Chairman, Illinois Soybean Association

The Yield Challenge, that is!  The Illinois Soybean Association has kicked off an exciting new program and I challenge all farmers to get involved. Your incentive? Greater profitability.

This issue of the Illinois Soybean Review is devoted to several aspects of the 2010 Yield Challenge. It’s our ambitious new effort for 2010 to collect, from participants, both comprehensive and season-long information regarding their soybean management decisions and the effect on yields.

The program was developed with the involvement of our four major state universities.  Jim Nelson, Yield Challenge coordinator, has worked with several university specialists to establish many of the elements of the program.  In this issue you can learn more about how those researchers are taking ideas and helping make them workable for farmers and others involved.

We are also looking forward to the involvement of students in the 2010 Yield Challenge.  Students sometimes tend to think more “outside of the box” than some of us who have been around soybean production for years.  Students offer endless enthusiasm, non-traditional ideas and the lack of fear to try something new.  We want the fresh ideas that FFA and community college students can teach us old dogs.  In fact, many schools already provide field days and grower training updates, and are viewed as reputable agents for information on local growing conditions and practices.  You can learn more about their participation in the pages ahead.

The incentive for participation for students and farmers alike is not only cash prizes and other recognition, but also the opportunity to learn more about the operations where they work and the crop itself.  Participants can submit soil samples that will set a baseline for their data evaluations.  An independent private lab will conduct tests for key macro and micronutrient elements and do soybean cyst nematode egg counts and type testing.  Grain quality tests also will be offered on harvested grain samples.  Read more about the prizes and incentives in this issue.

If I’ve piqued your interest, I encourage you to visit www.soyyieldchallenge.com for details about how you can get involved in the 2010 Yield Challenge.  If you do not care to enter a team, we also have sponsorship opportunities.  Are you up to the challenge?  By this time next year, I hope the Illinois Soybean Association can answer with a collective “yes.”

Happy New Year.

Ron Moore