Soybean seed is catered to farms

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The work done at this breeding site in east-central Illinois tests and refines Xitavo® soybean seed-exclusive varieties under real growing conditions, not just lab settings.

The seeds are tested in the same soils, weather and pressures that farmers face every day.

Testing ensures varieties fit local needs — from standability and yield potential to disease resistance.

These new varieties support versatility and include the Enlist E3® triple-stack herbicide-tolerant trait to give farmers confidence in their soybean weed control program.

They have been extensively tested and evaluated by a team of agronomists to ensure the seed rises above and beyond industry standard.

Between investments in trait research and development and breeding, Xitavo seed, on average, has featured a genetic gain of 0.75 bushels per year for the previous five years — considerably higher than the national average pace of yield gain of 0.4 bushels an acre per year.

The Xitavo soybean seed-exclusive varieties team is challenging the status quo by being all-in, 100% dedicated to soybeans.

Q&A

Tim Pruski oversees the breeding program in Champaign and during a plot research tour discussed how it is changing the seed and, in turn, changing the game.

What is the importance of the work that you do here?

We’re in a great place to breed soybeans. We have a very regionally adapted program, where from Champaign we can breed throughout the state of Illinois.

And, from the standpoint of breeding, really when you’re making selections you need to be making selections in the environments that the soybeans are being grown, right?

That’s really the most effective way to produce higher-yielding varieties to sell to our farmers.

Tell us about Xitavo — what are the advantages of these products?

We are set up as a national soybean breeding company, but from a breeding standpoint we’re breeding really regional.

So, here from Champaign County we’re really focused on the Illinois market and the Indiana market, and that is really beneficial from the standpoint of our local farmers. We are not located in one specific spot in the U.S. and just breeding nationally.

We have a clear focus on regional development. And, as the breeder, I’m based here in Champaign. So, there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t go out to the field and walk and look at soybeans.

You think about the kind of weather we’ve had the last month, where it hasn’t rained at all, you know, that’s a real benefit for me to be here because I can go and look at the potential varieties in this environment and make decisions on that, whereas if I was located somewhere else or from a breeding standpoint the program was located somewhere else we wouldn’t be under these conditions.

Is that part of what you’ll be doing? You mentioned yield data — and then we’re also going to make notes, “Hey, it didn’t rain here for six weeks when we were trying to finish this crop.” It may not have been that drastic, but probably not that far off. So, you take all those things into account?

Since we are regionally set up, we do have locations where we actually have gotten rain, right? So, I can leverage, or we can leverage, that data to really make sound decisions so that, hey, if next year here in Champaign County we get a ton of rain in August, we’ve already accounted for that.

When people say Xitavo is all-in on soybeans, is that what they are talking about?

At our research farm, we are focused on soybeans. That’s all we do. That’s what we know.

Everyone at the site is really focused on bringing the best material and innovations to the local soybean farmer.

We’re looking at a plot that is really, really clean. Now, is it really clean because people are babying this plot all the time, or is this really what you want to see based on this technology?

I’m fairly certain this plot has not been babied. We have plots that maybe we do baby, but this plot has not been babied — just sprayed, and you can see we have pretty good weed control.

So, this is set to be just like my farm would be? These are the kind of conditions, we’re not doing anything else — this is the way it should turn out?

Absolutely.

Xitavo is a registered trademark of M.S. Technologies LLC, West Point, Iowa.