Many of our seed growers told me, while I was making pre-harvest field inspections, that they would be happy with 45-bushel yields due to the late planting and the cold, wet field conditions throughout the growing season. Those environmental factors, coupled with difficult weed control and some late-season diseases like Sudden Death Syndrome and White Mold, led to some pessimistic yield expectations. While there were a few fields that got hit hard by the above-mentioned problems, I’m happy to report that most of our production field yields are in the mid-50s with some in the low-to-mid 60s!

While we’re thrilled that yields are better than expected, an even better message is the appearance and quality. Seed coming in has looked so much better than last year at this time. Although we struggled with some rains that delayed harvest, our soybeans didn’t sit in ponds of water like they did last year. We’re not seeing mold on the stems and pods nor on the soybeans themselves.

I’m cautiously optimistic about soybean germination, as well. A few of the very early samples we sent to the laboratory have come back with germination rates of 98 or 99 percent. If this holds true for the rest of the fields and for conditioned lots going through our plant, seed quality should be excellent.

PLOT RESULTS
Below are a few raw yield results from some Latham® SuperStrip™ plots harvested early. Keep in mind that none of these yields have been adjusted to the recurring checks:

Keep checking here for updated yield results from all of our plots around Latham Country!