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February 2013

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FEBRUARY 2013 A new role Who’s driving?

Classroom 2012 Global soys Closing in on SCN Frogeye hops up Big soy country Twice in a year Cranking up soy engine oil The truth in the soybean market #Pest Patrol

THE BETTER CROP This winter, the momentum is with corn. Next winter, I’m not so sure. Here are three reasons to suspect the tide may turn toward soybeans.

The first is political. Maybe it’s nothing more than looking for something to worry about when things seem to be going too well, but ask yourself, what if there’s another drought in the U.S.?

Washington came too close to scrapping ethanol mandates in 2012. Can ethanol really withstand another drought? Can it survive $10 corn without politicians saying enough is enough?

Worse, would politicians around the globe be able to resist jumping in with their own grand schemes. In Canada, remember, two-price wheat was set up to protect consumers, not farmers.

The one safe bet is that if politicians do feel they need to jump in, corn is the crop that is built on politics and has more to fear.

The second reason for liking soybeans is that their genetics and technology are beginning to surge. I know we shouldn’t put too much emphasis on last year’s stellar yields in Eastern Canada, but it reminds me of the first time an uncle got 200 bushels of corn. It seemed a miracle. Now it’s expected.

New soybean genetics have proved they’ve got the stuff to rewrite the record books. I’m betting they’ll show that stuff again and again.

The third reason? It’s simple. Canadian farmers are better than virtually anyone else in the world at growing and marketing soybeans. It isn’t boastfulness. It’s plain fact.

Bring on 2013!

Tom Button, CG Editor tom.button@fbcpublishing.com Soybean Guide, February 2013

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soyguide

A new role

If corn is king, what does that make soybeans?

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

J

oe Hickson, left, isn’t phased by all the talk about corn. Neither is John Urquhart. The two are from distinctly different parts of Ontario, they work different-size operations and they have different markets they’re shooting at. Yet they agree on one thing: their soybean crops are integral to their respective farms.

Hickson, who lives near Lindsay, northeast of Toronto, manages 2,000 acres, including 350 acres each of wheat, spring grains and corn. He also has 150 acres of hay and the rest — something between 800 and 1,000 acres, depending on the year — he puts in soybeans.

Hickson agrees that corn’s reputation is a tough one to shake, even with soybean prices where they are.

“Three or four years ago, when margins were as tight as what they were, some guys couldn’t even get their operating costs back,” says Hickson, who is also a director with the Grain Farmers of Ontario. “They were forced to put beans in.”

But the world has changed, Hickson agrees. “Corn is definitely king, especially when you get into marginal harvests, and guys are still combining corn in late November.”

So, do growers need soybeans to be competitive with corn? From Hickson’s perspective, as a grower, a seed dealer and someone who grows for the identity preserved (IP) soybean market, the answer is “yes.” Based on the size of the operations that farmers are working, beans and wheat must both generate similar returns to corn in order for growers to maintain a proper rotation.

With the price of land and land rents now being charged, Hickson maintains that the bottom line must dictate what can or should be planted, and what can be cash flowed or not.

If that seems like an impossible hill for soybeans to climb, Hickson says soybeans bring an advantage of their own to the table.

Continued on page 6

4

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Continued from page 4

“There’s also this generic mindset that says most corn growers grow corn because they can plant it, they can combine it and it goes into the elevator pit,” says Hickson. “But with soybeans, there is a history and an infrastructure to segregating.

“We don’t have that same luxury in corn. With a lot of the corn acres, it’s volume, volume, volume.”

It isn’t that corn can’t be identity preserved for higher value, says Hickson, “It just hasn’t been a standard practice.

Corn’s a commodity.”

As for whether something has to be done differently to drive soybeans — or simply to maintain the status quo — Hickson concedes he can see both sides of the debate. On the one hand, he says more needs to be done to bring some level of consistency to yields across the province. Right now, he says, there are too many highs and lows.

“We have to get our soybean yields up on a more consistent basis, and that’s the one thing I will give corn breeders credit for, and they’ve had a pretty nice, steady increase, and a fairly consistent increase with the new genetics,” says Hickson. “But we’re not seeing the same consistency in soybeans. We’ve seen the leaps and bounds on the field potential in soybeans, but it’s not consistent.”

Hickson adds that 15 years ago, he was growing 40-bushel soybeans, and now 6

he’s growing 45. During that same time frame, corn growers were yielding 110 to 115 bushels per acre and now, they’re around 145 to 160.

Another difference from 15 years ago is that he might have been more livestock based than crop based. That livestock component usually meant the producer would plant corn on their best land, and 15 years ago in the Lindsay area, that choice soil might have yielded 115 bushels. Today, that same farmer is getting 140 bushels per acre on average, but since they’re no longer feeding livestock, the entire farm is growing grain corn.

Still, soybeans have their moments.

“We’ve had more highs and lows during the past 15 years, but if we sit down and total things up, our average has gone up,” says Hickson. And when things go right for soybeans, they often go very right.

“One thing’s certain, 15 years ago, we didn’t have whole fields that were yielding 55 bushels per acre of soybeans,” Hickson says. “Now we do.”

Less is more With the current pricing, and as tempting as it might be to go a second or even third year with corn, John Urquhart isn’t about to budge from his rotations or his rationale for keeping them.

Urquhart maintains a small acreage on his farm just outside of Kirkton, Ont., with a fairly even percentage of corn, wheat and soybeans, along with a crop of alfalfa-timothy mixed into the rotation.

But where Hickson’s operation is centred on soybeans for IP markets and seed production, Urquhart maintains his rotation first and foremost from an agronomic perspective, and also with an eye on land stewardship issues for future farmers.

“I’m a huge proponent of rotation,” Urquhart says without hesitation, adding that keeping to rotations helps on so many different levels, often in matters that aren’t readily visible. “We don’t see the impact immediately — it’s not always in front of us, but it’s a benefit to the organic matter in your soil, and rotations are good for fighting soil erosion,” says Urquhart. “It saves you money inputwise, and makes you money yield-wise.”

Asked the same question about matching soybeans’ success to that of corn, Urquhart believes setting sights on one takes away from another.

“We need to profit on everything we grow — we need a profit in wheat,” Urquhart says, noting that the amount isn’t as important as the profit margin.

“And we are seeing gains in production. I mean, if you had told me that I’d average 60 bushels per acre on soybeans in 2012, on ground that didn’t receive enough rain, I wouldn’t have believed it. If you look at the varieties, it’s a simple task of walking the fields. The stems and the podding that take place, they’ve all improved.

“Yes, we all complain about the costs, especially on seed, but the research is making these varieties better.” SG Soybean Guide, February 2013

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soyguide

Who’s driving?

Canada’s fascination with corn means growers are leaving money on the table that soybeans could help them put in the bank

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

W

e hear it’s all about corn. Corn is king, farmers love to grow corn, corn is sexy. Those and so many other comments come up time and again wherever farmers are talking, even though in reality they are just backhanded swipes at soybeans. And of course there’s that persistent worry too that it isn’t just talk, and that it’s true that corn has left soybeans in the dust.

But are these comparisons valid? More to the point, should you be upping your corn acreage because corn is better technology, and should you cut back on soybeans because they’re lagging?

Maybe not, say the seed and crop experts we asked. At the very least, they say, it’s a close enough decision that you can’t make it without doing some research and sharpening a few pencils.

Corn yields may be higher than soybeans, they agree, but the costs associated with growing, harvesting and marketing corn are higher too, often to the point where net profits of the two are not that different, year to year.

Add to that the fact that soybeans have proven over the last two years that they can really gut it out. In 2011 in Eastern Canada, much of the soybean crop had little rain through the first two-thirds of summer, yet timely rains in August made for outstanding yields. Then in 2012, an even drier summer ended with August rains again, and again soybean yields exceeded the expectations of most in the industry.

It begs the question, is it possible that corn’s lofty status here is mostly a spillover of U.S. attitudes to American crops?

North of the border In Canada, and especially in Ontario, perceptions about corn and its place in the production cycle don’t necessarily line up with reality. We hear a steady chrous that “corn is king” and a constant drumbeat that says corn yields are climbing. On soybeans, it seems, we mainly hear silence.

That, according to numbers from Eric Richter, agronomic sales representative with Syngenta Canada, isn’t actually justified.

Based on stats from the Ontario Oil Protein

8

and Seed Crop Committee (OOPSCC) and the Ontario Corn Committee (OCC), the 2800- to 2900-CHU region recorded average yields in 1984 of 135 bushels per acre for corn and 40 bushels for soybeans. That’s a ratio of 3.4 to 1.

For 2012, those average yields for the same heat unit zone were 220 bushels for corn and 65 for soybeans, and again the ratio was the same 3.4 to 1.

Richter is quick to acknowledge that since these are small-plot trials, the results are often dismissed for not being field-scale comparisons on working farms. But he argues they’re worth a look because performance in plots still depends on how plants fare against the same types of diseases, pests and weed species that growers face at home, and that it’s the comparison that counts.

“To me, small-plot work is critical to identify genetic potential,” says Richter, who’s originally from eastern Ontario but now works in the London area. “Certainly, you still have to deal with insect pests, like spider mites and aphids, and all of the other perils that the crop would be subjected to from a grower’s perspective, including diseases such as white mould, and even weed control issues. It’s not as though those things are done in a controlled lab situation, they’re just replicated small plots.”

There is also something of a blindspot for the more traditional soybeangrowing areas of southern Ontario, where some crop watchers and growers believe yields in Kent, Oxford and Middlesex have always ranked ahead of other areas.

But again, Richter says the important thing is to look at the numbers. During the mid-1990s, when soybeans began to gain acreage in eastern Ontario, the provincial average was in the high-30s, yet many yields in eastern Ontario were into the 50s and some into the 60s.

“For the past 10 years, every time we get into this discussion about corn yields versus soybean yields, we get back to this point,” Richter says. “With corn and soybeans, we’ve been able to develop genetic Continued on page 10

Soybean Guide, February 2013

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The IP dilemma

H

set up for it anymore.’ They’re comfort-

ere’s the irony, says Martin

able with the ease of Roundup Ready

Harry. Soybeans are the larg-

technology. But it’s not money with

est acreage crop in Ontario,

these guys — the premium is actually

yet farmers like to talk about corn, they

at $3 — it’s that when you’re big, you

like to talk about booking corn and

haven’t the time do to IPs.”

they like to talk about planting corn.

Soybeans have become secondary in many minds, maybe even boring, even though they’re a primary revenue stream for so many farmers.

If you stir in IP premiums, the balance could easily tilt way in favour of soybeans, Harry believes. Yet somehow, the idea of producing the most acres seems to be winning out over the idea of producing the most per acre.

“A lot of guys don’t worry about beans,” says Harry, eastern sales manager for SeCan. “‘I don’t know what I’m going to do yet,’ is the common response… If we have an early, warm spring and they’re planting corn, and the weather keeps going, all of a sudden, you’ll have 100,000 to 200,000 more acres of corn than was planned on.”

That possibility, along with a contin-

That’s the worry for Harry, and it makes him fear that Ontario’s IP sector is in trouble, given the size of farms, and the convenience of herbicide-tolerant technologies.

“It’s a mindset and guys are getting bigger,” says Harry. “In the latest survey I’ve seen, 22 per cent of the growers are growing IP in this country but they’re growing them on 15 per cent of the acres.

And Ontario would be higher because Manitoba would be close to zero.”

There’s been a lot of money invested in conventional soybeans, he adds, but there’s still a great amount of indifference toward that IP, food-grade market, given the current pricing structure and the processors’ drive to keep prices down. One answer may be the development of the industrial IP market, but that’s still a couple of years in the future, according to

ued high crush demand for soybeans,

forecasts from groups such as Soy 20/20.

could keep pricing on the soybean

The construction of two industrial IP pro-

side fairly high, depending on the final

cessing plants for Ontario has been

numbers from the South American

talked about for several months, and new

production.

uses for soybean oil are continuing to

And that’s the concern for Harry,

increase in frequency and volume. In

because he sees uncertainty ahead in

November 2012, Bridgestone Tires

Ontario’s IP market.

announced the development of a new

“I’m excited about soybeans, I think there’s a lot of potential there, but for my IP business, I’m not excited — I’m scared,” says Harry. “Farmers are leaving IPs, we can’t fill contracts, they

tractor tire featuring 10 per cent soybean oil, and there are emerging markets for penetrating lubricants and automotive engine oils made from soybeans.

The markets for these products will

don’t care about the extra premiums,

continue to develop. Whether processors

and they say, ‘It’s not enough.’ I talked

will pay the premium that provides grow-

to a grower and said, ‘I’ll give you a

ers with a reason to stay with or re-enter

premium of $5 a bushel, is that

that high management level, is the press-

enough?’ And he said, ‘Well, I’m not

ing question, at least on the IP side.

10

Continued from page 8

solutions for some of these pests, and for corn, maybe a little more so.”

Yet dating back to the mid-1990s, soybeans have had a sharper learning curve.

Just before the point when Roundup Ready soybeans came on to the market, growers in Ontario had a choice of roughly a dozen varieties in each maturity zone.

With the acceptance of glyphosate-tolerant technology, and through the efforts of various breeders, both public sector and private, that list became longer. But so too did the challenges facing growers, including the spread of soybean cyst nematode (SCN), now found east of Toronto. There were soybean aphid outbreaks in 2001 and 2003, plus ongoing pressure from phytophthora root rot as well as concerns about Asian soybean rust (ASR) coming to Canada around 2005 (which never materialized). And now, growers are facing an increasing threat from weed species that are resistant to glyphosate.

On the positive side, the growing list of soybean varieties brings new genetic traits and technologies. Plus, there’s also research that indicates soybeans are capable of withstanding earlier planting dates, and combined with the use of seed treatments and inoculants, the notion of growing 150-bushel soybeans has become less of a fantasy and more of a work in progress.

Richter talks about Syngenta soybean breeder Don McClure’s work with a winter program in Chile in 2011-12, where average yields of 90 bushels per acre were recorded in some fields using fertigation, with the top-yielding varieties beating the 120-bushel mark.

The hotter, drier climate also reduced the risk for many of the soybean diseases that Ontario growers have to deal with, including phytophthora root rot, sudden death syndrome, and rhizoctonia.

“Then this year (2012), we harvested 80-plus bushels per acre, and we double checked that with a weigh wagon,” says Richter. “But we showed growers that the potential is there for 100-bushel-per-acre beans, that it is possible.”

Richter also tells growers to keep their eyes on the long term. After 2002, five of the next seven years were tough on soybeans, with yields backing down into the low 40s and even into the high 30s. Now they’re bouncing back.

“Soybeans have become a crop that grew from 400,000 acres in Ontario to 2.6 million acres during my time in agriculture,” Richter says. “That’s exciting.”

Soybean Guide, February 2013

Maybe a new approach Maximizing yield while reducing populations is another concept that’s gaining a degree of traction in soybeans, even though it runs contrary to current thinking in corn.

In corn, the word on seeding rates has been “go big,” but in soybeans, there’s a school of thought that favours cutting seed costs, including seed treatments, by cutting populations. Allan Spicer, a certified crop adviser with CanGrow Crop Solutions, likens such thinking to “opening a Pandora’s box,” and it’s clear that it’s a strategy that he favours.

In the chase for higher yields and lower costs, Spicer offers a number of recommendations, including use of a planter over a seed drill and selecting a bush-type variety with the potential to branch in all directions. Then, Spicer also advocates planting wider rows to maximize that branching and genetic potential. He believes 30-inch rows are best, and an eight- and 22-inch split which can also work. Finally, and possibly most importantly, he says, drop the population.

Current population ranges of 150,000 to 200,000 plants per acre are higher than necessary, says Spicer.

“The only problem with soybeans is that they’re a good lead-in to wheat, but they’re very tough on the soil,” says Spicer, who’s based near Port Burwell, Ont. “It’s not the corn, and it’s not really the wheat — unless guys aren’t putting down any nutrients — that’s drawing the potassium down. It’s the soybeans. But they’re a great crop for our heat units to break the disease cycle.”

Spicer talks about research trials conducted by Stoller USA, CanGrow’s parent company, which have yielded 165 bushels per acre. Those are levels comparable to the yields achieved by Kip Cullers, a farmer from Stark City, Missouri. From 2006 to 2011, Cullers’ soybean yields have topped 100 bushels per acre on his test plots, with a high of 161 in 2010.

“But the way we grow them is extremely inefficient — 200,000 plants in seven-inch rows,” says Spicer, adding that Ontario farmer Eric Kaiser near Kingston is getting consistent good results at 130,000 and has been a welcome example of how to reduce planting populations and still achieve solid yields.

Spicer’s colleague, Ed Hanson, a field marketing representative for CanGrow in central Ontario, has been running test

plots with 30,000, 80,000 and 120,000 plants per acre, and achieving very high yields. But Spicer adds that it’s at 30,000 that soybeans reach the ultimate in epigenesis or complete genetic expression. Now, he also concedes that CanGrow’s procedure includes application of four or five foliar treatments — including one with glyphosate — with potassium and boron.

“We seed this crop at 30,000 or 80,000 and it’s coming up and branching well, and our additives (K and boron), make sure that that plant continues to

express its fullest genetic potential,” says Spicer. “That’s where we get a little controversial.”

Still, says Spicer, even with those multiple trips with foliar, the recipe may end up costing less and returning more net income per acre than traditional approaches because of reduced costs for seed and seed-related materials.

“Then we had yields that were similar to the top yields in Ontario,” reports Spicer, “with the exception of some of those 100s in Kent-Essex.” SG

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soyguide

Classroom

2012 Planting dates, full-length maturities, late-season stress… the learning never stops in soybeans (or in corn, for that matter) and it all points to some surprising conclusions

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

O

n the farm, wealth can also be measured in experience. Maybe it isn’t as easy to quantify as money in the bank, but it has a whole lot to do with how much money gets put there.

Of course, though, drawing the wrong lessons from an extraordinary year can be worse than learning nothing at all.

What can 2012 teach us? In particular, what did the drought show us that we didn’t know from previous dry spells? In hindsight, was there something we could have done differently — or should have done differently — to minimize the effect of extended dryness? What were some of the routine practices that are part of any year, such as tillage or plant populations, that might have provided opportunities for learning?

Despite dry conditions, yields in many fields across Ontario were unexpectedly high. That was a continuation of the lesson learned in 2011, when late-planted soybeans wilted under a six- to eightweek dry spell through June and July, only to be rescued by limited but timely amounts of August rains.

12

Insist on three years, says agronomist Pat Lynch. Don’t change based on just one.

Those rain events were enough to boost average yields across most of the region, and much the same thing happened with cornfields.

“Even a little bit of rain — a quarterinch, a half-inch — at the right time, made such a big difference,” says Mike Strang, who farms on 1,500 acres just north of Exeter, Ont. He’s made considerable investments in the past few growing seasons, adding a SoilWarrior for strip tillage, RTK, auto-steer and a variable-rate fertilizer system. But it’s the basics — those things that he can control — that he saw making the biggest difference. “What we saw within the

field really highlighted what was happening in the soil,” Strang says. “You can’t change sand to clay, so you need to work on the basics — those things you can change — like soil biology or reducing compaction.”

Strang reports seeing a lot of yield variability from his own fields, and he’s heard similar reports from neighbouring producers. Sometimes the variability was extreme. Twice within individual fields he had swings in corn of 150 bushels per acre, in one field going from 50 bushels in one spot to 200 in another, while in a secContinued on page 14

Soybean Guide, February 2013

Continued from page 12

ond field the range was 80 bushels to 230.

Plus, on a neighbour’s field, he saw lowyielding areas — whether they were knolls or patches of sand — producing as low as 50 to 60 bushels per acre.

But it wasn’t just rain and soil type.

Management made huge differences in

Soybeans aren’t corn

2012, Strang believes. “A lot of that comes down to root growth, so anything you can do in your soil to improve root growth is going to grow you a better crop.”

Another factor that Strang believes made a difference was the available sunlight. With much less rain and cloud, his thinking is that the greater amounts of light made a difference in both his corn and soybean fields.

Bohner adds that some of the soil

Companies are coming If there’s one thing that stood out in 2012 for John Waters, it was the performance of the crops in the field, in spite of what the weather conditions did or didn’t provide.

“The first thing, loud and clear, was that the plant breeders have been doing Continued on page 16

and inoculants, or the use of drills or

It turns out corn and soybeans

temperature standards (e.g. that soy-

fertility programs as we’d think. I

may be even more different than we

beans 12.5 C for germination) have

believe a lot of the increases are due

thought.

also been adjusted too, even though

to the genetics.

Just consider all the soybean topics that agronomists seem finally to be coming to grips with, from planting dates and concerns about cold water imbibition to the use of full-season maturities and the worries about harvesting too late to plant wheat.

Horst Bohner, soybean lead for the Ontario Agriculture Ministry, looks back at 2012 and uses only one word — “amazing” — to describe what happened and what was learned.

In the end, Bohner says, the soybean proved once again that it’s a pretty resilient plant. So when he is pressed to say what is the biggest lesson from 2012, it may actually be more to do with learning what doesn’t matter than with learning what does.

Cold water imbibition is an example. All sorts of effort have gone into studying the temperature of the first water that the soybean seed takes up.

But in the past five years, Bohner says, the industry has learned that it’s simply not relevant.

“That’s right,” says Bohner. “Things in the field happen gradually, and since the seeds are already pretty cold in the drill and in the soil, and it’s pretty dry, there isn’t the same shock factor.”

14

they seemed rock solid not so long

“When I look at this planting date

ago. “It’s not that soybeans want it

issue,” Bohner continues, “the key

cold,” Bohner says. “It’s just not that

thing is that the ground needs to be

significant a problem, unless it’s a cold

fit. There is, on average, a benefit to

rain after planting, and you can get

early planting, depending on where

some crusting that takes place —

you are. After that, you need to marry

that’s not good.”

that concept with a long-enough

At the other end of the season, there is the growing realization that

maturing variety.”

Results form the Ontario Oil and

what happens in August and

Protein Seed Crop Committee

September is far more important to the

(OOPSCC) trials suggest that choosing

crop’s performance, with 2012 and

a longer-season variety is more likely to

2011 as prime examples.

yield more bushels per acre, even with

In 2011, much of Ontario was caught in a drought-like phase from

later planting “It makes you wonder. What is the

roughly the middle of June to the end

right maturity we should be growing?”

of July. Fields looked withered with

asks Bohner. “Do we switch to early

spotty emergence in some cases. But

varieties as the season advances, as we

timely rains in the first week of August

do with corn? Yet according to

not only rescued many fields, they

research, there’s no reason to switch to

pulled the provincial average up to a

shorter-day beans, unless there’s a

comparable level with the previous year

wheat crop to go in.”

(45 bushels per acre in 2011 versus 46) even though moisture wasn’t as much of a limiting factor in 2010.

“The breeders are obviously doing

Even with that scenario, Bohner insists that longer-day soybeans won’t impact on planting dates for winter wheat. Planting varieties that are 200

something right because we had

CHUs over and above an area’s stan-

whole fields that were above 80 bush-

dard heat units will translate to only

els per acre in 2012,” Bohner says.

three to five days longer in the fall, and

“And we’re not necessarily getting the

that isn’t a huge delay, even at that

largest payback from seed treatments

time of year.

Soybean Guide, February 2013

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Continued from page 14

one heck of a job,” says Waters, a certified crop adviser with Lakeside Grain and Feed, in Forest, Ont. “Guys in this area were expecting disastrous yields and instead, they wound up with pretty satisfying years.”

Waters echoes Strang’s comments about the right amount of rain coming at the right time. That message is becoming more consistent, year after year.

Corn growers also need to wrestle with some tough science problems, including foliar fungicide. “No one seems to under-

stand the effect, but I know one grower in this area who did 100-foot check strips with Headline (strobilurin) and got a 10-bushels-per-acre response,” says Waters.

“Then on the other side of the boom width, he was finding it actually cost him 10 bushels per acre. One thing we did see was that we had a better response with Headline than with Proline, but we still don’t understand that.”

That just leaves more to learn for 2013.

Again next year?

While there are always some takehome lessons from one individual year to the next, Pat Lynch believes doing those things that have led to higher yields in the

Full season Soys have always been good at saving your year in the nick of time. Now, they’re even better at it

F

or Don McClure, more has

ally seem to be stronger once the

happened in the past two

stressors are reduced.

years with soybean produc-

“What’s exciting is that we can

tion than in the previous decade. He

take yield levels that we’ve seen in the

believes soybeans are really starting

past in plots, and they’re now translat-

to come into their own, thanks in

ing to field scale,” McClure says.

large part to research efforts, but also due to the introduction of new breeding techniques.

“Sometimes we do take grief over

“This past year, I talked to many growers who averaged 60-plus bushels," he adds. "Around Alvinston, I heard one grower who said, ‘Never in

not getting things done in time, but

my career have I hit 60 bushels, and

looking at the data, soybeans are

that’s in every field!’”

proceeding very nicely,” says McClure, soybean breeder with Syngenta Canada. “Who would have thought we’d get the crops we did?”

From his perspective, McClure believes the soybean has always been a late-season performer. What’s different is that the modern genetics are better at taking advantage of those conditions.

“When we get rain, they turn quickly to the reproductive phase,” McClure says, adding that it’s not just the plant’s ability to manage stress.

Instead, its recuperative powers actu-

16

McClure echoes Ontario provincial agronomist Horst Bohner’s assessment about full-season varieties, saying he’s always been a proponent of the practice.

But another difference that’s developed in the past 10 to 15 years is that the industry no longer treats soybeans as though they’re simply a shorter version of corn.

“They’re not,” says McClure. “It’s a very different plant, and it responds very differently to different types of management and stresses.”

past three years is good strategy, regardless of weather patterns. For Lynch, that means focusing on topics in corn including hybrid selection, plant populations and planting date.

Planting date actually topped Lynch’s recommendations. Yes, 2012, with an almost total lack of precipitation and winter ground cover, was uncommon in terms of the planting window it provided for most growers, but the bottom line was those who planted early were the winners.

“You can plant too early — corn planted in March didn’t make it, but corn planted after April 15 generally did quite well,” says Lynch, a certified crop adviser who works in the Stratford, Ont. area. “I think growers should start April 10 or so, get everything ready and plant five or 10 acres. Then find out what’s not working and get it fixed. Once the soil is fit after April 15, plant around the clock — plant as if it’s May 20. Year over year, early wins, the soil is in the best condition when it’s fit first thing in the spring. Every rain after that destroys soil structure.”

When it comes to hybrid selection, the lesson in a dry year was that genetically modified hybrids yielded better than nonGM types. Refuge hybrids yielded less, and although refuge-in-a-bag technology was available and accepted, not everyone was satisfied with their results.

Another factor that led to success was plant populations. Overall, the higher the better. But that comes with an added proviso from Lynch, that growers need more information on characteristics pertaining to hybrid-specific populations.

That’s something that Strang agrees is needed, especially as the seed companies continue their rapid launch of new traits and hybrids. That new genetics will be available has become almost a matter of fact, and just as growers adapt their management systems to incorporate those lines, even newer materials become available and the learning begins all over again.

Meanwhile, basic information about hybrid response to population or nitrogen response on current selections is largely unavailable. Yet more of that type of information is exactly what growers want and need, say Lynch and Strang.

Stirring things up Tillage is another critical component of managing drought or excessive dryness. Lynch isn’t a fan of chisel plows, citing uneven soil moisture levels leading to uneven emergence.

“In 2012, we saw their weakness the Soybean Guide, February 2013

WH X - 3.375 x 5 - Soybean Guide_AGI 2012-12-05 9:10 AM Page 1

same way as we saw it in the drought year of 1988,” says Lynch, stating that vertical-tillage tools produced better results. “They were designed to be used under dry soil conditions, and we’ve pushed the limit on what ‘dry’ is. On some soils such as silt loams or lighter soils, you can continue with vertical tillage under wet November conditions. On some soils such as heavy clay-loams or Brookston clays, you must not use vertical tillage once the soil gets so wet.”

At that point, says Lynch, growers must switch to the mouldboard plow, which cuts and lifts soil instead of pushing the soil together. There are growers who are on heavy soils trying to get away from plowing even when conditions are wet in the fall, he notes. But that practice needs more assessment.

Nitrogen was a struggle in 2012, Lynch says, adding that side dressing may be one practice to revisit since those growers who did side dress seemed to favour it, especially those on lighter soils.

Broadcast nitrogen in the form of ESN, ammonium sulphate or calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN) products might be worth considering too.

“Fungicides did pay in general. We’re probably looking at a fiveto 10-bushels-per-acre advantage,” says Lynch, echoing some of Waters’ observations. “The biggest advantage was on higher-yielding fields. In some fields, there was absolutely no response. This is in crop production, so we can’t expect a yield increase all the time with everything that we do, whether it’s with populations, starter fertilizer or tillage. This is where we need those on-farm trials.” SG

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2012 showed again that indeterminant flowering gives soybeans an edge over corn

I

f there is strength in numbers, Istvan Rajcan will add his voice to the choir, especially where the importance of late-summer performance is concerned in soybeans.

Like other agronomists, Rajcan looked at the Ontario soybean crop’s ability to overcome the scorching heat of July 2012 and describes it as nothing short of remarkable.

“We’ve seen that rains in June and July don’t seem to matter as much, but if they come in August when they’re needed, that’s what’s important,” says Rajcan, professor and soybean breeder at University of Guelph. “It’s amazing how the plant can adapt to various conditions. But it’s an indeterminant plant, so it flowers over an extended period of time. If there’s poor timing on pollinating flowers, that’s OK, there will be more flowers that can blossom.”

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Rajcan also believes the industry has reached a point where growers are becoming more comfortable with many of the management practices that are more accepted, such as growing longer maturities and using seed treatments.

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17

SOYGUIDE

Global soys While Canada’s soy growers battle weather and pests at home, their prices are made overseas

By Jeanine Moyer

C

ompared to corn, soybeans are simple. When it comes right down to it, there are only two production regions that really count — the U.S. and South America — and one buyer — China, which soaks up 75 per cent of the world soybean grade.

Canada is barely an afterthought, at least from an international perspective.

Ranking No. 7 in production, account-

ing for a little less than two per cent of the world’s 10 billion bushels of annual production, and less than five per cent of world soybean trade.

But that doesn’t mean soybeans aren’t important within the country.

Indeed, soybeans are already the fourthlargest crop exported from Canada, and soybean production acres in Canada are expanding both east and west.

Plus, while Canada may be a pricetaker in the world market, it has positioned itself as a key producer of niche market soybeans, something that differentiates us from the rest of the world.

It’s an example, says Chris Beckman, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s oilseeds analyst, of a business strategy paying off in spades. “In the early years of soybean production,” Beckman explains, “Ontario growers didn’t have size or production cost advantages over other countries so they developed a food-grade soybean market. That helped develop premiums for growers and establish Canada as a soybean producer and niche exporter.”

The irony is, however, that in the

intervening years, soybeans have since become more lucrative and the industry has expanded based on its value as a commodity, not a food specialty.

It turns out, too, that this is probably good news, because the overwhelming size of the global oil and meal markets largely determine food soy prices, no matter where they are produced or sold.

According to the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, world soybean production increased 11.72 per cent last year over 2011, and has been increasing at an average rate of approximately four per cent per year since 2000.

The expansion of crop production areas in South America, however, has actually slowed the increase in the global yield average because the new areas are producing lower yields due to poor land conditions and a learning curve for farmers starting to grow the new crop.

Even so, the market is watching Brazil carefully as it builds its lead on the U.S., for the first time as the top soybean-producing country worldwide. In fact, rain in Brazil rather than rain in drought-

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Soybean Guide, February 2013

ARGENTINA parched sections of the U.S. has been the main market driver this winter.

Still, while Brazilians have an advantage in lower production costs, transportation costs are significantly higher than in the U.S. But that doesn’t leave everything looking bullish in the U.S., where the crop must still fight against corn for acreage.

Recent droughts have helped stick the U.S. in the world’s No. 2 rank as a soybean producer. Now, even with good weather, the competition against corn might prevent the U.S. from surging back into the lead, Beckman says.

Ag ain, howe ver, there is a big “maybe.” Changes in total production area are likely to be slow, and it will take a bigger-than-expected change in the ratio between the two commodity prices to force any dramatic shift in the total acres dedicated to corn or soybeans in the U.S. Indeed, North American planting weather may still play a big role in pricings. If U.S. farmers can plant corn, they will. If they can’t, it’ll be soys. SG

Production — 1.8 billion bushels Yield — 44 bushels per acre Annual increase — +34.15 per cent As last year’s numbers show, if there’s a soybean version of the Cinderella story, Argentina is at the centre of it. While Argentina has increased its soybean acreage over the past four to five years, however, future growth is likely to come from increased yields rather than more acres.

The env ironment is r ig ht.

Argentina has seen some recent economic struggles, but the future looks favourable for soybean production.

Argentina has expanded its soybean industry to include a significant amount of crushing capacity, creating more domestic jobs within the industr y. Now, the countr y primarily exports soybean meal and oil rather than whole beans.

Argentina is far from the only player in motion. If there’s one country Chris Beckman at Canada’s federal Ag Department would like to know more

about, it’s China. And he isn’t alone.

The world is watching as China positions itself to increase both its production and consumption of soybeans in the near future.

Already the largest buyer of soybeans worldwide — purchasing 75 per cent of soybeans traded worldwide — China is expected to slowly increase soybean imports. Most of those imports will go to the crush market to supply livestock feed to their rapidly expanding livestock industry. Rising income levels in China are creating an increasing demand for animal protein.

What remains to be seen, says Beckman, is what will occur faster in China: an increase in their production or consumption of soybeans. Prices and domestic policies will likely determine the order of these predicted changes.

And as always, China’s single-desk ability to manage the global market could leave producers and buyers around the world dancing to this country’s tune.

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19

SOYGUIDE

Closing in on SCN At last, researchers believe they’ve found a better way to tackle soybean cyst nematodes. The benefits could be worth billions

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

I

t may be a tiny pest, but its impact on the soybean industry must never be underestimated. Yet, that in fact has been the problem up until now. Nematodes have been underestimated — badly.

Soybean cyst nematode (SCN) has been largely ignored by soybeans growers in Eastern Canada, with the result that it has spread from southern Ontario to points east of Toronto. But even when they see SCN damage, growers are often reluctant to admit their soils might be contaminated, choosing instead to blame the symptoms on anything from some sort of nutrient deficiency to a problem with a drill, or perhaps a disease such as sudden death syndrome.

Added to this is the industry’s long reliance on PI 88788 genetics as its one source of resistance, so it is perhaps no surprise SCN has developed into the world’s most damaging soybean pest.

That’s not to say that the PI 88788 source is a failure. On the contrary, it’s been the staple of genetic resistance to SCN for several years. But resistance has become a fact of life with this source.

It all means the industry is in need of some good news, and finally it may have it.

Brian Diers and Matt Hudson of the University of Illinois, along with Andrew Bent of the University of Wisconsin, have

It may look like a small drowned-out spot, but the SCN trial in the photo inset shows what’s really going on.

20

made an important discovery that may lead to the development of superior resistance to SCN. The potential breakthrough traces its origins back to early 2010 when the soybean genome was sequenced. That opened the door for new research into various aspects of soybean biology, including sources of genetic resistance.

The primary gene for resistance to SCN is called Rhg1 and is located on chromosome 18. The Rhg1 gene reduces the potential for damage on plant roots by interfering with the development and maintenance of nematode feeding sites.

Diers led the search to narrow down the section of the genome that contained Rhg1, but one of the surprises to come out of sequencing is the number of genes in regions that were originally thought to be just one gene.

“Breeders have been successful in developing SCN resistance varieties with Rhg1 without knowing what the gene is,” says Diers. “We haven’t been clear on the mechanism and how it works.”

What’s different is that Diers, Hudson and Bent, along with researchers at the University of Nebraska, have been able to sequence a genome of a nematode-resistant variety line (the previous mapping had been done of a nematode-susceptible variety). Instead of finding that there was a gene in the resistant variety that wasn’t in the susceptible line, they found a group of four genes, some of which were replicated several times.

What’s more, they found that almost all the varieties that have had SCN resistance bred into them have more than just one set of these genes. The Peking source of resistance actually has three copies of this gene grouping, and PI 88788 has 10.

Meanwhile, a susceptible variety was found to have just one copy, showing that nematode resistance comes from the repeating of these genes.

“The gene from PI 88788 is the one that we focused our studies on because it’s a very important gene,” says Diers. Peking and PI 437654 sources of SCN resistance are also important, because they have resistance to different types of SCN, and in the Midwest, there are some varieties that do carry resistance from them.

Soybean Guide, February 2013

Finally, scientists make the next big breakthrough in SCN genetics.

However, it has been a struggle to breed resistance from Peking and PI 437654 into high-yielding varieties that farmers want. Instead, breeders have been more successful breeding varieties with the PI 88788 resistance source, so that’s where the research team concentrated its efforts.

Now that researchers know what to look for, it could help them look at multiple genes contributing to the same set of characteristics (bringing more genes to fight the same disease). It could also open the door on SCN resistance by identifying those lines that show more Rhg1 repeats, which could potentially boost resistance.

“Hopefully, over time, we’ll see more varieties with these alternative sources of resistance, and breeders are certainly working very hard to incorporate that resistance into high-yielding varieties,” says Diers. “We know that in most fields in the Midwest,

nematodes are now becoming more and more able to overcome the 88788 resistance.

In Illinois for example, most farmers realize that SCN is prevalent, and even if they haven’t tested for nematodes, they realize they probably have them.”

North of the border For Albert Tenuta, the announcement from Diers, Hudson and Bent couldn’t come at a better time, especially with SCN’s economic cost to farmers. It’s been a long road to get to this point, Tenuta says, but it looks now like breeders may finally get the upper hand against the pests.

“Based on the technology we had, it appeared that resistance came from one gene, when in fact it appears to instead be made up of a greater number of smaller genes or gene groups,” says Tenuta, field crops pathologist for the Ontario Agri-

culture Ministry. “This could partly explain why we see such variability in our SCN-resistant varieties or other varieties when we incorporate a single gene. In this case… if you’re not moving the full gene group and the repeats over with it, you’re not getting the full benefit of the resistance source.”

The difference between susceptible and resistant may not be as easily defined as simply having or not having the gene, which was the normal relationship between resistance and susceptibility.

With this particular research, it was found that there are multiple copies of the same gene, and these multiple copies — it appears now — seemed to provide enhanced tolerance to SCN in what those genes were coding for.

Tenuta says it’s an important finding, especially where there’s a combination of major genes and minor genes, along with a subset of genes.

“It’s more complicated than we first thought,” says Tenuta “but the whole process now, by getting the science down to even smaller groups of genes or sequences, can make the future breeding of SCN-resistant varieties better.” SG

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21

SOYGUIDE

FROGEYE HOPS UP Routine spraying of corn fungicides may be breeding an outbreak of frogeye resistance in soybeans

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

22

C

ompared to phytophthora root rot or sclerotinia white mould, frogeye leaf spot may neither be as prevalent nor as big a yield threat. But don’t tell soybean growers in the mid-south U.S. that it's nothing to worry about, especially since the fungicides they’ve been relying on to keep frogeye in check simply aren’t doing the job as well as they used to.

That leaves Canadian disease experts looking across the border, and not liking what they see.

Frogeye leaf spot is caused by the pathogen Cercospora sojina, a fungus that it’s been possible to control with the strobilurin family of foliar fungicides. Since 2010, however, Carl Bradley at the University of Illinois has been finding frogeye leaf spot isolates from several states that are resistant to various strobilurin fungicides, including Headline and Quadris.

“In some areas, it’s a more serious problem than in others,” says Bradley, noting that it’s a particular problem in southern Illinois, western Kentucky and western Tennessee, and eastern Arkansas.

“Fungicide resistance makes disease management more challenging, and this becomes more serious when growers rely too much on fungicides and don’t consider other disease management tactics.”

There are obvious parallels to what’s been going on with weed resistance in the region, and for much the same reason.

The industry has been overrelying on particular chemistries. The other factor that

plays into this development — on both sides of the border — is the increasing use of strobilurins in corn.

Agronomists and researchers may not always understand the activity and the benefits of foliar fungicides in corn, but it seems to work, and that means a lot of acres are getting treated.

RESISTANCE FOUND Bradley’s research on strobilurin fungicide resistance dates back to 2007 when he was working with a couple of colleagues, to establish base-line sensitivity values. Their one source of frogeye isolates had been gathered before 2000, when growers started using strobilurin fungicides on soybeans.

“I could use this base-line population and grow the fungus in culture with different amounts of fungicide and determine how sensitive the fungus is to the fungicide,” Bradley explains. “From there, in 2007, we started collecting isolates of the fungus from commercial fields and our own research fields where a strobilurin fungicide application had been made.”

In 2010, the team studied isolates from a western Tennessee farm where strobilurin fungicides had been sprayed a couple times that year without controlling the disease, Bradley says. “We found that the isolates from that field were completely resistant to strobilurin fungicides.”

With those resistant isolates, Bradley was able to change the testing parameters Soybean Guide, February 2013

and look at more samples. Then he asked colleagues from other states for isolates, with the result that resistance was confirmed in eight different states.

“Now, just because we’re detecting it in fields doesn’t necessarily mean the producer isn’t going to be able to control it with strobilurin fungicides. It just means that there are resistant strains in that population,” says Bradley. “And if they continue to use strobilurin fungicides and don’t use any other classes of chemistry, what will happen is that they’ll continue to put selection pressure on the pathogen and select out those resistant isolates. Then the entire population would be resistant and at that point in time, they would have difficulty controlling the disease.”

As resistance issues go, frogeye is still fairly small, but higher prices mean growers are more tempted to automatically spray fungicides on more acres of corn, and this could help increase the resistance threat.

“It’s difficult to predict when you’re going to get a yield response,” says Bradley. The numbers that go into building an average response rate would come from fields where there was high disease pressure, and fields where disease pressure was low.

“So an average isn’t a guarantee of what you’re going to get,” Bradley says.

Still, frogeye can definitely reduce yield, and there’s a benefit to using a fungicide in those cases where yield is at imminent risk.

DILIGENCE NEEDED Although frogeye leaf spot isn’t as big a yield robber as soybean cyst nematode, there are signs that it’s starting to pick up, according to Albert Tenuta, field crops pathologist for the Ontario Agriculture Ministry. It could be said that the past two growing seasons have been fairly dry, which is a challenge for a disease that typically is a greater problem during wet years. But Tenuta agrees with Bradley’s assessment that this is a problem on the rise, particularly with the increasing reliance on strobilurin fungicides.

“It’s starting to pick up more in southwestern Ontario, and we’re seeing some differences in varieties and susceptibility,” says Tenuta. “It’s more widespread than we initially expected. And we see more use of strobilurins, and that’s where resistance management is a particular concern. We have few options to manage these foliar diseases, and we use them across corn, soybeans and wheat."

Says Tenuta: “It comes down to management practices and fungicide management, and good overall stewardship of the technology.”

Now Tenuta and Bradley are going to work together in determining if fungicide-resistant pathogens of soybean and corn occur in Ontario.

As with most resistance events, the sooner you get started, the better. Based on Bradley’s research, the use of resistant varieties, crop rotations and some tillage top the list of measures that can help with the management of the disease. If disease levels can be managed or kept low using these practices, it may be that fungicides aren’t necessary.

Also on Bradley’s list is rotation of classes of fungicides, the same as we’re hearing with herbicides in managing resistance in weed species. Lastly — and it can’t be said often enough — apply foliar fungicides to control plant diseases.

“Every time a fungicide is applied, it exerts a selection pressure on the fungal population,” says Bradley. “Keeping this selection pressure to a minimum is important in prolonging the effectiveness and lifespan of a fungicide.” SG Soybean Guide, February 2013

23

SOYGUIDE

Big soy country When farmers on the Prairies start testing soybeans, big things happen fast

By Maggie Van Camp, CG Associate Editor

24

S

eed grower and Saskatchewan soybean advocate, Kevin Elmy, predicts that the soybean wave sweeping across Manitoba — from near zero to over 875,000 acres in 10 years — could be a tsunami in Saskatchewan. “With good early varieties, Saskatchewan could have two million to three million acres within five years,” says Elmy.

In the last few years, the dribble of soybeans grown in Saskatchewan has turned into a ripple, mostly in the southeast corner of the province. In 2012, it’s estimated there were 75,000 acres of soybeans in Saskatchewan, but only 28,000 insured. For 2013, seed suppliers are projecting seeded acres to at least double.

“I’ve talked to retailers trying to allocate seed supply and they’re estimating 150,000 to 250,000 acres will be seeded, if they can get the seed,” says Elmy.

If acreage keeps doubling, it means a quarter section experiment this year would grow into a half next year and a full section the year following, so Elmy’s prediction isn’t all that crazy. When farmers in Saskatchewan experiment with a crop, they go big, he says. Instead of 10 acres, they’ll try a quarter section and if that goes well, the numbers grow fast from there.

Will Saskatchewan soybeans chase Manitoba’s? That’s still a big question, in part because no one really knows where the Manitoba crop will top out.

In 2012, Manitoba reported that its seeded acres increased 52.2 per cent from the record of 575,000 acres set in 2011.

Some industry experts are predicting 2013

soybean acres in Manitoba will soar past the million-acre mark.

Equally significant, yields shot up to 34.9 bushels per acre in 2012 from 26.7 the year before. Typical on-farm yields in Saskatchewan are currently in the 25- to 30-bushel range.

THE CATALYSTS Lower heat unit varieties with glyphosate resistance are now available, and more are coming on stream. Combine that convenience with soybean’s ability to fix 30 to 50 pounds of nitrogen per acre for next year’s crop, then stir in this year’s strong prices, and you can almost surf on the potential wave of uptake.

Tom Warkentin, plant breeder at the University of Saskatchewan has been evaluating soybean germplasm for Saskatchewan for the past several years.

He says their breeding effort is expanding. “The main breeding objective will be earlier maturity, probably through improved tolerance to cool night temperatures,” Warkentin says.

The larger seed companies are jumping in too, with trials popping up throughout the province. Recently Syngenta put together a soybean variety development group for Western Canada, with maturity group material adapted for Manitoba and Saskatchewan. “There has been accelerating growth in soybeans across Western Canada, fuelled by a combination of factors including varietal development, market conditions and rotational considerations,” explains Don McClure, lead Syngenta soybean breeder for Canada.

Soybean Guide, February 2013

Todd Hyra, SeCan’s business manager for Western Canada agrees that with all the interest in Saskatchewan this fall and winter, there could easily be 200,000 acres planted in the province in the short term. He’s cautiously optimistic about prospects of Saskatchewan farmers adopting this new crop. “With the available varieties becoming earlier and stronger every year, there’s huge potential,” says Hyra.

Hyra himself has become more of a soybean fan recently after SeCan’s two varieties popular in Manitoba proved themselves resilient in some challenging commercial conditions. In the extreme wet conditions of 2010, Hyra saw soybean plants survive where others crops drowned out, and with the glyphosate-resistant varieties the surrounding weed pressure could be controlled.

Plus, during last summer’s hot, dry conditions in July and August when many other crops suffered, soybeans met expectations.

“I’ve been impressed with stability of this crop,” says Hyra.

However, as soybean acres migrate west and north from the Red River Valley, the challenges and risks increase — early frost and drought are common threats. Soybeans — originally a semitropical crop — love moisture and heat. “There’s a big difference in growing conditions between southeastern Manitoba and most of Saskatchewan,” says Hyra.

Yet farmers in some pockets of northwestern Manitoba have been growing soybeans for five or six years. Growers there have found that the many lakes in the area are tempering the severity of the early killing frosts. Besides, soybean maturity is influenced not only by heat units but by day length too.

Kevin Elmy farms near Saltcoats, Sask. at 51-degree latitude, and has grown soybeans for a decade, averaging 28 bushels per acre. He’s so impressed with soybeans that for four years he has seeded soybeans on 45 per cent of his farm.

Elmy says that although the crop budgets for soybeans compared to canola don’t warrant a big switchover, the farmers he talks to are considering soybeans for taking the place of lower-value crops such as barley. “Canola didn’t yield as well this year so folks are looking for alternatives to add to the rotation,” Elmy adds.

First and foremost, farmers have to choose varieties that have been tested in a Prairie growing season, says Elmy. Also, he warns that 2012 results could mislead growers into selecting higher heat unit varieties. Using an average of 25 heat units per day, Elmy estimates that this year soybeans had an extra 15 days to maturity.

Instead of the Corn Heat Unit system presently used in Canada, Elmy prefers to use the American rating system classifying early-varieties as “00.” “If we get a “0002” with sound agronomics, the acres here could be scary,” he says. (Ed. note: “00” is a very early maturing group. The next number shows the relative maturity where 0 is earlier and 9 is later and the 2 at the end refers to Roundup Ready 2 technology.)

Early frosts are always a threat to soybeans, yet farmers farther and farther north are experimenting with new varieties. Reports are creeping in from trials in The Pas, as well as from Saskatoon and even from north of Edmonton. If early frost occurs before the plant reaches maturity, both yield and quality suffer.

Typically the first significant freezing temperatures in Western Canada can be expected by mid-September, when May-planted soybeans are still being harvested. However, August killing frosts happen. Remember 2004?

Although yields are affected by extreme weather, there’s always some crop to harvest, even after an early frost. Soybeans can form pods and mature over long periods and this can be turned off and on. “Late rains can save them,” says Brad Eggum, who grows and sells soybean seed near Halbright, Sask., south Soybean Guide, February 2013

of Weyburn. “They’re indeterminant so they can start flowering and setting pods again.”

Eggum estimates that half his soybean seed clients last year successfully grew their soybeans outside the crop insurance area.

Their success at growing this crop has resulted in an amazingly good retention rate. Since Eggum started selling soybean seed five years ago, fewer than 10 per cent of the clients who have tried growing soybeans have quit.

Eggum says there’s unlimited potential for a soybeans in Saskatchewan, as long as the earlier-maturing varieties can stand up to the Prairie conditions. They’ve gone from an experiment to becoming part of the rotation in his area, mostly replacing lowervalued cereals, flax or pulses. “We’ve seen an exponential growth of soybean acres year over year,” Eggum says.

Of the few claims that crop insurance had last year in Saskatchewan, all were for establishment, says Daniel Jungwirth, from Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation.

Soybeans need warmer soils (minimum of 8 C to 10 C) to start germination, and when seeded into cold, wet soils, they’re prone to seed and seedling rots. They’re also extremely sensitive to seed-placed fertilizer. For effective nodulation and nitrogen fixation in Western Canada, soybeans must be inoculated, with both liquid and in furrow with dry or liquid.

Crushing soybeans are easy to sell, either spot delivery or contract. Next to corn, they are the most liquid traded commodity in North America. This winter Weyburn Elevators began offering bids for soybeans, says Eggum. Prairie elevator companies are the largest buyers of soybeans followed by direct sales to the United States and local crushers and roasters. SG

25

soyguide

Twice in a year

At Embro, the Frasers got 40 bushels with double-cropped soybeans, while at Kingsville, longtime double-cropper Henry Denotter got 13, and newcomers Melissa and Glen Falconer at Teeswater put only 12 in the bin

By Amy Petherick

26

T

he one thing everyone agrees on is that when an early summer came along at the same time as some impressively spiking soybean prices, it inspired a lot of farmers to get innovative in 2012, resulting in a variety of attempts to double crop soybeans in high heat unit areas.

Some growers met with success. To put it bluntly, others didn’t.

Fortunately, many are willing to talk about what they learned.

Few of the growers who tried double cropping last year could boast the depth of experience of Henry Denotter, who started dabbling with double cropping in 2000, planting as many as 100 acres in one year. This time he only put in 30 acres on his Kingsville, Ont. farm, explaining it is easier to get that much crop off in one or two days in the late fall.

Over the past dozen years, Denotter has

had to learn a lot through trial and error, and he says that for most of those years, he had to gather a lot of his intelligence from American farmers. But not now.

“This year there is a lot more interest in double cropping, so there are more people willing to share ideas,” Denotter says. “I picked up a few more pointers talking to different people and to Horst Bohner (soybean leader with the Ontario Agriculture Ministry).”

For example, Denotter says in 2013 he will start planting his double-cropped soybeans a lot thicker. Not that he was putting them in thin before, but he has come to realize that you need to think out of the box completely and start planting in the 250,000 to 300,000 population range.

Denotter says he has always planted with a row planter rather than a drill, sometimes no tilling directly into fourinch wheat stubble but sometimes into Soybean Guide, February 2013

“It’s a lot more fun to do this with $14 beans than with $6 beans.”

— Henry Denotter trash. Since he mainly grows wheat for the grain and not the straw, next year he says he’s going to shred it back on the field.

“If we plant right away into that and leave everything there, I think that’s going to help hold the moisture,” says Denotter. Moisture is one of the major challenges for July germination, especially when the soil at ideal planting depths starts getting dry, he points out.

“You’d like them to find moisture (at planting) but not get them in too deep.”

It’s a fine line that needs to be adjusted depending on the day, Denotter finds.

Like many things in farming , Denotter says that the most important thing about planning to double crop beans is to keep the plan flexible. “I don’t think there’s a lot of rocket science in double cropping, there’s just a lot of seat-of-your-pants guessing and maybe it’ll work and maybe it won’t.”

But Denotter is quick to point out that even if you don’t get the crop you were hoping for, that doesn’t mean trying is a loss. In a worst-case scenario, the beans provide a summer cover crop that, as long as there is some winter snow, doesn’t need to be mowed or cut before no tilling the next spring.

Denotter says he offered his field to a local dairy farmer for green chop before harvesting it this year after an October frost finished his beans off one week too early. So in a 3200+ CHU area, he only averaged 13 bushels per acre and the beans were not only high in moisture but so tough to cut he had to really slow the combine down. It wasn’t what he’d call a stellar performance.

“You have to remember that it’s a lot more fun to do this at $14 beans than it is with $6 beans,” says Denotter.

It’s that same sense of humour that Melissa and Glen Falconer say you need if you’re going to attempt to double crop soybeans, especially when you’re growing in a 2800 CHU area.

The Teeswater, Ont. couple has a fledgling beef and dairy goat farm, where they’d been buying all their feed until they tried cash cropping for the first time last year. Melissa said it seemed like everyone was advising them to start growing their own feed and they thought Soybean Guide, February 2013

they’d lucked out when they picked up some untouched hay ground this spring.

When the first cut produced a mere two bales per acre, they could see why the farm had been available.

“This is our first year cash cropping,” says Melissa. “All we knew was that buying feed is really expensive.”

Melissa and Glen made a quick decision to get beans on the farm in July. In their case, she says it was really difficult to control all the weeds and then the field only really got some small showers in the few days after it was planted. It was almost the fall before the rains came back again, Melissa says, but by then it was too late for the beans. At harvest they averaged a mere 12 bushels, instead of the 16 bushels per acre they had hoped for.

“All it really did was paid half the rent and all the custom work on that place, which is hard to swallow, but it got that farm up and running,” says Melissa. “But sometimes if you don’t take that risk, you’re never going to benefit, even from learning.”

Knowing what they’re in for a little better than they did before, the Falconers are cautiously considering trying to double crop again next year.

They liked that they could get their bean seed for a reduced price so late in the year. They also saved on crop insurance, since double-cropped beans don’t qualify for coverage. Melissa says that the costs they save give double cropping real appeal, at least on paper, and that goes a long way when you’re trying to sway your farm accountant.

“Our farm financial adviser has farmed his whole life and was a little leery at first,” says Melissa. “(Double cropping) penciled out, except for the drought, and now he’s even recommended it to a few of his other clients.”

Ian and Khris Fraser are dairy farmers in Embro, Ont. who are familiar with the strange looks you get planting a bean field in the middle of the summer. They planted beans last July, for the second year in a row, in fields right next to the main road. “The first year we did them, we kind of thought we were nuts ourselves,” says Ian. “But my wife wasn’t laughing anymore when she went to the bank.”

Even more confident after 2011’s success, Ian says they waited patiently while rain held up their winter barley harvest.

But he says they got the straw baled quickly July 2, rented the neighbour’s drill with its 7.5-inch rows, and they had 20 acres of soybeans no tilled back in the ground the next day. For the rest of the growing season, Ian says it was like the stars were perfectly aligned.

“We had a light shower that day, and with the heat, they were probably up in three days and you could row them,” says Ian. “I couldn’t believe it. It didn’t happen like that the year before.”

At harvest, their 20 acres of doublecropped beans averaged 40 bushels per acre. Ian says they were docked a bit for high moisture in the 16 to 20 per cent range but they were still well paid, since market prices were just $2 per bushel under what he contracted the rest of his beans for this year. And that was without manure, which Ian had hoped to get on in between baling and planting but says there just wasn’t enough time. With so many costs reduced, Ian says even with last year’s 24-bushel output, double cropping has paid both years for him now.

“I haven’t lost on soybeans putting them in after the winter barley,” said Fraser. “You not only get the barley to feed the cows, you get the straw for manure, and if you get the soybeans off you make some money there. I’d say you win all the way round.”

But the Frasers saw how critical every day is when some neighbours also tried double cropping after wheat this year, which came off two weeks later and their beans didn’t finish maturing in the fall.

Ian has also learned that shorter CHU beans really enhance your chance of success. The 2600 and 2700 beans they planted this year did much better than the 2800 beans right next to them.

And as if they hadn’t seen enough good surprises from the new practice, Ian is attributing a corn yield bump this year to double cropping last year. When one field averages 235 bushels and your other corn is coming in as low as 185 bushels, it really gets your attention, he says. But he can’t be sure it was only a coincidence this time. You’ll have to ask him next year. SG 27

soyguide

Cranking up soy engine oil I

Ohio-based Renewable Lubricants joins the University of Guelph to prove it works

By Ralph Pearce, CG Production Editor

n a world where corn is the accepted leader of the so-called “Big Three,” soybeans are doing more than either corn or wheat to create new markets and opportunities. Wheat is still basically a food crop, and corn is still feed, ethanol and sweeteners. But there’s a sense with soybeans that nobody yet knows what it is going to be when it grows up.

In the past decade, there has been considerable interest in using soybean oil as a lubricant. What has held these innovations back, however, has been the lack of a small-scale, industrial IP processing plant for Ontario-grown soybeans. Once completed, such a facility could drive supply for high-quality, specific-trait soybean oil, which could then be used as the feedstock for everything from motor oil to WD 40-like penetrating lubricants.

Don Marentette of Renewable

After 80,000 kms, the University of Guelph engine is positively humming, proof that soy oil is rich in promise

28

Lubricants is watching closely. Renewable Lubricants is based in Ohio, and is distributed in Canada by DM’s Bio-Based Fluid Supply, based in Bolton, Ont. Marentette has been involved in the lubricant trade since 1981, working for a private conglomerate with a worldwide customer base. He worked in sales, then became president of the Canadian division, and then moved up to vice-president of sales worldwide for the company. When he left the company a few years ago, he connected with an acquaintance from his previous employer, who provided him with a link to the renewable lubricants sector.

After looking at the strengths and weaknesses, Marentette became the Canadian distributor, with exclusive rights for manufacturing and distributing renewable lubricants. From there, he secured a pilot project for a soybean-based motor oil with the University of Guelph.

“As far as plant construction and development of an industrial IP processor here in Ontario, what that does is it gives me access to my feedstock,” says Marentette. The ideal candidate for that feedstock is DuPont-Pioneer’s Plenish soybeans, a variety with a high oleic oil profile. “Even though the Plenish soybean oil will be more expensive than a regular soybean oil, it should be cheaper than our current feedstock, which is either canola or sunflower or safflower,” Marentette says. “We need a minimum of 80 per cent for what we call high-performance products such as motor oils and hydraulic oils, although we do make regular products such as fuel additives, penetrants, rust inhibitors, from regular soy oil.”

An Ontario-based processing plant would give Marentette greater control over access to higher-quality oil, not to mention its effect on his overall costs.

Soybean Guide, February 2013

NEW

Comparisons versus challenges Marentette believes his soybean-based motor oil can match the quality of a petroleum product such as Mobile 1 in every way possible.

One of the positives about plant-based oils is their natural lubrication capability. However, a general lack of understanding can often get in the way of advancing the market for these products. Most people refer to motor oils without recognizing the difference between mineral (petroleum) oils and synthetics. On top of that, they might believe that one behaves differently than the other, when in fact, most oils, synthetic or mineral, have the same challenges with premature oxidation — which can limit the life of an oil — and with temperature.

“The big advantage we have is that with motor oils, we can actually put up better values with what’s known as fuel blowback,” Marentette explains. With new high-compression Audi engines, for instance, fuel blows by the piston rings and gets into the motor oil, leading to contamination. With synthetic motor oil, this can lead to premature wear on bearings, whereas with soy oil, because it’s vegetable based, it can withstand more diesel fuel in it, and can still maintain the extended oil-change life.”

In the long term, Marentette says, this means using soybean oil is cheaper.

A second challenge for Marentette is that in Ontario, the onus is on the carrier or the manufacturer to prove that a fluid does no harm to the environment. Marentette has various Continued on page 30

Soybean Guide, February 2013

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Continued from page 29

trucking companies interested in using his soybean-based motor oil, but they won’t switch, he says, because there’s still no guarantee the driver or the company won’t be fined in the event of a spill, even though soy motor oil is virtually the same as canola or soybean oil that people use for cooking. With potential fines of $40,000 to $60,000 per spill, they see that as too large a risk.

“Until someone has a spill and tests it in court for the first time, I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Marentette says. “If they can avoid a fine, suddenly my material becomes very inexpensive.”

Where he may have turned a corner recently is with the pilot project at the University of Guelph. For the past four years, the university has been using Marentette’s motor oil and lubricants in its vehicle fleet and the response has been positive, to say the least. He is currently involved with the university and with Soy 20/20, in preparing a multiyear assessment.

For instance, one university vehicle has been using Marentette’s product for four

years, with oil changes every 7,000 km and 80,000 km total usage without any issues. Reducing one oil change per year, particularly with a fleet of vehicles, adds up to considerable cost savings. And using bio-based lubricants has no negative impact on the performance of an engine.

“It certainly helps because the university has been using it for so long and without any issues,” says Marentette.

“Whenever you go to somebody else to sell these materials, the first question they always ask is ‘who else is using it?’ Of course the university carries a bit of weight within the agricultural community.”

More uses on the horizon Last October, a story in The Guelph Mercury noted the use of soybean oil as a component in blacktop sealant. Marketed as RePlay, it is 88 per cent biodegradable, and seals and protects asphalt in the same way as petroleum-based products, and at roughly the same price. The sealant has had a slow start in Eastern Canada but is well known in Edmonton and in other parts of Western Canada.

Gord Surgeoner, president of Ontario Agri-Food Technologies, looks at Marentette’s efforts with DM’s Bio-Based Fluid Supply and Renewable Lubricants,

For more information Check out Renewable Lubricants, Inc. to learn more about bio-based lubricants, including a list of products, as well as testimonials. Go to www.dmsbiobased.ca.

The United Soybean Board also has an interesting web page, with various uses for soybean oil, including adhesives, water-based alkyd paints, insulation — even AstroTurf. Go to www.soynewuses.org/.

and acknowledges it as an important step in boosting soybeans’ utility in specialized products. Corn, he says, is more of a feedstock, with products made available primarily through fermentation.

“Corn can turn into hundreds of products whereas with soybeans, particularly identity preserved soybeans, which Ontario is well known for, we can extract components that are then going into bioproducts of high value,” says Surgeoner, citing engine oils, lubricants and cutting oils. Most of these products do not require fermentation or any further chemical process. “They just become additives into the recipes of final products, and that’s the big difference. With soybeans, we can just pull out the components — we don’t need microbes to make a final product.”

And it’s not just the soybean oil that is the key, it’s a matter of defining or determining what type of soybean oil is desired based on its usage. Then it becomes a question of differentiating varieties, and it’s at that point that it’s no longer a commodity but a crop with a specific use and a specific value based on its oil profile, a similar process to what Marentette achieved with Renewable Lubricants.

“Give credit to the University of Guelph for taking part in these beta tests,” says Surgeoner. “You need to develop a history, and once you have that experience under your belt, you can get the warranty on that vehicle.”

It’s a slow and steady process but the upside on these markets is vast.

“You’re not going to replace conventional oil in the short term, but performance is a measure of value, now,” says Surgeoner. “There may be some sticker shock, but even at 20 per cent more in price, if you can eliminate at least one oil change per year, that’s real savings.” SG

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The truth

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By Philip Shaw

Soybean Guide, February 2013

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ome people call soybeans the great liars. When I first heard that phrase, I was a bit taken aback. I think I had just told one of Ontario’s leading soybean researchers how good my soybean crop looked in July. He retorted with that comment, explaining that sometimes soybeans can look great, but then not yield up to your expectation. Much depends on when they get moisture and the different stresses they face throughout the year.

In 2012, that certainly was the buzz that wafted across North American farm country. While corn sizzled in one of the worst droughts in American history, the soybean market keyed in on late-summer rains. Would those soybeans lie to us this time? How would the soybean market respond to any late improvement in crop condition?

For Ontario soybean producers 2012 was certainly a challenging year. For some farmers who suffered through June and July, late rains helped. In other areas, especially in southwestern Ontario, consistent rainfall and a summer without major pests added up to record yields for many soybean producers.

In fact, Statistics Canada chimed in with their latest December 2012 results pegging Ontario production at 46.5 bushels per acre with a total crop of 120.3 million bushels. It was a good year and it was topped off by record soybean prices with the November 2012 futures price reaching its all-time high of $17.89 a bushel on September 4.

In many ways it was the best of times, yet through the three-month period after the record high, soybean futures prices declined over $3 a bushel.

Does that define volatility, or is it just a normal part of our present 2013 soybean

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market? With non-commercial speculators infusing so much investment capital into commodities, the soybean market has been one of the favourites. It means there is volatility like never before and it is only another reason why soybean producers need to have a marketing plan as we look into 2013 and beyond.

The 46.5 bushels per acre in Ontario last year was a very healthy yield, but it still pales in comparison with production levels on the world stage. For instance, the Ontario soybean yield produced approximately 3.27 million metric tons of soybeans across the province. This Ontario production is small compared to the 80.86 MMT produced in the United States last year and the 81 MMT and 55 MMT of soybeans expected to be produced in Brazil and Argentina respectively this winter. So, while our production is important to us, it has little impact on the world price for soybeans. South America is the new giant in world soybean production.

That is what makes global considerations in our soybean-marketing plan so much different than for corn. With two large production areas in the world planting and harvesting at opposite times, it is very important to track seasonal price movement. When Ontario is planting and harvesting, roughly speaking, Brazil and Argentina are doing the opposite. Production problems in either area will surely impact soybean prices.

The monster of soybean demand is China. Increasingly, its insatiable appetite for soybeans has put an effective floor under the soybean price. For instance, over the last three years China has imported 52.34, 59.23 and 63 MMT Continued on page 32

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A core strategy in any Canadian farmer’s soybeanmarketing plan has got to be to watch Brazil and its huge and expanding soybean acreage. Twitter makes it fast, but it still takes judgment to project how China will use the same information to play South America off against North America.

Continued from page 31

respectively. Due to its limited land and water resources, Chinese soybean imports are expected to increase over time.

With so much swagger and influence in the soybean market on the world stage, China can play off U.S. soybeans versus South American supplies. Their influence on the market especially in the months between North American and South American supplies can be decisive.

As of January 2013, it’s all about South America now with regard to soybeans.

With the lowering of U.S. and world ending stocks over the last couple of years it is very important for Brazil and Argentina to hit projected production levels of 81 MMT and 55 MMT respectively. Early rains did delay planting in much of Argentina, possibly reducing the production estimate. However, benign weather for planting and mid-season in Brazil has maintained that production estimate and possibly increased it.

There is still much production risk going forward in South America and depending on weather, the futures market sees big supplies coming back on the world stage. Any hiccup such as a harvest delay in that paradigm may boost soybean futures in January to March 2013.

U.S. exports of soybeans will likely remain strong.

32

South American conditions are surely impacting old-crop pricing right now but at the same time are setting the stage for new-crop values. When formulating a marketing plan for soybeans it’s extremely important to keep this in mind. Daily market intelligence is essential, and the use of Twitter to keep track of South American conditions can be very helpful.

Much of this is crystal ball gazing but when it comes to soybeans the back and forth from the South American to the North American supply chain can give clarity. For instance, as we switch away from old-crop to new-crop focus in the April to June period, new South American supplies will be filling export channels into Asia.

Of course, everything depends on South American weather early on, but larger supplies through our mid-spring would see basis levels at the gulf weakening. Of course, we must remember when this is happening, soybean planters will be rolling across North America setting up another series of variables which may impact prices.

The July to September period is always crucial for soybean marketing. This is sometimes where our soybeans do turn into great liars. Rains in August always seem to define soybean production levels in North America and it will be crucial in 2013 that the rains come. This will be an obvious flashpoint for marketing soybeans in 2013.

Weather reports over the American Midwest will be key. At the same time, South American supplies may weigh down the world market. Everything is tied together, especially with the weather.

Always important is the role played by non-commercial speculative investment demand, which flows in and out of our agricultural commodity market on a daily basis. Non-commercial traders are always looking for opportunity for return on investment on their capital and will jump into a market when they see great opportunity. Measuring and monitoring this trade volume at the Chicago Mercantile exchange can give good marketing clues on fund direction. Throughout the summer of 2013, this will be very important in your soybean-marketing plans.

The October to December 2013 period will likely reflect traditional harvest lows in North America. Of course, weather is always an issue that soybean producers cannot get away from. It is also a long way away and marketing some of that 2013 soybean crop at the present time is always an option as we look ahead.

The road ahead in soybeans has its share of blue skies. Ontario farmers continue to be competitive and win with soybeans. Demand for Ontario non-GMO soybeans in Asia remains vibrant. Newcrop prices are lower than old-crop values as we start 2013, but still profitable. SG Soybean Guide, February 2013

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soyguide

When I apply 28% UAN to winter wheat, can I also add a herbicide?

By Mike Cowbrough and Peter Johnson (OMAFRA), Dr. Peter

#PestPatrol with Mike Cowbrough, OMAFRA

Table 1 Crop injury (%) and yield (bu./ac.) of winter wheat following an application of 28% UAN (400 l /ha) alone with air-induction nozzles and with various herbicides compared to an untreated control that received the same amount of nitrogen.

Treatment Unsprayed 28% UAN alone 28% UAN + Infinity 28% UAN + Buctril M 28% UAN + Estaprop XT 28% UAN + Refine M

Herbicide rate/ac.

— — 0.33 litres 0.4 litres 0.48 litres 12 g + 0.36 litres

Injury (%) 0 6 9 8 9 17

Yield (bu./ac.)

105 105 104 103 102 99

Source: Dr. P.H. Sikkema, three trials from 2008-10, University of Guelph (Ridgetown Campus)

Sikkema (University of Guelph)

G

rowers looking to optimize efficiency of field operations often inquire about applying a herbicide with 28% urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) as a carrier. In theory it makes sense. An application of 28% UAN at 400 l/ha (42 U.S. gal./ac.) as a carrier with a herbicide would save a trip over the field by providing the wheat crop’s seasonal nitrogen requirements (roughly 140 kg/ha or 125 lbs. of N/ac.) while controlling emerged weeds. In practice, applications of UAN to winter wheat must be made with streamer nozzles because they cause much less leaf burn than other nozzle types. However, streamer nozzles are not acceptable for herbicide applications because they do not provide adequate coverage of targeted weeds.

To make a one-pass “weed ’n’ feed” system work, you would need to use a nozzle designed for herbicide applications, but how would this affect crop tolerance and yield?

Research trials conducted during a three-year period evaluated the response of winter wheat to herbicides applied with 28% UAN as a carrier (see Table 1).

Ontario Data: When 28% UAN is applied to winter wheat with a low-drift air-induction nozzle, instead of the recommended streamer nozzle, there is an increase in visual crop injury. When a herbicide is applied with 28% UAN as a carrier, the amount of foliar injury increases in some instances by 283 per cent (i.e Refine SG + MCPA Amine – sold as Refine M).

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In one-third of the trials, there was a trend to decreased winter wheat yields due to increased crop injury when a herbicide was applied with 28% UAN as a carrier.

The photos show enhanced winter wheat leaf burn caused by an application of Refine M with 28% UAN as a carrier.

In the lower photo, the spray swath of Refine M applied with 28% UAN as a carrier is bordered by untreated areas.

Other Jurisdictions: Similar work was done in Kansas during the mid-1990s. A paper authored by Stahlman et al., 1997 (www.jstor.org/stable/3988221) demonstrated significant crop injury when using 28% UAN as a carrier for herbicides. A reduction in grain yield was

never observed despite crop injury ratings as high as 53 per cent.

Bottom Line: The practice of using 28% UAN as a carrier is not listed on any of the Buctril M, Infinity, Estaprop XT or Refine SG labels, most likely due to the increased risk of crop injury. Contact the manufacturer to see if they would support its use. Although it’s surprising that increased injury did not always lead to reduced grain yields, the practice is certainly contrary to the idea of minimizing crop stress and therefore cannot be endorsed.

Have a question you want answered?

Hashtag #PestPatrol on twitter.com to @cowbrough or email Mike at mike. cowbrough@ontario.ca.

Soybean Guide, February 2013

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