By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

BELLEVILLE, Ill. — The highest-yielding variety in a southern Illinois soybean test scored 54.1 bushels per acre for Diener 4001CR2.

Last year’s Farmer’s Independent Research of Seed Technologies (F.I.R.S.T.) test on the Belleville farm of John Barttelbort, in St. Clair County, showed 18 varieties of soybean seed yielding above 50 bushels per acre. Coming in second of the 42 varieties tested was Asgrow AG4005, with 52.7, and third was Dyna-Gro 36C44, with 52.7.

Eric Beyers, F.I.R.S.T. manager for the South Central Corn Belt, noted in his report that the field received a great deal of rain throughout the 4.5-month growing season.
“Still,” he wrote, “it produced great plant stands for uniform harvested populations. Harvested plant heights were 30 to 36 inches tall, with excellent grain quality.”

A list of all the hybrids in this test is available at www.firstseedtests.com