Near-north Ontario, French River | Problem with side by sides is that it seems that seed companies these days only keep a variety on the market for 4-5 years. By time you run 2-3 yrs of side by sides the variety you pick is likely on its last year on the market. We plant our own plot using our main variety ( as the check), look at the results and take weather into account. If we see a run away winner we will adopt that variety for a few of our acres, say 20%. If we see another variety that did well this year as well as last year we consider it for another 20-30% of our acres,, the balance gets planted to our preferred variety from past years. Typically we add a variety each year and drop one from our lineup. Seems the most we get out of any variety is 3 years then something else with a higher consistent yield takes over the majority of the acres. We also look at other area plots ( or co-op supplies us with results from all the side/sides and plots they weigh off each year) to see if there is consistency among varieties for our area so we don't rely totally on our own plots. |
How relative are seed test plot results compared to whole field results?
