Iowa Corn Honors Curt Jones with the 2024 Iowa Corn Walter Goeppinger Lifetime Achievement Award

Oct 01, 2024

Iowa Corn is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024 Iowa Corn Walter Goeppinger Lifetime Achievement Award. This annual recognition is presented to an individual who has been a friend and active leader of Iowa Corn. This year, we proudly honored Curt Jones with the 2024 Iowa Corn Walter Goeppinger Lifetime Achievement Award for his years of leadership to our organization and impact to Iowa Corn Promotion Board’s research efforts.

The beginning of Iowa Corn can be traced back to 1957 when founder Walter Goeppinger, of Boone, Iowa, had a vision for a grassroots-driven group to support corn farming and rallied his friends and neighbors together to create the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA). In 1967, Goeppinger helped create the Iowa Corn Growers Association, the first state corn group in the country. Then in 1977, he was instrumental in establishing the nation’s first corn checkoff program, the Iowa Corn Promotion Board (ICPB). To keep the story of Goeppinger’s contributions to our corn industry alive for generations to come, in 2016, Iowa Corn established the Walter Goeppinger Lifetime Achievement Award in his honor. Each year, the joint board of directors selects an individual with outstanding service and commitment to advancing the corn industry.

Those who have had the privilege to work with and serve beside Curt Jones know the dedicated and steadfast passion he has for the agriculture industry. As a leader Curt was an excellent listener and while not always the first to speak up, when he did choose to add to a conversation, he was very effective in communicating his ideas and thoughts. When Curt spoke, people listened.

Curt’s involvement with Iowa Corn started in the 1990s at the local level in Clay County. With the support of his wife, Mary Ellen, Curt quickly began rising through the ranks and got engaged in both NCGA and served as chair of the ICPB. He found his real passion for industry and farming coexisted through the research committee. His passion for research made him pivotal in identifying new opportunities to improve corn production and utilization. 

Curt was instrumental in transitioning the way ICPB does research from funding general projects to targeting specific markets that have a practical impact for corn farmers, this has helped to set the path for research projects we do today.  He was an advocate for using consultants with expertise in the field and saw an opportunity to work with start-up companies. Curt believed that NCGA and state corn organizations should work together to develop new uses for corn, something that we are doing today with the New Uses Consortium.

Curt’s contributions, including securing funding for sequencing the corn genome and advancing research in nitrogen use efficiency, as well as pioneering new uses for corn such as monoethylene glycol (MEG) and propylene glycol (PG), which have profoundly shaped the future of agriculture.

Curt’s visionary approach to research, characterized by his advocacy for practical applications and strategic partnerships, not only propelled Iowa Corn forward but also set new standards for research excellence and industry collaboration. We thank Curt for his years of dedication and appreciate all that he has helped us achieve on behalf of Iowa’s corn farmers.

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Video: Turning Plant Defense Into a Management Strategy

Turning Plant Defense Into a Management Strategy

Understanding how a plant responds to stress is one thing.

Using that knowledge to make better management decisions is another.

Systemic acquired resistance, or SAR, is the plant's more direct defense response. When stress or infection occurs, the plant begins signaling throughout its system and preparing defensive compounds.

But if we know that response exists, can we help prepare the plant before the stress arrives?

The answer starts with understanding what triggers the response and what the plant needs to carry it out.

The Trigger and the Fuel

Salicylic acid plays an important role in triggering the SAR pathway.

Think of it as turning the truck on.

The engine may be running, but it still needs fuel to do the work.

In this case, manganese plays an important role in supporting the enzyme systems involved in the plant's defensive response.

This makes manganese status an important part of the conversation. Whether a producer is using tissue testing, sap analysis, or simply scouting for visible deficiency symptoms, the goal is to make sure the plant has adequate manganese available.

Manganese is required in relatively small amounts, but that does not make its role small.

If the plant receives a signal to defend itself but lacks the nutrition needed to support that response, it may struggle to carry out the process efficiently.

The trigger matters.

The fuel matters too.

Prepare Before the Stress Arrives

The best time to think about stress management is before the plant is overwhelmed.

Once a crop is already struggling, management can quickly turn into a game of catch-up.

This is similar to nitrogen management. Once a plant becomes severely deficient, correcting the problem does not necessarily erase the time and yield potential already lost.

Plant defense can work the same way.

Low-rate, targeted approaches designed to support the SAR pathway may fit best ahead of an expected stress event rather than after significant damage has already occurred.

That requires producers to think about predictable stress.

We may not know exactly what the weather will do tomorrow, but we generally know summer heat is coming. We know certain field conditions increase disease pressure. We know a herbicide application can temporarily stress a crop as the plant processes the chemistry.

Even a properly timed and labeled herbicide application can create a temporary response in the plant.

That does not mean the herbicide is bad.

Weeds can create significantly more yield loss than the temporary stress caused by controlling them.

The question is not whether we should eliminate every stressor.

The question is whether we can better prepare the plant to manage necessary and predictable stress.

Not All Stress Is Bad

Stress is a normal part of plant growth.

A perfectly stress-free environment does not exist in the field.

In fact, some stress is necessary for normal plant development. A plant responds to wind, temperature, moisture, sunlight, and countless other environmental signals throughout the season.

The environment is stress.

The plant's job is to manage it.

Problems begin when the stress load becomes greater than the plant's ability to respond.

Extreme heat, drought, high salt concentrations, disease pressure, and even certain management practices can add to that load.

This is where understanding SAR becomes useful.

Instead of waiting until the plant is visibly struggling, producers can begin identifying periods when stress is likely and make management decisions around those windows.

ISR Starts With the Soil

While SAR is a more direct defense response, induced systemic resistance, or ISR, brings the conversation back to soil health.

The longevity of a farm is closely connected to the health of its soil.

Carbon plays a major role because it supports biological life within the soil. Bacteria, fungi, and other organisms interact with plant roots and influence how the plant grows, accesses nutrients, and prepares for stress.

This is why soil health cannot be reduced to one product or one application.

It is a system.

Keeping living plants in the field longer can support biological activity. Cover crops may fit some operations. Better water management can improve soil conditions.