Using Yield Trial Data to Make Variety Selections

Each year I receive several questions about how best to use yield trial data to make hybrid and variety selection decisions. This article will cover the most common issues that are discussed

2011 Iowa Crop Performance Tests for Corn and Soybean

Final results of the 2011 Iowa Crop Performance Tests for corn and soybeans are now available online at the Iowa State University Crop Testing website and asdownloadable publications from the ISU Extension Online Store. All single-location and district data are available for online viewing and can also be downloaded as Excel files from the crop testing site

A fresh view of variety selection

Integrating soybean variety selection with soybean pest management strategies seems like a simple task. Many pest management strategies tout variety selection as a key component of pest management. Variety selection is not, however, quite as simple as choosing the best one. Difficulty arises in identifying which data reports should be used. Using the proper information will allow you to make better variety selection decisions and improve your profitability

Iowa Crop Performance Test—Soybeans

The Iowa Crop Performance Test—Soybeans is conducted each year to provide information farmers need to select the best varieties or brands for their production conditions. Seed companies, Iowa farmers, and the Iowa Crop Improvement Association may include entries in these tests. The experiments grown in 2005 at the Southeast Research Farm were planted May 11 and harvested October 5. One test evaluated 16 lines of soybeans treated with conventional herbicide and another test evaluated 75 lines of Roundup® Ready (RR) beans

Iowa Crop Performance Tests

The Iowa Crop Performance Tests (ICPT) are conducted each year to provide information farmers need to select the best varieties or hybrids for their production conditions. The Southeast Research Farm (SERF) has hosted these soybean experiments each year since 2005, and two corn experiments since 2009. This information and more can be downloaded from www.croptesting.iastate.edu

Choosing corn hybrids

What management decision can make a 40 to 50 bushel per acre difference in grain yield without increasing input costs? If you\u27ve read the title to this article, you can probably guess the answer: hybrid selection! Hybrid selection is a critical component for achieving high yields and yet is not often given enough attention. Seed prices in Iowa are increasing about $1.30 per acre per year (Figure 1). This increase will continue as more genetic traits and stacks become available

More about early seed discounts

We received a great deal of feedback from our article in the October 9, 2006, issue of the ICM newsletterconcerning early seed discounts. Most of it was very positive and congratulated us for tackling an issue that is important to every grower. There were also a few readers who felt the article missed the mark, so we want to clarify some of the points

Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults

Body-mass index (BMI) has increased steadily in most countries in parallel with a rise in the proportion of the population who live in cities(.)(1,2) This has led to a widely reported view that urbanization is one of the most important drivers of the global rise in obesity(3-6). Here we use 2,009 population-based studies, with measurements of height and weight in more than 112 million adults, to report national, regional and global trends in mean BMI segregated by place of residence (a rural or urban area) from 1985 to 2017. We show that, contrary to the dominant paradigm, more than 55% of the global rise in mean BMI from 1985 to 2017-and more than 80% in some low- and middle-income regions-was due to increases in BMI in rural areas. This large contribution stems from the fact that, with the exception of women in sub-Saharan Africa, BMI is increasing at the same rate or faster in rural areas than in cities in low- and middle-income regions. These trends have in turn resulted in a closing-and in some countries reversal-of the gap in BMI between urban and rural areas in low- and middle-income countries, especially for women. In high-income and industrialized countries, we noted a persistently higher rural BMI, especially for women. There is an urgent need for an integrated approach to rural nutrition that enhances financial and physical access to healthy foods, to avoid replacing the rural undernutrition disadvantage in poor countries with a more general malnutrition disadvantage that entails excessive consumption of low-quality calories.Peer reviewe