Planting the 173 hectare crop at the end of January, it was irrigated with 6ML and harvested at the end of the first week of May.
“We reckon it was a pretty good crop,” he said.
“It was one of the best yields we’ve had from a feed corn.”
The crop yielded on average 12t/hectare with some sections reaching from 12.5t to 13t a hectare of dry corn.
Besides having a ready market for the harvested grain, Mr Hornick said they like the security they get from feed corn.
“With the husk on the cob, we can get rain on the corn and it won’t damage the end product,” he said.
“It’s a security crop for us, and you can make good money on it. We’ve managed to get our inputs fairly low.”
The crop was fertilized with anhydrous ammonia and urea, with 40 units of N applied pre-plant and 140 units of N side dressed.
“We have also been using a two year rotation of manure application on some of our fields,” Mr Hornick said.
“We also applied around 2kg/ha of liquid starter at planting.”
At the property, “Willoughby”, Mr Hornick said they plant mostly corn and pulses, with some cotton. They also plant wheat on their dryland ground.

Caption: Roland Hornick in his crop of Hycron 424 - 'we reckon it's the best variety we can get'.