Farmer is world record holder

The national average yield for soybeans is 42 bushels per acre. Kip Cullers does a little better than that.
Current world record holder for soybean yield, he coaxes 154 bushels from each acre at his farm near Purdy, Mo.
“I’m also a seven-time national corn growing champion, too,” said Cullers, a featured speaker Saturday at the Four State Farm Show.
He discussed some of the secrets of his high-yielding crops. One of them is selecting the best seed, which isn’t necessarily the same for every farmer.
“What works on my farm might not work on yours,” Cullers said. “You have to plant the right genetics for your farm. Generally, I believe that planting big beans means a big yield, but you can argue about that all day.”
Other factors are undeniable, and one of them is the importance of keeping plants healthy and alive.
“It’s like jogging,” Cullers said. “Maybe you normally jog two miles each day, but one day you don’t feel very well, so you only jog one mile. Another day you feel great, so you jog three miles. If plants feel good, they produce more, so keep plants healthy early and don’t ever let them get stressed.”
That means giving them proper food and water, and eliminating stresses such as fungus and insect pests.
“Most people wait until soybeans are ready to croak, then dump an inch of water on them,” Cullers said. “All you’re doing is stressing your plants. You need to water soybeans early and often, but with a low volume of water.”
He also believes in keeping the population — the number of plants per acre — high.
“Population studies are easy to do on a farm,” Cullers said. “But you can’t do it driving 55 miles per hour past the field. You have to park, get out and walk through the fields.”
It’s also important to do the right thing at the right time.
“We don’t add potassium until late in the life of the plant,” he said. “Before then, it doesn’t have enough root to take the potassium up.”
Cullers currently raises soybeans, corn and green beans, mostly Italian flat beans.
“People wonder how you harvest green beans,” he said. “I’ve got 13 green bean harvesters.”
He has been around farming all his life, and grew up on a dairy farm about a mile down the road from where he lives now with his wife and two sons.
Cullers travels and speaks on behalf of Pioneer Brand Products and Services and BASF.
“I go all over the world, and they’d love to keep me on the road all winter, really all year round,” he said. “I go about eight weeks a year. They called and asked me if I’d come over here to the Four State Farm Show. I usually come here anyway, because this is a nice show.”