Soybean Maturity Group And Yield – Experience From The Thumb

Oct 16, 2017

By Robert Battel

My colleague, Mike Staton, wrote an article in September 2017, “What is the relationship between soybean maturity group and yield?” He used multi-year data from the state-wide Soybean Performance Reports and wrote that his analysis supported the current Michigan State University Extension recommendation for planting high-yielding and pest-resistant varieties from a range of adapted maturity groups each year. I thought it would be useful to use a different set of data, namely MSU Extension Thumb Ag Research and Education (TARE) trial data from 2011 – 2015 to conduct a similar analysis. If you haven’t yet read Staton’s article, please do so before continuing with this article.

In my analysis, I averaged the three highest yielding varieties in each maturity group to represent the yield of that group for each year. Data from the Roundup Ready soybean and Liberty Link soybean trials were used. If there were not at least three varieties in each group for a given year, I dropped that group from the calculations and analysis.

The TARE trials consisted of four soybean sites each year during 2011 – 2015: one each in Huron, Tuscola and Sanilac counties, and Lapeer or St. Clair counties. Participating seed companies were free to enter whichever varieties they wished to showcase within the growing area. Table 1 indicates the total number of Roundup Ready and Liberty Link varieties entered each year.

Table 1. Number of soybean entries by year
Year	Entries
2011	69
2012	82
2013	86
2014	85
2015	58

The following table contains the information I collected.

Table 2. Average soybean yields for the top three varieties— TARE Trials 2011–2015
Maturity group	2011 Yield (bu/A)	2012 Yield (bu/A)	2013 Yield (bu/A)	2014 Yield (bu/A)	2015 Yield (bu/A)
2.6	54.8	Not available	54.8	52	62
2.5	52.9	61.8	52.9	53.9	63.7
2.4	55.5	56.5	55.5	54.2	62.8
2.3	52.6	51.3	52.6	52.2	63.9
2.2	54.7	64.6	54.7	53.8	63.9
2.1	54.7	56.4	54.7	54.2	61.3
2	55.7	55.8	55.7	54.7	63.9
1.9	53.5	55.4	53.5	51.6	65
1.8	53.9	57.9	53.9	52.6	64
Average plant date	May 27	May 31	May 31	June 2	May 19

In 2011, 2013 and 2014, there was no correlation between yield and maturity group when the yields of the top three yielding varieties were averaged across locations for the year. In 2012, there was a positive relationship between yield and maturity group. As with the rest of the state, 2012 was a drought year across much of the region. Later varieties were able to take more advantage of later season rains.

Years 2014 and 2015 were both white mold years, with 2014 being spread across the state and 2015 more localized. In 2014, there was, again, no correlation between maturity group and yield. I suspect that because the white mold was so severe and the inoculation period so extended, that all maturity groups were affected.

In 2015, there was a negative relationship between maturity group and yield. That is, earlier maturing soybeans tended to yield better than later maturing varieties. The 2015 trials were also planted earlier than the other years. Likely, the earlier varieties were nearly completely podded at the time the white mold hit, as compared to the later maturing varieties, which were likely still flowering at the time the disease hit.

Figure 1. The relationship between all the top three yielding varieties in each group across years.

As you can see, there is no relationship between maturity group and yield across the five years of data. This reinforces what Staton found in his analysis: consider planting high-yielding and pest-resistant varieties from a range of adapted maturity groups each year. Also, when you plant an extra early-maturing variety in that field that you want, make sure it can be planted to wheat in the fall, as there may be no penalty in yield at all.

This analysis was made possible by the generous funding of participating seed companies, and the Michigan Soybean Promotion Committee.

Source: msu.edu

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”