Seed suppliers offer growers a wide spectrum of new varieties

Monday, February 28, 2011

by DON STONEMAN

With March futures pushing past the $14.50 a bushel level, and an uncertain harvest in the Southern Hemisphere's growing regions, soybeans are certain to occupy a share of the cropped land in Ontario fields from Essex to Earlton this summer.

Better Farming is again presenting Ontario's crop-growing farmers with a list of new soybean varieties, available to them for the first time in 2011. The list will be published on the Better Farming website (www.betterfarming.com) and will be updated as more varieties receive approval.

Seed suppliers are offering a wide spectrum of new varieties to growers, whether they are looking for premium returns from Identity Preserved seed aimed at the human food market or the newest genetically enhanced seed to make commodity production easier. Seed developers are also offering a variety of resistance and tolerance to different races of phytophthora root rot, soybean cyst nematode and other diseases.

Better Farming made an effort to contact all of the approximately 20 soybean seed distributors listed in the most recent report of the Ontario Oil and Protein Seed Committee report. Not all distributors responded to our request to submit their varieties for our chart, and not all of them who did had new varieties to offer growers in 2011. Some varieties had not received approval by press time.

The varieties are arranged by the corn heat unit area that the distributor recommends and special traits, such as resistance to certain weed killers and the suitability for specialty markets, are indicated. The chart lays out expected yields as described by the developer. For a more dispassionate view of the yield potential and strengths of these new varieties, go to the oil and protein seed committee's website at www.oopscc.org and download the latest report. BF