PEARL CITY, Ill. — FS HiSOY’s HS 27A50 soybean variety bested a field of heavyweight producers to take top yield honors in an all-season test of 72 seed technologies this year, at the Todd Randecker farm in Pearl City, a north-central Illinois community in Stevenson County.
Yields from the 72 entries averaged 75 bushels per acre and returned $690 an acre in gross income, while registering a composite moisture content of 15.6 percent. The FS variety, featuring RR2Y technology, triumphed over others with a yield of 84 bushels and $773 an acre in gross income. The brand, which contained Clariva Complete Beans seed treatment, was rated as resistant to soybean cyst nematode (SCN).
FS HiSOY was nearly challenged for the top yield spot by NK Brand S28-D3, also boasting RR2Y technology, which produced 82.8 bushels per acre and $762 in gross revenue. NK’s brand was rated as holding moderate resistance to SCN.
Rounding out the top three spots was Cornelius CB24R99 with 82.5 bushels in yield and $759 an acre in gross revenue; the variety also featured RR2Y technology. It was found susceptible to SCN resistance, according to the report.
Despite early, wet soil conditions that threatened to impair emergence, the summer-long trial at the Randecker farm proved to be largely trouble-free, according to Jason Beyers, field research director for Farmers’ Independent Research of Seed Technologies (FIRST). The Lanark, Ill.-based crop technology research company conducted the varieties test.
"Seed size was large and plants had short internodes. There was very little disease to be noted," Beyers indicated. "Overall it was a nice, uniform location, that raised nice beans."
He added the high soybean yields at the Randecker farm were "definitely representative of the area" the field scout calls home. "If you compare this plot with our research plot in Milledgeville, which are only 17 miles apart, the yields are real similar," Beyers said.
"I live halfway between each one of these plots and can tell you the soils in this area are very rich and very forgiving. The Pearl City plot was on an upper part of slope, so it never had water standing on it this spring, like a lot of other areas."
He noted on Randecker’s Pearl City plot soybean plants were all shorter than 36 inches tall at harvest and there was "no lodging, to speak of."
