A staple crop in South Dakota, soybeans are grown across the region. Ryan Tierney, Asgrow product manager, says that over 17 of their growers achieved over 100 bushels per acre. One of those 17 was Kory Standy, a grower from Platte, S.D.

Standy achieved a 108.82-bushel yield with Asgrow AG26XF1 in the 2021 growing season. Standy and his family farm and run cow-calf pairs. “This was a new variety I had tried last year, and it stood really well, so I’m very happy with it,” he says.

“We have many reasons growers choose Asgrow products,” Tierney says. “We grow 100% exclusive genetics. The Bayer breeding pipeline is the biggest germplasm pool in the world, and Asgrow can pick the best from that pool so customers can be certain that these unique varieties are not sold anywhere else.”

Some of the top yielding varieties for the 2021 season in the Dakotas, with the growers, include:

“Overall, in the Dakotas, we have different geography and a lot of different products,” Tierney says. “Last year was very challenging with drought impacts. We did see some varieties that had the needed tolerance and toughness, so hopefully those will help in the 2022 growing season.”

Standy recommends a few things for his fellow producers. “You want to do your grid sampling and take tissue samples and see what the plants need. According to that, you can follow with fungicides and everything else. But it seems like with this, we get a better push to the yields, and they get a little better every year.”

With fertilizer prices, Standy says he is in a hold-even pattern this year. “I’ve got the ground built up really well, so with the price of fertilizer, I can skip a year and just maintain,” he says.

Soybean trends, advances

Soil temperatures always dictate the beginning of planting. “We’ve been starting to see the emerging trend of earlier soybean plantings,” Standy says. “It’s important to take a look at soil temperature and really look at the forecast to remember the growing temperature above the soil.”

Choosing the correct variety for specific growing conditions can be one of the best ways to give your crops the start they need.

“We carry a broad selection of seed treatments and products,” Tierney says. “Farmers in the Dakotas are probably used to APOGO3X being used for the last five to seven years. Our new product called AGO3XF2 is the next iteration of soybean, with better performance but being just as versatile. AGO3XF2 is getting launched in 2022 so farmers will have the first look at it here this spring.”

“I’ve been able to pick up tips of how these growers can raise a bit better soybean crop than anyone else, and hopefully, in 2022, maybe we can try to compete with these yield winners,” Tierney says.