• Biological seed treatments have the potential to enhance emergence, early season growth, and final yield in soybean.
• It is difficult to visually identify the impact of biological seed treatments.
• Research was conducted in 2018 to develop new methods for classifying early season stress and use remote sensing to quantify early growth characteristics for new biological seed treatments.

Experimental Design:

- 25 locations across the U.S.; 3 replications per location.

- Paired row plots (12 foot length with 3 foot alley).

- One soybean variety per location.

- 12 seed treatments, including 10 experimental biologicals.

• Data Collected:

- V1/V2 growth stage remote sensing evaluation for emergence, plot greenness, plot vigor.

- End of season maturity and yield.

• Fifteen locations were classified as having high early season stress based upon weather data analysis.
• Experimentals 3, 7, 9, and 10 had significantly better vigor compared to the 2018 product standard at high stress locations (Figure 2, top).
• Experimental 10 was the only component with significantly higher final yield performance compared to the 2018 product standard (Figure 2, bottom).

• New methods have been developed to identify environments with high levels of early season stress. Using the environmental stress data in combination with image analysis has enabled a better quantification of biological seed treatment performance.