Editor's Note: U.S. wheat farmers entered the National Wheat Yield Contest in record numbers in 2024. DTN is featuring details about the farmers and their winning entries in several profiles. Today, we present the winner of the irrigated winter wheat category, who posted the highest yield entered in this year's contest.
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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (DTN) -- If once is an accident, twice is a coincidence and three times is a pattern, what does four times represent? In the case of Washington state wheat farmer Phillip Gross, the answer may be a legend.
For the fourth time in the nine-year history of the National Wheat Yield Contest, Gross submitted the top-yielding entry, besting more than 500 other entries this year. At 223.08 bushels per acre (bpa), his hard red winter wheat garnered the second-highest yield ever recorded in the contest and earned him "Bin Buster" honors in this year's irrigated winter wheat category. It also marked Gross' fifth time to top a category; in 2021, he also was named Bin Buster in irrigated spring wheat.
"It was a real pleasure harvesting this year," he said. "You could combine for whole stretches, and the yield monitor would never dip below 200 bushels. When you'd go through some 230s, 240s -- that's when we knew it was big time."
Organized by the National Wheat Foundation (NWF), the yield contest is designed to encourage wheat growers to strive for high yield, quality and profit while trying new and innovative management strategies. DTN/Progressive Farmer is the official media outlet of the competition.
With his accomplishment, Gross will have the opportunity to join other yield contest winners at a reception hosted by NWF during the 2025 Commodity Classic in Denver next March. His wheat will be analyzed for milling and baking qualities, and quality winners will be announced in January.
THE VARIETY
Farming in the rain shadow of the Cascade Mountains in eastern Washington offers a unique set of challenges. Characterized by hot, dry summers and cold winters, the region's climate offers conditions that can favor wheat production -- or bring it to its knees. Irrigation is a necessity.
Identifying wheat that excels here is one of Gross' priorities. Each year, he conducts strip trials of at least an acre on numerous varieties, even those intended for other portions of the country.
"We like to bring them in and see how they perform with our local microclimate, our soils and our microbes," he explained. "There's always winners, and there's always ones on the bottom end. But there's one variety, Jet, that just seems to be a real powerhouse."
Offered by Limagrain Cereal Seeds, the company claims that the variety is the most widely grown hard red winter wheat in the Pacific Northwest. Limagrain describes Jet as having broad adaptation and strong performance under low, intermediate and high rainfall environments in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana. It is rated with intermediate tolerance to Cephalosporium stripe and stripe rust, and resistance to strawbreaker foot rot and crown rot.
"It's been a really stellar variety for us," Gross said, noting that this is the third time he's taken the variety to the top spot in the irrigated winter wheat category. "We have a bunch of different strains of stripe rust that move through every few years, and Jet seems to be able to handle most of them fairly well. It seems to avoid head scab for the most part and has more of a stay-green characteristic."
THE FIELD
Gross' winning entry was planted on Sept. 15, 2023, in a conventionally tilled field behind a crop of sweet corn. The field received about an inch of irrigation prior to planting.
Using a custom-made 60-foot double-disc drill with Great Plains openers, he planted the wheat in 7.5-inch rows. The seed was treated with CruiserMaxx Vibrance, which combines four active ingredients including three fungicides and one insecticide.
"We really focused on healthy roots and the root zone microclimate," he said. "In addition to our usual broadcast fertilizer package, our in-furrow program contained some trace minerals, some biologicals, carbon to feed those bacteria, and then a cocktail of acids and enzymes, seaweed products and desert plant extracts, even a tiny amount of wood vinegar.
"My motto is 'It's only crazy if it doesn't work,'" he added.
Gross described the fall growing conditions as excellent with warm, sunny days that had the wheat leaping out of the ground. He noted that emergence and tiller counts were both above average before winter hit.
"But winter was brutal," he said. "We had really cold winds and no snow cover. A lot of the wheat was within an inch of death, but there was life left in those crowns."
As spring arrived and temperatures increased, Gross applied herbicides to control both grass and broadleaf weeds, along with a fungicide and a top-dress fertilizer pass. Then, he turned on the water. The winning field received a total of 15 inches.
"A lot of years, you'll get hot winds that suck out the moisture and shrivel the grain," he said. "This year, we had some of the best flowering and head-fill temperatures that we've seen in a long time."
While stripe rust did come in hard in his area, with high pressure in some fields, it came in late. He said for the most part, his initial fungicide pass was all he required, though he heard reports of some fields receiving as many as three.
Gross explained that while he enjoys the contest, the crop management he employs is more about pushing the boundaries of what's possible in terms of yield. He said he tries not to speculate on how high yields could climb because putting a number on it might hinder what's possible.
"There's this huge, relatively unknown world beneath our feet," he said. "The bacteria, the fungi, the protozoa, the nematodes and how that whole system works is what I find interesting and intriguing.
"There are so many things out of our control," Gross concluded. "So, a lot of the time, we seed on faith, try our best and let the good Lord do the rest."
Winners in the 2024 National Wheat Yield Contest Irrigated Winter Wheat Category include:
Bin Buster: Phillip Gross
Warden, Washington
Variety: Limagrain Cereal Seeds Jet
Yield: 223.08 bpa
First Place: Oree Reynolds
Castleford, Idaho
Variety: WestBred WB1621
Yield: 220.81 bpa
Second Place: Zach Balahtsis
Tonkawa, Oklahoma
Variety: Limagrain Cereal Seeds Warbird AX
Yield: 177.52 bpa
More on the 2024 National Wheat Yield Contest can be found here: https://www.dtnpf.com/…
To see profiles of other winners:
"Dryland Winter Wheat Winner," https://www.dtnpf.com/…
"Irrigated Spring Wheat Winner," https://www.dtnpf.com/…
"Dryland Spring Wheat Winnter," https://www.dtnpf.com/…
For more information on the yield contest and to view past winners, go to: https://www.wheatcontest.org/…
Jason Jenkins can be reached at jason.jenkins@dtn.com
Follow him on social platform X @JasonJenkinsDTN
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