100 bushels new target for soybeans

URBANDALE, Iowa — In some areas today, 100-bushel soybean yields have become the new standard.

Jared Benson, soybean product manager at NK Seeds, said he envisions every farm in the not-too-distant future averaging at least 100 bushels an acre.

“It’s there. The yield potential is there. It’s just a matter of making sure that we have the right defensive packages paired together — making sure that we have those management systems in place to be able to deliver on those genetics,” he said.

How have some growers already achieved that level?

“A lot of that comes down to their dedication to be able to appropriately manage their soil health and their environments and their inputs and to be able to pick the right varieties — and when you have those combinations coming together, you can really have success,” Benson said.

But success is not just harvesting bin-busting yields in good years. It is enjoying a big harvest in bad years, too.

“When the weather and the environments become unpredictable, we want to have predictable performance,” Benson said. “We’re intentionally trying to make sure that we breed for products and select for products that do well in those tough conditions and in those great conditions.”

That routine process, year in and year out, has allowed NK Seeds to build up a superior germplasm pool.

“That’s one of the benefits that we see here at NK is that we have access and have built up over our long history of over 54 years of breeding to be able to have one of the most diverse and largest proprietary sources of germplasm available to be able to identify and pull out those genetic sources of resistance to be able to build into these products today,” Benson said.

With its new trait integration pipeline, the company is able to bring new seed to the market in as little as three years.

Benson works with those research and development teams to make sure they understand market trends and opportunities and growers’ needs.

“We focus pretty hard on getting that out quickly,” he said. “We’ve done a great job to make sure that we can innovate, to be able to get those products out to customers as soon as possible.”

Looking ahead to the soybean varieties for next year, Benson said he would describe them with three words: versatility, reliability and market-shaping.

“I am really glad and excited about the products that we have coming for the 2024 planting season,” he said.

“If I had to describe them from three different words, those words will probably be ‘versatility,’ being able to handle a variety of management practices, from early planting to full season to double cropping; to ‘reliability,’ products that are going to perform not only in the great conditions, but in the tough stress acres; and then also ‘market-shaping,’ as we’re leading on alternate sources of cyst nematode resistance, like Peking.”

Benson suggested growers peruse the Field Forged Series portfolio.

“Field Forged represents the top-performing products that have consistency, broad adaptability and really have proven performance and those are going to be the products that are going to do well,” he said.

He noted Illinois, in particular, is such a big state that recommended varieties can vary from NK30-U4XF in the south to the earlier NK17-M2XF in the north.

“Really, the key is we want to be able to have products that have easy placement and Field Forged is one of those ways to help us to deliver that — again, products that we know are going to do well, have consistently proven and are really the top of the line for performance on the offensive side and those defensive traits also,” he said.

Both choice and flexibility are important when selecting seed.

“It’s all about being able to deliver to farmers so that they can succeed on their ground,” Benson said.

“We want them to be able to have the best tools available to them to be able to manage their operations, so whether or not that’s coming through what they’re going to mix in their tank, being able to have that right application window that they want to go through, or even being able to match the chemistry to the weeds that they have on their acres.”

As growers plant soybeans earlier, they need to adjust their weed-control strategies, as well.

“If you want to be able to leverage that early planting window, you need to make sure that you have that defensive package prepared, so that way you can best have that stand available to produce that yield in August, when that’s really going to be pouring on, when you have more green leaf vegetative area, to be able to accept that radiation, that solar energy, to be able to put it into the seed,” Benson said.

“The XtendFlex soybean trait or the Enlist E3 soybean trait, those are going to give you the widest opportunity to be able to manage the weeds that you have on your acres,” he said.

“There’s also a lot of great disease packages that we need to come through, and that’s where that stacked Phytophthora is really going to come into play — you can be sure to have good field tolerance to those Phytophthora, Pythium diseases that are going to be much more prevalent with those wet soil conditions.”