DEMAND NEW HOLLAND https://agriculture.newholland.com/nar/en-us Ebert Welding Ltd. New Liskeard • 705-647-6896 ESM Farm Equipment Ltd. Wallenstein • 519-669-5176 Maxville Farm Machinery Ltd. Maxville • 613-527-2834 McCauley Equipment Sales Orillia • 705-325-4424 Oneida New Holland Caledonia • 905-765-5011 Oneida New Holland St Catharines • 905-688-5160 Regional Tractor Sales Ltd. Freelton • 905-659-1094 Richards Equipment Inc. Barrie • 705-721-5530 Robert’s Farm Equipment Sales, Inc. Chesley • 519-363-3192 Robert’s Farm Equipment Sales, Inc. Mount Forest • 519-323-2755 Robert’s Farm Equipment Sales, Inc. Walton • 519-887-6365 Smiths Farm Equipment (Jasper) Ltd. Jasper • 613-283-1758 Stewart’s Equipment Erin • 519-833-9616 PAUL HERMANS Paul is the 2024 International Certified Crop Advisor of the Year. He is an area agronomist in Eastern Ontario with Corteva Agriscience. if that disease is of concern in your geography. Picking the right product for the right acre comes down to field scouting and knowing what issues are causing problems on your farm. In-season note-taking and talking with seed and input suppliers all help with this process. Predicting future performance and what is the best product to grow next year is the million-dollar question I get asked about a lot. To address this question, I always look at past performance as the best indicator of future performance. This is where you must take the emotional side of seed selection, place it aside, and look at data across multiple years and multiple environments (soil, types, management practices, weather conditions, etc.) in local and surrounding area plots. For soybeans, I like looking at 30 sets of data to predict performance in my local area. Combining this with similar data sets in geographies to the west and east of me helps build that data set. Statistical work has been done on picking the right hybrid based on yield differences and the number of environments. As you can see by the chart, if we have one environment (plot), you have a 51 per cent chance of picking the right variety if there is a two-bushel difference between products. If you look at 30 sets of data, that percentage of picking the right product jumps to 75 per cent. That is where using company and university data comes into play to supplement your own on-farm plot data. If someone wants you to buy a product off one plot, be wary! Would this product have the same performance as last year? Was the product trial replicated? The 2024 season had its challenges, and with excessive moisture in many areas, drainage, soil topography, and water infiltration may have been the differences in why Product A outyielded Product B. Be specific on where you pull your data from as well. For example, I look heavily at soybean data from Eastern Ontario and Quebec more than Southern Ontario for white mould differences in products. In these geographies we tend to have more mould pressure than Southern Ontario, so data from this type of environment suits my customer base better. In the end, take the time to scour company websites for plot data. Talk to your trusted seed advisors reviewing data. These advisors see a lot of other issues in your area that you may not be aware of. Doing a little bit of homework will help you pass the seed selection test with flying colours. Happy New Year! May 2025 be your best crop production year yet, and may you be blessed with health and happiness. BF PICKING THE RIGHT SEED ODDS OF SELECTING THE RIGHT VARIETY 1 60% 52% 51% 10 90% 75% 65% 30 95% 90% 75% 200 98% 95% 93% NUMBER OF 4 Bu 2 Bu 1 Bu ENVIRONMENTS Measured Yield Difference Between Two Varieties
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