14 Ate Today? Thank a Farmer. Better Farming | January 2025 PICKING THE RIGHT SEED With harvest wrapped up and the new calendar year beginning, the most important task that remains is picking the right variety/hybrid for the 2025 growing season. In years past, this was a straightforward process; yield was the key factor that most growers looked at. Fast forward to the 2025 growing season and a lot of other factors come into play. Factors like herbicide resistance and weed management, disease control, economics, and yes, still on top, yield, are part of the decision-making process. At the end of the day, looking at all these factors will provide you with the best varieties/hybrids for next year’s growing season. I will use soybeans as my example of considerations to look at when picking a soybean variety. Keep in mind that the same principles hold true for corn and other crops. In many geographies across Eastern Canada, various weeds are resistant to many herbicides on the market. Know- ing what weeds are resistant to specific chemistries is vital in ensuring herbicide traits will work on your farm. Consider multiple modes of action traits when picking your seed. Multiple modes of action allow you to have variable tools in the toolbox to spray different herbicide programs on different fields. Gone are the days of a simple one-pass, one herbicide program to actively clean up weeds. Knowing the weed spectrum for each field is critical in picking a variety and herbicide program. An example of a multiple mode of action trait for soybeans would be Enlist E3. It has three specific herbicide traits that can be used on your farm as tools in the toolbox: Glyphosate, glufosinate and 2,4-D choline. Combined with a programs approach of using a residual post/pre-emerge strengthens not only weed control and yield outcome but will ensure longevity of herbicide traits for growers in the future. In my specific geography, disease management is becoming increasingly important. Over the last 30 years the landscape has changed from a livestock diverse crop rotation one to more of a soybean-corn rotation. Over the years, white mould has been the No. 1 disease in soybeans. More recently, newer diseases like soybean cyst nematode, sudden death syndrome and brown stem rot have shown up in our area. Knowing these disease symptoms and where they are found on your farm is critical in soybean seed selection. Newer genetics of today have different scores for each disease. One variety may be higher in white mould tolerance, but lower in brown stem rot, as an example. If you historically do not have white mould on your farm but higher disease presence of brown stem rot and pick a variety just based on the white mould trait and its yield, it could mean disaster in a high brown stem rot disease year. We saw this in 2024 and in our research plots. White mould presence was much lower, but brown stem rot was much higher. This allowed us to screen out weaker experimental products with lower brown stem rot scores, thus advancing the higher-tolerant ones that will be evaluated in grower fields in 2025. Other factors come into play as well. Relative maturity is important, especially if one is looking at planting winter wheat after soybeans. Harvest standability scores are critical and go hand-in-hand with white mould ratings Paul Hermans photo THE SEED SELECTION TEST PICKING THE RIGHT SEED FOR #PLANT2025 BY PAUL HERMANS
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