walk up to have their picture taken with Mr.
Childs. Then he takes the floor.
Know Your Planter
Unlike his cornfields, his speeches don't win any prizes. He
tells no jokes and doesn't warm up his audience. He turns on a
slide projector. In a monotone he recites 16 tips for high-yield
corn. Among them: Don't be afraid to use lots of seed. Plant
slowly. Pay attention to seed-to-soil contact. Try to avoid
compacting the soil. (One tip for that: Spread the tractor's
weight around by lowering the pressure in its tires.)
He has lots to say, too, about potash levels and row widths. And
"have a positive attitude," Mr. Childs says. "Get to know your
planter." Some farmers take notes, and a few lean so far forward
to hear that they are in danger of toppling.
Mr. Childs speaks for 40 minutes and takes questions for 30. He
says he plants 44,000 corn kernels an acre, which is about 50%
more than average. He plows 14 inches down, about six inches
deeper than other farmers -- those who still plow at all. He
uses at least 400 pounds of fertilizer an acre, twice what most
use.
Mr. Childs gives this special treatment to only about a third of
his acres, intending just before harvest time to select the very
best for the contest. In these days of highly mechanized
farming, he is in some ways like a farmer of old: He spends
hours in his fields on foot. Carrying a spade, he probes roots
and checks carefully to see what sort of insect problems he has.
And if a stalk is sprouting extra tiny ears of corn, he plucks
them off so they don't draw plant energy away from the main ear.
This intensive care is something farmers with a thousand or more
acres couldn't possibly give, Mr. Childs notes: "They're so big,
they can't spend the attention they need to get high yield."
The Economics
Many farm audiences are too polite to ask their most burning
question: Does he make a profit? In private, some do ask. He
concedes that his costs for fertilizer, pesticides, seed, fuel
and such run as high as $650 an acre, twice the statewide
average. But his yields are so good that he says he earns as
much profit per bushel as his larger neighbors. He says his
break-even point is $1.68 a bushel. Most farmers here will get
about $2.50 a bushel for last year's crop, counting government
subsidies.
Mr. Childs doesn't give away all of his secrets. Devotees often
speculate about what they are. One theory: He angles his rows
such as to maximize sun exposure. Told of this theory, Mr.
Childs chuckles.
Another theory is that he cheats. Did Mr. Childs really get 394
bushels off a single acre? "I'm somewhat skeptical. A lot of
people here are," says Robert Beswick, who finished a very
distant second behind Mr. Childs in the same Iowa county,
Delaware. "What he does is hard to understand."
Mr. Childs dismisses such coffee-shop talk as sour grapes and
notes that the contest is policed. Two "verifiers" from the
corn-grower association show up at the harvest to make sure the
combine is covering a true acre. They also look for evidence of
secret watering, which would violate contest rules in the
dry-land class.
"People always think Francis cheats, so I'm tougher on him,"
says one verifier, Julie McCready. "If he's cheating, he's
ingenious."
Without verifiers, no result is official. So the claim Mr.
Childs makes one recent afternoon is irrelevant, except to
explain why he is so confident he can break the 400-bushel
barrier. Gazing out at snow-covered fields, he says he took 453
bushels from one acre last year, but no officials were there to
see it.
Write to Scott Kilman at scott.kilman@wsj.com
=====
------------------
Kate Smith, Ph.D.
Vice President
AUS Consultants, Inc.
155 Gaither Drive
Moorestown, NJ 08057
856-234-9200 (O) 856-234-0733 (F)
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