Focus on Soybeans: Welcome to our new Internet listing of new soybean varieties

Monday, March 2, 2009

Long-time readers will be familiar with Better Farming's annual listing list of new soybean varieties. In 2009, for the first time we are publishing the list, developed by our editorial staff, on our website in a searchable form.

Go to www.betterfarming.com and look for a link to the listing on the right hand side.

Readers can search for new varieties by: maturity range, as indicated by appropriate corn heat units; name of the variety; the company marketing it; by special traits; and also by hilum colour.

The trait of typical seed size will not be searchable because it is not reported in a consistent manner. The companies marketing the seed provide the information and some prefer to report seed by the description of "large" or "small," while others refer to size in seeds per pound or per kilogram.

Not all distributors responded to our request for information and not all of them had new varieties available for sale for the first time in 2009.

In addition, the comments in the chart were provided by the distributors and breeders. For a more objective view on how soybean varieties perform in field tests, go the Ontario oilseed and protein committee's Web site at www.oopscc.org

The results published there are from a combination of private and public tests conducted by research institutions in Ontario.

Publishing on the Internet allows us to make the chart searchable and makes it easy to update the list as new soybean varieties become available closer to planting season. Let us know how you like the change. BF