I don't buy a lot of seed but what I am looking for is information and locally adapted seed. With the price of corn seed being one of the major factors in cost/acre it is important to get the right seed for local soils and my tillage system. A couple years ago I called a small seed company by the name of Kaltenberg Seed here in WI.

I spoke with one of their head people in looking for a 95 day seed for continuous strip tilled corn on corn on heavy clay hillsides that would be palatable for grazing. No small feat. He recommended both an excellent number and said to keep planting it year after year, which was counter to everything I had heard earlier. And he was right. Unfortunately Kaltenberg went out of business last year. (family reasons as I understand it).

This recommendation would be different from someone doing conventional tillage with different soils but maybe just a couple miles away. 

Information like that from a knowledgeable source, not just off the top of a salesman's head or out of most catalogs and locally adapted seed seems to me to crucial.  One could go crazy trying to balance all of my requirements from just looking at the glowing writeups in many glossy catalogues.

jmho.

Jim at Dawn