No longer do growers wait until the following season to purchase their seed for the coming year. We see more seed purchased now before the current crop is even harvested. Seed companies offer attractive discounts if growers are willing to order their seed early. Years ago, when much of the soybean seed grown was public varieties, our office would start receiving calls in early January wanting copies of the “Minnesota Varietal Trials Bulletin” so they could compare yield data and order their seed. Now, much of the seed is purchased before Jan. 1. The disadvantage of purchasing seed so early is not having plot data on hand to assist in making the decision. The Minnesota Corn Growers Web site, www.mncorn.org/servlet/mcga/homepage is a good source for county corn plot data. Many counties in our area have county corn grower plots, so this is a good source of unbiased data growers can use to make their corn hybrid selection decisions. As soon as counties send their data into the state office, it is loaded on to the Web page. The U of M is another good source for comparing corn hybrids. Data are available at the U of M Southern Research and Outreach Center Web site at www.sroc.coafes.umn.edu. Look for the 2003 MN Hybrid Corn Performance Trials and click on the data for your location. This data should be available by mid- to late-November. We recommend analyzing data from several locations when making decisions on hybrid selection. The odds of choosing the best hybrid for your farm increase when more locations are compared.
