March 13, 2009

Farmers called to nominate soybean varieties for trial testing

 The program is a joint venture between the Indiana Soybean Alliance and the Purdue Crop Performance Program. It is designed to provide Indiana growers and company participants with quality comparative non-biased variety performance data.

"To nominate a soybean variety, all farmers need to do is go to our Web site, or the Indiana Soybean Alliance Web site, and fill out the application," said Phil DeVillez, director of the Purdue Crop Performance Program.

The application, at https://www.agry.purdue.edu/pcpp/farmer-nomination.html, asks only for county of residence, variety nominated and the reason for the nomination.

"It can be any reason at all," DeVillez said. "Something as simple as, 'it was my neighbor's best variety,' or 'it's the variety that I like best.'"

Before nominating a variety, farmers should check the Purdue Crop Performance Program Web site, https://www.agry.purdue.edu/pcpp/, to see if the company has submitted it for testing. Last year, 11 soybean varieties were tested in the farmer-nominated program. DeVillez hopes for 25 farmer-nominated varieties this year.

Farmers will not only have yield information for varieties in the trial program, but also gross dollars per acre, lodging and stand information.

"Last year we noticed we had farmer-nominated varieties that were Vistive™, and those are specialty traits that farmers get a premium for," DeVillez said. "We want to give better information to farmers and allow them to compare the varieties on an equal playing field. Even if the variety yields a little less, if they get a premium that makes up for the yield loss, then we want to be able to show that."

Vistive™ soybeans are low in linolenic oil, which food companies can use to help eliminate trans fat from processed foods.

Also new for the 2009 program, DeVillez said, is that farmers will be able to sort the data. All of the tables can be sorted by the different columns.

"Whether you're looking at yield or you want to compare the gross dollars per acre or you're looking at lodging and you want a variety that stands extremely well, you can click and sort the column headings and organize the results by the characteristic that is most important to you," he said.

Writer: Julie Douglas, 765-496-1050, douglajk@purdue.edu

Source: Phil DeVillez, 765-494-0406, pld@purdue.edu

Ag Communications: (765) 494-2722;
Beth Forbes, forbes@purdue.edu
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