Peterson Farms Seed once again welcomed local growers to the fields in Prosper, N.D. to educate, show and tell on a diverse selection of agronomic solutions. The Peterson Farms Seed Field Days has been an annual tradition for the independent seed company.
“It’s just a really great opportunity every year to showcase a lot of the new stuff we are looking at whether that’s technology or it’s diseases,” Lead Agronomist Rick Swenson said. “We’ve got a whole bunch of southern rust out here, who woulda thunk. I mean, we’ve never even really seen that in our geography before.”
The day included a site tour by tractor trailer with President Carl Peterson, and educational speakers on new technology, like gene-edited soybeans, and disease topics such as white mold and IDC (iron deficiency chlorosis).
Kelsey Pellman, Regional Sales Agronomist for Central and Western North Dakota, says this year she’s seen a higher-than-average flare up of IDC in the valley, with spots that just wouldn’t seem to go away, coinciding with significant soybean cyst nematode pressure. This turned into what she focused on during her portion of the Field Days tour.
“That’s been absolutely a conversation we’ve been having with farmers – how do we manage this, how do we protect those management strategies so they continue to work in the future,” Pellman said. “And then just making sure we’re monitoring for these problems, because they are absolutely indicative to our yield and we want to make sure guys are aware of that.”
Dennis Schultze, soybean product manager and research manager, is optimistic about the research currently happening.
“So far we’ve seen an 8-10% yield advantage with basically the same varieties that we’re growing right now,” Dennis Schultze, soybean product manager and research manager, said. “We’re going to be very familiar with those varieties, but because of the gene editing we are going to see that 10% yield increase.”
To learn more about the research and new technologies with Peterson Farms Seed, visit petersonfarmsseed.com.
