News Profiles Meet XtremeAg's Chad Henderson Chad Henderson transitioned from cotton to corn with record yields and shares collaborative wisdom through XtremeAg. By Chelsea Dinterman Chelsea Dinterman Chelsea Dinterman grew up in rural Maryland where she was active in 4-H and FFA. She spent a year working for an agricultural newspaper in Southeast Kansas before joining the Successful Farming agronomy team in January 2022. Successful Farming's Editorial Guidelines Published on September 5, 2023 Close Until 2006, fifth-generation farmer Chad Henderson was mainly producing cotton in Madison, Alabama. “I didn’t have any irrigated acres and I was trying to make a living on 600 pounds of cotton,” Henderson says. “I was penciled out to make $75 an acre, and you can’t trade equipment or do anything with that.” When the construction of three grain bins presented the opportunity to switch the operation to corn, Henderson didn’t look back. In his first year, he planted 1,400 acres of corn and had to replant nearly all of it because of an Easter freeze. Today, Henderson farms more than 7,000 acres, holds a corn yield record for the state of Alabama, and is a member of XtremeAg, a team of the nation’s top producers who have come together to share their experience, expertise, knowledge, and farming practices with other farmers. SF: Who has influenced your view of farming? CH: My family is why I do it. We do it to try to keep the next generation going. My dad was good enough to turn over the reins and give us room to fail. Now my son’s working on the farm, and I hope that I can [also] turn over those reins. It’s really hard to turn over those reins and give him room to fail while you're here to pick them up and tell him it's all right. SF: Do you have any words of advice for others since you've been both the son of a farmer and now the farmer of a farmer? CH: If you won't let your son make decisions and fail while you're there to help him and talk him through decisions, shame on you. I always know I have a bad idea when my dad looks at me and says, “Run that by me one more time.” Then I know I probably need to second-guess what I’m fixing to try. I hope that I’m patient enough with my son, and with other young farmers, to answer their questions correctly. When you answer questions, it’s not always a yes or no.It’s about giving them all the detail you can about your experience and how things happened to you. SF: What has XtremeAg meant to you as a farmer? CH: We all met each other at a Hefty field day in South Dakota. I was invited up there to be in one of their corn trials and enjoyed being around these other high-yield farmers who thought the way I thought. The relationships we’ve built with each other, and with people in the ag business, are stronger than we could have ever dreamed. You can’t put a dollar figure on how it has helped my farm to be able to bounce ideas off of these people. SF: What advice would you give your fellow farmers? CH: Find something to research and develop. Every business besides farmers has research and development. Farmers don’t. We take ad-vice from really good people and agronomists and people that we’re blessed to know. Find a spot on your farm and fix one thing. Don’t try to fix everything because that will drive you crazy. Just try to fix one thing at a time and then just work through that on your farm. Nobody is smarter on your farm than you are. Nobody walks those fields every day like you do. Don’t sell yourself short on what you know about your piece of ground. Also, use the people at your disposal to ask questions. The only dumb question is one that’s not asked. Background: When he’s not farming, Chad Henderson is pursuing his other passion: drag racing. He says car racing has had a profound impact on his farming practice. “When you start looking at everything like you would monitor a race car, you start picking the details apart. That attention to detail has made me who I am,” says Henderson. Much like racing cars, Henderson says he likes to push the limits on his farm, allowing him to become the Alabama corn yield record holder with a yield of 355 bushels per acre. Was this page helpful? Thanks for your feedback! Tell us why! Other Submit