#plant14

#Farmers take to twitter to discuss #plant14 problems

As the harvest gets underway, many of you will be sitting in your combines watching the yield monitor as you move through your fields. It's an exciting moment, especially when yields end up higher than expected. It makes all those hours behind the wheel seem so worthwhile. But probably the most important question in the back of your mind is: 

Should I plant this product again next year? 

It turns out that, like the stock market, a hybrid or variety's past performance does not always indicate future returns. Selecting which genetics to plant next year is probably one of the hardest but also the most important decisions you can make.

To help you think it through, we've written a three part guide to seed selection. This week we're publishing Part One: which data should you look at?

Ford vs Chevy vs Dodge

Many farmers ask us: is there really any difference between the brands? Surely it's just like Ford, Chevy and Dodge - the badge is different but what's under the hood is essentially the same. Our short answer is: not all all. There are quite a lot of differences between brands, but there are actually even more differences within a company's product line.

The truth is that every seed company has a few dogs, a few All Stars, and a few average Joes. The question is: can you figure out which is which and then select the best hybrids and varieties for each field? 

Data, data, data

You alone can decide which data to listen to. Our suggestion is to start out by looking at your combine data - what did you plant? in what soil types? which varieties performed and why?

It's important to have a good view of the genetic packages you will be planting - e.g. the relative maturities you are targeting, technology preferences, plant characteristics, and different soil types. For each of these fields you can create a short list of your preferred products. 

You can then take this short list of products and their on-farm performance and compare it against other field trials. 

Independent, reliable, third-party data

There is a lot of third party trial data out there. But it's hard to know who's data to trust. Let's safely assume that if the company is selling the seed, then they are quite likely to tell you their product is better than everyone else's. And your local retailer / coop is likely to be pushing his favoured product.

We'd suggest that you look to independent third party seed testers like the universities (e.g University of Illinois, Purdue, Iowa State) or FIRST Seed Tests (for full disclosure: Yield Pop works with FIRST and universities to present trial data in an easy to use digital format). 

Admittedly these organisations are also paid by seed companies to run trials, but at least there is no incentive for them to cherry pick the results - once they've planted the trial, they have earned their fee. They let the product speak for itself. 

The important thing here is to make sure they run their trials in a rigorous way with the right number of replications. Also, do they make information available about the planting date, the population density, the fertility program, the amount of local rainfall? All these factors influence the final yield - you need to filter out the noise and focus on the data which is relevant to your farm.

Once you've selected your trusted data sources, the next step is to figure out which numbers to listen to.