Initially the competition covered four regions: Waikato, Bay of Plenty, East Coast and Manawatu, and was later expanded to include the area north of Auckland.

All on-farm trial co-operators are automatically entered into the Pioneer^® brand seeds Maize for Grain Yield Competition by region. Each regional competition includes early, mid and late maturity groups. The overall regional winner is the grower with the highest yield from a commercial Pioneer hybrid in any given maturity group.

The Pioneer National Yield Cup is awarded to the highest yielding regional winner.