Select Your Variety – Your Yield Depends on It!

Harvest is going strong, and 2018 planting seems like a lifetime away. But there’s no time like the present to select the best varieties for your soybean fields.

“Variety selection is one of the most important management decisions a farmer can make,” says Mississippi State University Extension soybean specialist Trent Irby. “Planting the right variety early will help maximize the yield potential for the crop.”
Luckily, Mississippi soybean farmers have a tool at their fingertips to help make those decisions easier.

MS Variety Selector Tool
The Mississippi Soybean Promotion Board (MSPB) website is home to a unique and useful program to help you pick the best varieties for your farm. That program is the Mississippi Variety Selector Tool.

This tool features searchable data from variety trials conducted around the state, on various soil types and in irrigated and non-irrigated fields.

MSPB partners with Mississippi State University (MSU) to conduct the MSU Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station’s Variety Testing Program. These trials test nearly 250 soybean varieties and breeding lines to evaluate their pest resistance, agronomic characteristics and yield across the state. 

The test plots, planted in key production areas in the state, also enable researchers to collect information on naturally occurring pests in those areas.

With MSPB’s Variety Selector, farmers can access trial data from 2009 to 2016 and search for varieties based on yield, trait, soil type, location and much more. Farmers can then export the data to a spreadsheet for later use.

“We want to give farmers access to every piece of data available,” said Larry Heatherly, Ph.D., MSPB research and technology transfer coordinator. “This tool allows farmers to effectively research varieties and select those that best fit their production systems.”