The PA Soybean Board through the Penn State Field and Forage Crops Team sponsors an extensive network of on-farm, field scale research projects. Periodically, participating farms are highlighted in Field Crop News and the PA Soybean Board website.
For this week’s report we go to Bradford County where Matt Ahern of Sheshequin Twp, is hosting an on-farm trial evaluating the response of various planting rates using his no-till planter on 30” centers. The farm is a multi-enterprise business including corn, soybeans and small grains on 164 acres; “U-Pick” peaches and strawberries and egg sales that involve his wife, Kylie and their children. The farm has been entirely no-till for more than 12yrs.
Matt is part of a growing number of Northeast Pennsylvania producers growing rotational soybeans. Many growers experimenting with the crop for the first time are encouraged to consider using the corn planter as a better way to start, perhaps saving the capital investment necessary to purchase a drill if the producer is without one. Matt’s Kinze planter is rigged with a Precision Planting 20/20 SeedSense monitor used to establish the protocol planting rate in the test strips on May 27th, 2016. Study design called for replications of 50K, 100K and 150K seed drop/acre. Actual emergence measured on June 7th averaged 49.9K, 71K and 115K respectively.
Matt will harvest with a 6620 John Deere combine fitted with a 20ft head and monitor yields with an Ag Leader 3000. The evaluation at the Ahern farm is a great example of applied local research that will help many growers in NE Pennsylvania make better-informed decisions about their soybean crop.