Soybean Production

Soybean growers heading into the 2013 planting season might find that many soybean seeds are larger than normal – a lingering impact from the 2012 drought, says Laura Lindsey, an expert with Ohio State University's College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES)....More

Seedling diseases and seed rot accounted for more than 20% of soybean establishment problems in the past five years, and farmers had to replant almost 20% of affected acres. (This comes from a March 2012 survey of Midwestern and Southeastern certified crop advisors in 12 major soybean-producing states as part of a soybean seedling disease study.)...More

As with most farm business decisions, very few escape without some type of tradeoff, be it labor, time or money. Our cover story may challenge your beliefs if you're sold on 30-in. row soybeans, because you lose yield (range from 2.9 to 4.5 bu./acre) compared to 15-in. – according to a three-year, six-state university trial....More

Soybean prices reached record-high levels in late August and early September 2012. Those high prices were generated by a combination of a drought-reduced harvest in South America earlier in the year, drought conditions in much of the United States production region and ongoing strong Chinese demand for soybeans. Prices declined by about $2/bu. in September and October as the U.S. crop turned out to be larger than expected, according to University of Illinois agricultural economist Darrel Good....More

Total variable input costs for the 2013 corn and soybean crops are likely to stay about the same as last year, says Alan Miller, a Purdue Extension farm business management specialist. Variable input costs are the costs of production that vary directly with the crop grown, but don't include fixed costs, such as cash rent. While some individual input prices are expected to increase, some will decrease and others will stay about the same. Fluctuations will serve to cancel out one another and to help keep overall variable costs fairly stable compared to last season....More