Why helping with the Illinois Yield Challenge, since its inception in 2009, interested me and why Illinois needed this initiative. After a career in the fertilizer industry I have been doing contract agronomy work with chemical companies, primarily BASF, and have always been interested in increasing soybean yield. I attended the first Soy Yield Challenge organizational meeting in 2009. At that time many farmers were frustrated with soybean yields. They were having a lot of success raising corn yields, but they were hitting a plateau with soybeans. Chemical and seed companies were also anxious to help push soybean yields [...]