While fighting blowing snow and bitter wind chills, it’s a welcome relief to think about spring! I know many farmers, including myself, are getting equipment ready for tillage and planting. It’s also a good time to review your seed order.
I expect most orders were placed with thoughtful consideration of the 2016 results, including university, F.I.R.S.T. yield trials and dealer plots. While this is all important data, keep in mind it represents information that was recorded in one location during one growing season.
Also keep in mind that on-farm plots might be impacted by variables you would be unaware of unless you walked the plot throughout the growing season. For example, if a sprayer wheel track accidentally ran over part or all of the plants in a row, the yield of that hybrid could be affected significantly. If the wheel track happens to run over part of a row on a check hybrid, that yield reduction would affect hybrids on both sides of the check.
Two more areas to consider when selecting seed are soil type and disease. Plants respond differently in various growing conditions. It’s also important to know field history. For example, once you’ve had white mold or Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS) in a field, it has the potential to cause yield loss every time you plant soybeans there in the future. That’s why it’s especially important to know how well different brands handle SDS and white mold.
Be sure to check out our performance in the 2016 F.I.R.S.T. Trials. Latham won a record-setting 42 trials! Our corn program produced 17 first place winners and 199 total Top 10 finishes; our soybean program produced 25 first place finishes and 185 total Top 10 finishes. These stats show just how deep and wide our product line is.
Latham’s sales and product teams are at your service! Call us at 1.877.GO.LATHAM (1.877.465.2842), and we’ll gladly help you choose the right seed, field-by-field!
Latham Hi‑Tech Seeds helps simplify the seed selection process through our Seed-2-Soil® agronomic services. We help maximize your yield potential by focusing on four key areas:
- FieldXField crop planning: Your farm management style, equipment and overall production goals, along with our research and performance data for each hybrid, is taken into account when we help you select the best Latham hybrid in each field. Seed placement helps reduce risk and increases your likelihood of top performance.
- Nutrient management: Research shows that fertility programs influence plant performance and yield by as much as 60%, so nutrient management includes the use of foliar leaf sampling to help manage micro and macro nutrients. There are 17 essential nutrients for plant development, and each one is important in various amounts. We also look at variable rate planting to help manage populations specific to field conditions and hybrid tendencies.
- Seed treatments: It’s important to treat seed with proper fungicides and insecticides to protect your growing crop from insects and diseases. Farmers who invested in seed treatments last year were very glad their crops had extra protection. (See Mark Grundmeier’s column in this issue for specific results.) Research shows that seed treatment is the best defense against disease. Choose a treatment like Latham’s SoyShield fungicide or SoyShield PLUS that is a fungicide-insecticide combination to help protect early-planted seed against the unexpected.
- Agronomic information: Latham Seeds provides agronomic tools to help choose the right hybrids. You’ll find loads of information on our blog, TheFieldPosition.com. On our website, lathamseeds.com, you’ll find product tech sheets, seed placement recommendations, and companion hybrid recommendations, as well as yield data from strip trials and unbiased independent third party trial results.