There’s been much concern and speculation about the potential seed quality from the 2008 soybean crop. The delayed planting and cold wet conditions during and immediately following planting had many people convinced that most fields would not be able to make even the minimum standards required for seed conditioning. I’m happy to report that these concerns seem to be unfounded! We’ve been blessed with an excellent seed crop.

We don’t have all the germination reports back yet from our composite bin samples, but what reports we do have are all testing in the upper 90s. Most germination reports range from 97 to 99 percent! Reports on conditioned lots including L2085R, L2158R and L2348R are all running in that same range.

Seed size does not appear to be as big of concern as was initially feared. While some varieties may have slightly smaller seed size, others are similar to last year. The overall net effect will be minimal, perhaps just a bit smaller on average as compared to the 2007 crop.

In general, the 2008 seed crop looks to be an excellent one. Despite the challenging growing conditions, we were pleasantly surprised with the yields we received and are grateful for the terrific quality. Latham customers can once again head into the new season knowing that they have superior quality in their seed purchases from Latham Companies.