The National Wheat Foundation (NWF) has named the 28 national winners of its 11th National Wheat Yield Contest, and for the second year in a row, and the third time in five seasons, Rylee Reynolds of Twin Falls, Idaho, beat every entry. His irrigated winter wheat yielded 214.16 bushels per acre (about 14.4 tonnes a hectare), earning him the "Bin Buster" title in that category. He set the contest record in 2022 with 231.37 bushels of irrigated soft white winter wheat.
Two other growers repeated as Bin Busters. Dallin Wilcox of Rexburg, Idaho, won irrigated spring wheat with hard white spring wheat at 175.35 bushels an acre, and Helle and Bruce Ruddenklau of Amity, Oregon, took dryland spring wheat at 144.34 bushels. Jake Druffel of Colton, Washington, won his first Bin Buster title in dryland winter wheat with soft white winter wheat at 196.12 bushels.
NWF executive director Anne Osborne said entries fell this year because of smaller plantings and drought across many wheat regions, yet 15 of the 28 national winners won for the first time, many of them on their first entry. "I would argue it's not beginner's luck," she said, crediting what earlier winners have shared about growing high-quality, high-yielding wheat.
Awards also went to dryland growers who beat their county's five-year average by the widest margin. Matt Dornan of Chandler, Oklahoma, grew hard red winter wheat at 110.33 bushels, 276.03 percent above his county average of 29.34, and Michael Wood of Joplin, Montana, grew hard red spring wheat at 90.52 bushels, 219.18 percent above his county's 28.36. The 24 winners in the four traditional categories, from 10 states, averaged 146.40 bushels, slightly below last year's 147.01, while dryland winter wheat winners set a record average of 176.10 bushels.
In a third year of a pilot Digital Yield category, growers used data from tools such as John Deere Operations Center, Climate FieldView or Bushel and calibrated grain-cart scales to report yield from a 20-acre area. The 28 national winners must send a 10-pound sample for milling and baking tests, with quality winners due in mid-January 2027.
From 2027 the contest will name 30 national winners, including eight Bin Busters, as winter wheat entries are split by class into soft red, soft white, and hard red and white, and new dryland and irrigated durum categories are added.
Photo: JF Hobbs / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Source: Northern Ag Network
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