Community Connection
Meert 1
Putting the Right Seed in the Right Ground
Each and every year, farmers throughout the country have to go through the decision of what he or she is going to plant in their field so that he or she can grow the most successful crop possible. In that decision is what crop her or she is going to plant as well as what hybrid seed variety is going to grow the best in that field. The seed is the most important part of farming. Without the seed a farmer has nothing at all which leads to zero yield and zero profit. With sights of my future set in the agricultural direction, as well as my current interest, being agriculturally informed in the seed aspect will benefit me as well as many other farmers from all over the country. There are several seed companies that sell seed, in this case, for field corn. Within each company there are lists of possible seed varieties with different uses which will work better on different grounds. It’s important that the farmer knows which hybrid seed to plant in which soil to have the best potential crop.
With several different major seed companies in the United States, there is no question that there are many different options in the aspect of what the farmer could put into the ground. Monsanto and
Dupont being the two largest, each of the companies have their own sets of corn hybrids to a custom to each situation that each farmer is put in throughout their farm. On the Meert farms, it is a 90/10 split between Dupont and Monsanto. Tom Meert is a corn and soybean farmer of roughly 4,000 acres; he states, “I’ve had much better luck over the many years farming this set of fields with Dupont Pioneer seeds, and that’s why we use mostly Pioneer hybrids.” He then goes on to say, “I do try a little bit of the
Dekalb (Monsanto Product) every year as well, but on the ground that I have tried it on I just haven’t had the best luck” (Meert). Monsanto is in fact the largest seed company in
Putting the Right Seed in the Right Ground
Each and every year, farmers throughout the country have to go through the decision of what he or she is going to plant in their field so that he or she can grow the most successful crop possible. In that decision is what crop her or she is going to plant as well as what hybrid seed variety is going to grow the best in that field. The seed is the most important part of farming. Without the seed a farmer has nothing at all which leads to zero yield and zero profit. With sights of my future set in the agricultural direction, as well as my current interest, being agriculturally informed in the seed aspect will benefit me as well as many other farmers from all over the country. There are several seed companies that sell seed, in this case, for field corn. Within each company there are lists of possible seed varieties with different uses which will work better on different grounds. It’s important that the farmer knows which hybrid seed to plant in which soil to have the best potential crop.
With several different major seed companies in the United States, there is no question that there are many different options in the aspect of what the farmer could put into the ground. Monsanto and
Dupont being the two largest, each of the companies have their own sets of corn hybrids to a custom to each situation that each farmer is put in throughout their farm. On the Meert farms, it is a 90/10 split between Dupont and Monsanto. Tom Meert is a corn and soybean farmer of roughly 4,000 acres; he states, “I’ve had much better luck over the many years farming this set of fields with Dupont Pioneer seeds, and that’s why we use mostly Pioneer hybrids.” He then goes on to say, “I do try a little bit of the
Dekalb (Monsanto Product) every year as well, but on the ground that I have tried it on I just haven’t had the best luck” (Meert). Monsanto is in fact the largest seed company in