'One of a kind' soybean variety wins annual seed breeding award

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

by MATT MCINTOSH

OAC Bayfield received the 2013 Seed of the Year award, and is a one of a kind soybean variety, says a recent Seed of the Year press release.

Seed of the Year is a competition designed to highlight successes in public breeding, and is set up by the University of Guelph and SeCan.

"OAC Bayfield is the ninth winner of the annual competition," says Martin Harry, eastern marketing manager for SeCan. "The variety has done very well in Ontario; this is the twentieth anniversary of it entering the market, and we still have people growing it."

According to the press release, most crop varieties stay in the market for about two to four years.

The press release also says that the success of OAC Bayfield comes from, among other things, the variety's good seed quality, higher-than-average protein content, and its use as a genetic parent in the creation of new soybean varieties.

OAC Kent, one of the varieties produced using OAC Bayfield, won the competition in 2008.

"The competition now has both a western and eastern division," says Harry. "Any publically developed Canadian seed variety can compete."

The Seed of the Year competition is backed by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and a number of other commodity organizations. BF