Crop planning always comes with challenges. Maybe clubroot has made an appearance on the farm so you have to think about how to manage that going forward. Or maybe the drought conditions of 2021 have you thinking about herbicide carryover and how previously planned rotations might need to change because of it – and the stacked effect of that for 2023, 2024 and beyond.
“Farmers are thinking about multi-year planning more and more,” says Ryan McCann, a Director of North America Seed for Nutrien Ag Solutions™ in High River, Alta. “It’s not that a four- or five-year crop plan is set in stone, but thinking a few years out means that, at the very least, the table is set, not bare, as you sit down to plan the coming season.”
“We are introducing six new wheats for 2022, from hard red spring to CPS red to durum. Last year we launched four new canola hybrids and there may be two for 2022, depending on trial results. In 2022, we’ll have three new corn and four new soy varieties.”
Ryan McCann
And it can be a juggling act, he says. The persistence and adaptability of blackleg and clubroot diseases in canola are forcing longer rotations as the agronomic recommendation which as a result is influencing more in-depth hybrid selection. Commodity markets, environmental factors, moisture conditions, maintaining soil health – there are a myriad of things to consider when it comes to crop planning and McCann knows Proven Seed is in a unique position to help.
“Proven Seed is different from other seed brands because we have a multi-crop offering,” he says, adding that this speaks directly to a farmer’s rotational reality because the ‘canola grower’ is also the ‘wheat grower’ and the ‘soybean grower’ and so on. “We usually have an option for every year of their rotation,” says McCann.
R&D with purpose
Indeed, Proven Seed has one of the broadest seed offerings from any one company, with multiple varieties of canola, wheat, barley, corn, soybeans, mustard, flax and forage crops to choose from. But it’s the dedication to constant and meaningful varietal improvement that makes Proven Seed really stand out.
“We have our own breeding program out of Saskatoon,” says McCann. “But we also have partnerships with other breeders that supply germplasm into our portfolio. A good example of this is that five years ago, we didn’t even have a corn and soybean portfolio.”
Once breeders have new lines ready for field-testing, Tim Ferguson, Nutrien Ag Solutions’ Senior Manager, Field Research, steps in. He heads a group of research agronomists, technicians and data analysts who run small-plot replicated trials on 18 sites across the Prairies that represent the range of soil types and growing conditions found across the region. “We’re that bridge between breeding research and on-farm trials,” says Ferguson. “We select material that’s going to go to farm strip trials.”
Replicated plot trials are the first chance researchers and breeders have to compare new lines with existing and competing varieties across various growing zones and soil types. “We’re looking at new products, old products, products we’re not sure of yet, and we try to see how they fit with the best in Canada,” says Ferguson.
What are they looking for?
“We look at the agronomics – how does it stand up, does it lodge, what’s the yield, the disease tolerance, that kind of thing,” he says. “And in wheat and barley we also do post-harvest assessments, because we all know farmers get paid for yield, but they also get paid for quality, so we screen for that.”
Ferguson’s team is also noting growing conditions like temperature, rainfall, insect pressure and so on. Everything from seeding date to harvest weight is a data point that helps to paint an accurate picture of how a variety will perform once it gets to strip trials and, ultimately, for sale to farmers.
What’s really interesting, particularly when you think about the years of effort that can go into developing a new line, is that if something – a new wheat variety, say – looks better than an existing one, even if the existing one isn’t that old, Proven Seed will act. “If we see something better than what we’ve already got, we’ll replace that variety,” says Ferguson.
This approach is nothing if not productive. “We are introducing six new wheats for 2022, from hard red spring to CPS red to durum,” says McCann. “Last year we launched four new canola hybrids and there may be two for 2022, depending on trial results. In 2022, we’ll have three new corn and four new soy varieties.
“That pipeline doesn’t slow down either,” he says. “We have many new varieties in the works and if we find something better, we’re going to put it out there.”
Seed selected for your farm
For McCann, it all comes back to individual farmers and their specific needs. “We have so many different options within each crop category,” he says. “Every grower is different and their needs are different. For instance, our canola and cereal portfolios have multiple trait offerings. Our wheat portfolio has got wheat midge varieties, Clearfield® Plus varieties, which are proprietary to us, and there are key fits for that technology. We know customers want to switch up canola systems from year-to-year, from Clearfield or Roundup Ready® or LibertyLink®, and we can let them do that through one seed brand.”
He says this focus on customer needs is driven by the company’s structure and this makes Proven Seed different. “We are a seed company embedded in a retail,” says McCann. “It’s not just seed, it’s fertilizer, precision ag technologies, crop inputs – we’re focused on the customer and their whole farm needs. Our agronomists are trained to focus on that and make recommendations by soil zone, variety and environmental conditions.”
“We want the customer to have a good experience and come back next year,” he says. For those who are looking to develop multi-year crop plans, McCann says Proven Seed stands ready. “We’re in it with them, we’re in it for the long haul.”
