Excitement builds for new Asgrow XtendFlex soybeans

PLAINFIELD, Ind. — When it comes to seed industry launches of new products in the past, the accepted belief was that growers had to sacrifice something to get the new package.

When it comes to the new Asgrow XtendFlex soybeans, available for order now for planting in 2021, that is just not the case.

“More tools in the toolbox without giving anything up? That’s a win, 100%,” said Kirsten Thomas-Garriott, DEKALB Asgrow technical agronomist for central Indiana.

She has been observing the Indiana trials of the new XtendFlex beans for three years throughout the state.

“This is my third year to see these soybeans. This is our fourth breeding class of Asgrow XtendFlex soybeans, so really it’s going to be a strong launch year for farmers in 2021,” she said.

What that means for growers is that the best beans possible have emerged from those trials.

“We’ve had time to cycle through several generations of germplasm and get some really high-yielding varieties with really great agronomics that are outperforming our old products and our current Xtend trait system, which is just awesome,” Thomas-Garriott said.

When it comes to soybean traits and advances, the new Asgrow XtendFlex soybeans are the complete package minus nothing and agronomists such as Thomas-Garriott will have the data to share to back that up.

“I am super excited for what we have seen out of this class of soybeans. We have a lot of plots out in Indiana. We have a lot of data to back them up so growers can rest assured that they are going to be able to have that yield potential and those solid agronomics, as well as added tolerance to glufosinate to help control tough-to-manage weeds,” Thomas-Garriott said.

Regulatory approval was recently received and Asgrow XtendFlex soybeans are available.

“We are to the point where we have prices out and you can order them now,” Thomas-Garriott said.

As soybean harvest wraps up in Indiana, Thomas-Garriott said growers should make time to analyze their data beyond initial numbers to make decisions for next year.

“As you sit down and you are making your crop plan for next year and you are assessing which fields yielded the most, yielded the least, it’s important to consider what your controllables were and what your non-controllables were,” she said.

Some examples of controllables are choosing the right soybean for the right acre. It’s important to realize that some factors that can be controlled may be attributed to those non-controllables, at first glance.

“In some cases, maybe we had a little bit of a rush in the spring and we placed a bean in an environment where it wasn’t meant to shine, it was a stress acre bean and it ended up on your great acre. That’s something to take into account versus the weather just wasn’t great,” Thomas-Garriott said.

Even non-controllables, like weather, can be anticipated.

“We can think about maybe improving our tile situation, if we were wet, or putting an inoculant on the soybean. These are the types of questions to ask yourself, where can I improve to help mitigate Mother Nature?” Thomas-Garriott said.

The 2020 soybean harvest in Indiana has started out better than most maybe expected.

“Overall, we had good adequate moisture throughout most of the growing season. There have been dry pockets. We got tall beans in Indiana kind of late because we had better conditions and the late rain and the good late heat. It was kind of an unusual year. We saw those short soybeans early and then they really lengthened and put on a nice amount of height, which is good for yield, usually,” Thomas-Garriott said.

This column was contributed by Indiana AgriNews for Asgrow.