Did not know until yesterday that Francis Childs had past. Of course I did not know him but enjoyed reading about his farming practices. It sounds as though he had one of the most productive soils around which helps. Still nice to read about somebody who did not use the newest and latest to be very productive. There are a couple of guys here in NY who are blessed like that. It's probably longer ago than I realize but I read about one of the NY guys who routinely got 250 bushel corn (on their best ground) planting only with a Super M and 56 planter. I would mention names but I understand the NY guys are publicity shy.
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Larry EC-OH
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Funny that this appeared in the New YORK times;
Francis Childs, 68, Dies; Sage of High Corn Yields
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By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: January 20, 2008
Francis Childs, a third-generation farmer who studied, schemed and tramped his fields with a spade to become the most productive corn grower ever, died on Jan. 9 in Marshall County, Iowa. He was 68.
Darrell Smith
Francis Childs, the first corn farmer to top 400 bushels an acre.
Carolynn Childs, his daughter-in-law, confirmed the death but declined to give a cause.
Mr. Childs shattered old notions of just how much corn could be coaxed from an acre of ground. He was the first farmer in a controlled contest to exceed 400 bushels an acre, achieving 405 in 2001 and 442 the next year.
Neighbors on land similar to his were getting yields just a third this size. When he passed 400 bushels, his nearest competitor trailed him by 85. In 1999, an Agriculture Department official watching the weigh-in of his 394 bushels likened the event to breaking the sound barrier, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The National Corn Growers Association ruled eight times that Mr. Childs’s yield per acre had won his category of its hotly contested annual competitions. He won the Iowa contest 18 times and the Nebraska one twice. He displayed the awards with pride on the bug screen of his pickup.
Max Starbuck, an official of the corn growers’ group, said that no one had yet broken Mr. Childs’s 442-bushel record in a contest and that he knew of no proven superior corn yield anywhere.
"Every farmer back in their heart somewhere has a dream to accomplish something like this," said Tim Burrack, who farmed near Mr. Childs.
In 2002, Mr. Childs told Iowa Farmer Today that he had recorded yields above 500 bushels an acre — the highest was 577 — in strips of less than the 10-acre crops required for contests. He envisioned getting more than 600 bushels from one acre.
Over the years, average corn yields have climbed steeply, to 153 bushes per acre last year from 26.5 in 1932. The growers’ association said that if yields had remained the same as in 1932, a farm more than twice the size of Texas would have been needed to harvest last year’s crop of 13.07 billion bushels of corn.
In addition to making less land produce more corn, higher yields mean that soil that is more vulnerable to erosion need not be farmed. Also, the growing demand for corn for use to make ethanol to power cars might be met by higher yields.
Mr. Childs’s crops were so jungle-like that his combine had to move at a crawl to harvest the corn. A green thumb and luck with rain only partly explained such success: he strategized constantly, enlisted experts to give advice, and changed direction each of the many times he walked through his corn patch.
He plowed deeper than other farmers (many of whom no longer plow at all), planted genetically modified seeds very densely, used lots of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and tested the tissue of plants at different stages of growth. He often lectured on these techniques, and he was aggressive in his corn-crop methodology. “I like to push it,” he once said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
Francis R. Childs was born on Aug. 30, 1939, in Delaware County, Iowa. His father, Ross, entered crop-growing contests, and Francis followed suit when he took over the family farm in 1966. The next year, he won the Iowa corn contest.
But he did not win again for 20 years, attributing the dry spell to an unwillingness to innovate but not to his interest in competing in demolition derbies and tractor pulls. He operated a Polaris snowmobile shop for many years.
Environmentalists criticized Mr. Childs for his heavy use of fertilizer, saying it washed into the water supply. Others, including farmers who thought his achievements impossible and a former wife, accused him of cheating in contests.
These charges seemed to gain credibility in 2003 when he was disqualified from the national contest. But corn association officials attributed the problem to a procedural mistake by officials. He came back to win three national competitions, and five state ones. Mr. Childs, who lived in Falls City, Neb., and suffered a stroke last spring, is survived by his sons Kirk, of St. Anthony, Iowa, and Sam, of Manchester, Iowa; his daughters Kelly Childs, of Manchester, and Hannah Childs, of Marion, Iowa; and three grandchildren.
Fast-growing corn was not his only fascination with speed: he ferried visitors around his fields in a souped-up golf cart at 20 miles an hour. But he could be slow as a snail when it counted: he planted at just 2 m.p.h., to avoid mistakes.
And his calculations were meticulous. Mr. Childs figured that a three-day stretch of 90-degree weather in 2002 had cost him precisely one and three-tenths of a bushel of corn per day.
Francis Childs, 68, Dies; Sage of High Corn Yields
Sign In to E-Mail or Save This
Reprints
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By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: January 20, 2008
Francis Childs, a third-generation farmer who studied, schemed and tramped his fields with a spade to become the most productive corn grower ever, died on Jan. 9 in Marshall County, Iowa. He was 68.
Darrell Smith
Francis Childs, the first corn farmer to top 400 bushels an acre.
Carolynn Childs, his daughter-in-law, confirmed the death but declined to give a cause.
Mr. Childs shattered old notions of just how much corn could be coaxed from an acre of ground. He was the first farmer in a controlled contest to exceed 400 bushels an acre, achieving 405 in 2001 and 442 the next year.
Neighbors on land similar to his were getting yields just a third this size. When he passed 400 bushels, his nearest competitor trailed him by 85. In 1999, an Agriculture Department official watching the weigh-in of his 394 bushels likened the event to breaking the sound barrier, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The National Corn Growers Association ruled eight times that Mr. Childs’s yield per acre had won his category of its hotly contested annual competitions. He won the Iowa contest 18 times and the Nebraska one twice. He displayed the awards with pride on the bug screen of his pickup.
Max Starbuck, an official of the corn growers’ group, said that no one had yet broken Mr. Childs’s 442-bushel record in a contest and that he knew of no proven superior corn yield anywhere.
"Every farmer back in their heart somewhere has a dream to accomplish something like this," said Tim Burrack, who farmed near Mr. Childs.
In 2002, Mr. Childs told Iowa Farmer Today that he had recorded yields above 500 bushels an acre — the highest was 577 — in strips of less than the 10-acre crops required for contests. He envisioned getting more than 600 bushels from one acre.
Over the years, average corn yields have climbed steeply, to 153 bushes per acre last year from 26.5 in 1932. The growers’ association said that if yields had remained the same as in 1932, a farm more than twice the size of Texas would have been needed to harvest last year’s crop of 13.07 billion bushels of corn.
In addition to making less land produce more corn, higher yields mean that soil that is more vulnerable to erosion need not be farmed. Also, the growing demand for corn for use to make ethanol to power cars might be met by higher yields.
Mr. Childs’s crops were so jungle-like that his combine had to move at a crawl to harvest the corn. A green thumb and luck with rain only partly explained such success: he strategized constantly, enlisted experts to give advice, and changed direction each of the many times he walked through his corn patch.
He plowed deeper than other farmers (many of whom no longer plow at all), planted genetically modified seeds very densely, used lots of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and tested the tissue of plants at different stages of growth. He often lectured on these techniques, and he was aggressive in his corn-crop methodology. “I like to push it,” he once said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
Francis R. Childs was born on Aug. 30, 1939, in Delaware County, Iowa. His father, Ross, entered crop-growing contests, and Francis followed suit when he took over the family farm in 1966. The next year, he won the Iowa corn contest.
But he did not win again for 20 years, attributing the dry spell to an unwillingness to innovate but not to his interest in competing in demolition derbies and tractor pulls. He operated a Polaris snowmobile shop for many years.
Environmentalists criticized Mr. Childs for his heavy use of fertilizer, saying it washed into the water supply. Others, including farmers who thought his achievements impossible and a former wife, accused him of cheating in contests.
These charges seemed to gain credibility in 2003 when he was disqualified from the national contest. But corn association officials attributed the problem to a procedural mistake by officials. He came back to win three national competitions, and five state ones. Mr. Childs, who lived in Falls City, Neb., and suffered a stroke last spring, is survived by his sons Kirk, of St. Anthony, Iowa, and Sam, of Manchester, Iowa; his daughters Kelly Childs, of Manchester, and Hannah Childs, of Marion, Iowa; and three grandchildren.
Fast-growing corn was not his only fascination with speed: he ferried visitors around his fields in a souped-up golf cart at 20 miles an hour. But he could be slow as a snail when it counted: he planted at just 2 m.p.h., to avoid mistakes.
And his calculations were meticulous. Mr. Childs figured that a three-day stretch of 90-degree weather in 2002 had cost him precisely one and three-tenths of a bushel of corn per day.
10 acre field and high density planting, deep tillage, heavy on the plant food-- sounds like the French, Japanese and Italian corn fields. Few years back Rodale Press/Organic Gardening/SmallFarm had a couple articles about the high yields of small European fields practice- was a mention about Iowa farmer and Pensylvania Amish doing some big yields with the same practices- this may have been the Iowa farmer they referred to. Potential yields per acre depend some on potential yield per plant, nutrients available per plant and number of plants per acre- obvious factors there. Now if the vacant lots in Detroit were utilized for the high density planting of corn, veggies with the Chinese and Japanese, French manual labor/small machines the city populace could at least be 1/3- maybe 1/2- fed localy and unemployed youth given something useful to do, this projection based on population density and garden crop growth Paris, Osaka, Naples and the ScrieberGartens of Germany Teasing Alert! Or the corn would be run through the still for home consumption by the felony inclined populace. RN
Francie Childs has been dead for over 5 years now. His ex-wife has been having fun running him down ever since she caught him cheating on her. I hate a cheating spouse too but she has taken it to a new level. She caused him to have to quit farming. She has HALF the ground he farmed on. She does not understand that the more she runs him down she is running her kids down too. Enough on that.
Here are some facts:
1) I have met him and he has been on this farm.
2) He had knowledge that very few in the world have on growing corn.
3) He never farmed very much ground. Maybe a few hundred acres.
4) He had weaknesses that many people have. Fame magnifies these for the world to see.
5) The cheating she described could not have happened. There are on site inspectors while you harvest. They ride with you and every load. They watch every step of the harvest. She said the had wagons with loaded tires and switched them around to gain weight to make his high yields. Even if they where filled to the brim they would only have gained him maybe 30 bushels on the load/acre. So he still would have been in the High 300. After she stated this he still won his class. You can bet that he was watched like a hawk after she threw out he cheated.
6) He had very good ground to grow his record breaking crops on. There is just as good of ground right around him that others own. They never did get as high yields. They also never worked a field like he did. HE checked the record breaking fields twice a day at times. HE never let anything go before correcting it. So the neighbors that did not work it like that like to say he "cheated" to beat them.
7) The year he set the record we had weather like you would not believe. I had lower producing ground that yielded over 200 BPA that usually did not average 150 BPA.
8) Yes he cheated on his wife with a woman that was employed by Pioneer Seed. She lost her job and he lost half of his farm. I think that they both got punished enough. Do we need to keep beating the guy down years after he died just because we can????
9) The simple fact is the public built him up and then enjoyed tearing him down. He was basically driven from his community. People enjoyed doing it too. It was their "payback" for him doing something they could not or would not do.
10) We know more about raising high yielding corn because of Francis Childs. His ideas and practices have been studied and adopted WORLD wide. I would bet that if you plant corn you are effected by some of this knowledge. If you grow any modern hybrid corn then you are. All the companies studied his fields with a fine tooth comb.
May he rest in peace. His life was filled with ups and downs. His personal failing did not include not knowing how to grow a high yielding corn crop.
Here are some facts:
1) I have met him and he has been on this farm.
2) He had knowledge that very few in the world have on growing corn.
3) He never farmed very much ground. Maybe a few hundred acres.
4) He had weaknesses that many people have. Fame magnifies these for the world to see.
5) The cheating she described could not have happened. There are on site inspectors while you harvest. They ride with you and every load. They watch every step of the harvest. She said the had wagons with loaded tires and switched them around to gain weight to make his high yields. Even if they where filled to the brim they would only have gained him maybe 30 bushels on the load/acre. So he still would have been in the High 300. After she stated this he still won his class. You can bet that he was watched like a hawk after she threw out he cheated.
6) He had very good ground to grow his record breaking crops on. There is just as good of ground right around him that others own. They never did get as high yields. They also never worked a field like he did. HE checked the record breaking fields twice a day at times. HE never let anything go before correcting it. So the neighbors that did not work it like that like to say he "cheated" to beat them.
7) The year he set the record we had weather like you would not believe. I had lower producing ground that yielded over 200 BPA that usually did not average 150 BPA.
8) Yes he cheated on his wife with a woman that was employed by Pioneer Seed. She lost her job and he lost half of his farm. I think that they both got punished enough. Do we need to keep beating the guy down years after he died just because we can????
9) The simple fact is the public built him up and then enjoyed tearing him down. He was basically driven from his community. People enjoyed doing it too. It was their "payback" for him doing something they could not or would not do.
10) We know more about raising high yielding corn because of Francis Childs. His ideas and practices have been studied and adopted WORLD wide. I would bet that if you plant corn you are effected by some of this knowledge. If you grow any modern hybrid corn then you are. All the companies studied his fields with a fine tooth comb.
May he rest in peace. His life was filled with ups and downs. His personal failing did not include not knowing how to grow a high yielding corn crop.
The 10 acres is the field size needed for the crop records. Article noted he had some higher than record yields on about a acre- but that didn't count in contest since rules said 10 acre minimum field size. Rodale articles were on the smaller European fields and their practices- the rodale article had a side note that record yields by Iowa farmer used some of same European prctices and another on japanese farm practices did another comparison to large and small american farms, record setting Iowa farmer, Amish farm practice similar to the Japanese. Iowa farm probably has several 10 acre plots marked off for the record attempts, several experimentals that didn't meet contest standards. Local University test plots have several small fields with different corn lines and spacings, feltilizer usages and they like to use 3 to 5 acres for each experiment on practice- but the nearest to town open to public display uses about 1/2 acre for demonstration plantings- 100 foot by 200 foot markers then wide walkway, tractor access driveway seperating them. University garden next to fields has 200 pound pumpkins at times- the 25 mile away farm that records the monster pumpkins gets 500 pounders in and just has pictures of the Universities 'little guy'. That farm has 20 acres of pumpkins and most yield by weight is 20 to 30 pounders Atlantic Field and 15 pound New England Sweety Pie high sugar type that is basis of baby food processors. One 'monster' or 50 'little' Sweety Pies about same weight total, one is record others are lots of good eating. RN
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