By Darren Hefty
When you pick up your soybean seed this spring, make sure you look at the seed tag to check the germination score! The industry standard for many years has been 90%, but since soybean seed quality is so poor this year, there will be a lot of 80% and 85% beans sold. This isn’t a complete disaster, though. It’s not like germination in corn, as soybeans can compensate very well for the occasional missing plant. However, I think it’s important to understand why germination scores are so lousy in 2012, and what you can do to maximize your stand even if your seed isn’t perfect.
The one thing that may be hard to accept with all this is that even if your beans are 80% or 85%, you probably won’t get a discount on them for 2 reasons. First, seed supply is very tight. If you don’t want your beans because you don’t like the germination test, you may not be able to find beans that are much better, and odds are, someone will buy the seed you passed on. Second, seed companies aren’t giving seed dealers any discounts that we know of at this time. The seed dealer doesn’t have any room to discount the seed…that would have to come from the seed company.
The main reason why germination scores are low is most of the soybean seed is very dry. For optimal seed quality, most seed growers try to harvest soybeans when they are between 12 and 14% moisture. They had about 3 hours to accomplish that this fall, so even the best growers struggled to get the seed fields harvested before the beans got too dry. Dry beans are more susceptible to cracking and internal damage which leads to seed quality issues.
When it comes to seed quality, think about this. When did your seed company of choice clean your favorite variety? If you ordered in the fall, chances are the seed company may have taken your seed right out of the field and cleaned it. This would eliminate that seed running through an auger into a bin, potentially dropping to the bottom of the bin, then running out an unload auger back into a truck, dropping to the bottom of that truck, and so on. My point is there will be a lot less handling of your seed if you or your seed dealer order it and take it early rather than waiting until the last minute.
Plus, the early beans shipped in the fall and over the winter were probably the ones with the best germination percentages. It’s a well-known fact in the seed industry that the best seed ships first. That’s why we always advise you to take your seed early.
However, you want your seed treated by your seed dealer. Hopefully your dealer took the seed early, and he has good germination percentage beans on hand. Whether he does or not, using a soybean seed treatment can really make a difference. In our lab we have found many soybeans with questionable sprouts that have considerably better sprouting and germination when treated with a fungicide. This year, we believe adding fungicide to soybeans is an absolute must.