Seed-hunting season for the 2017 growing season is already underway for farmers hunting for the best — and maybe less expensive — hybrids and varieties. Here are a couple of website tools that might help you scout the field:

* Find My Seed, a free search tool from Agrible, includes corn and soybeans, plus wheat, barley and oats. After you select a few options such as location, soil type, seed technology and brand, Find My Seed shows top-performing seeds matching your needs.

The unbiased tool now includes the latest third-party seed trials to ensure you get the most accurate seed data available, according to Agrible CEO Chris Harbourt. “No other tool on the market offers this much utility for this many crops that really drills down to the details in seed selection.”

It combines searchable data on 23,000 varieties from more than 300,000 third-party seed trial plots from universities, independent researchers and other third-party entities. Check it out at findmyseed.com.

* FBN Seed Finder, from Farmers Business Network, promises access to the largest unbiased seed performance database in agriculture — 1,800 seeds from 110 brands. You can also match best seeds for your soil types, drainage and irrigation status.

The site also offers a Seed Selection Playbook to help sort through seed decisions with a selection primer, seed cost worksheet, a peek at what traits pay and another peek at whether early discounts pay. As one example showed, even a 10% discount wasn’t enough to make up for a yield lag. Check it out at farmersbusinessnetwork.com.

Bean market boost from EC
Mid-Atlantic soybean growers can only gain from the European Commission’s July import approval of three biotech soy traits for import and processing. The biggest gain may come via Vistive Gold contracting, which, like Plenish high-oleic soybean, is a growing market premium source for this region. The three stacked events are:

* Monsanto's Xtend (dicamba x glyphosate MON87708 x MON89788)
* Monsanto's Vistive Gold (high oleic x glyphosate MON87705 x MON89788)
* Bayer CropScience’s Balance GT (glyphosate x HPPD inhibitor FG72)

“The EU’s approval of these events is welcome news for U.S. soybean farmers,” says U.S. Soybean Export Council Chairwoman Laura Foell, an Iowa soybean grower. Europe is one of the largest customers of U.S. soybeans, with over 165 million bushels of soybean exports already this year.  

The Xtend soybean clearance allows for the import and food/feed use of Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans into the European Union. The EC’s approval followed February’s Chinese import approval.

With that, plus U.S. EPA’s final review for over-the-top use, Monsanto expects a full U.S. launch in 2017. But Monsanto CEO Brett Begemann cautions that dicamba formulations still aren’t registered for in-crop use on Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans.

New corn weed-buster cleared
DiFlexx Duo, a new corn herbicide from Bayer, will be available nationwide in 2017 — except for Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and California. It’ll help manage resistant weeds like Palmer amaranth, waterhemp and marestail, says Jason Manz, Bayer’s selective corn herbicides product manager.

The liquid formulation is the first to combine an HPPD inhibitor with dicamba, plus Bayer’s patented CSI Safener technology. It offers residual control of more than 100 grasses plus broadleaf weeds like waterhemp, kochia and Palmer amaranth.