Achieving High-Yield Soybeans

Our soybean breeding engine is one of our best assets at Pioneer. Whether you are planting conventional or traited soybeans, we continue to make gains to many disease tolerances. You will find ratings across all key soybean diseases to help with seed selection to protect your yield.

At Pioneer, we also have the most advanced and flexible herbicide trait for soybeans on the market – Enlist E3® soybeans. Herbicide resistant weeds are a struggle every year and having a system that is flexible and helps provide an herbicide program with multiple modes of action is beneficial for growers.

Pioneer also excels in top performing conventional soybeans for the non-GMO markets. Luckily for farmers, there are a wide range of soybean varieties across all maturity groups that are capable of elite, industry-leading yields. Over 150 Pioneer® brand soybean varieties, including 120 with the Enlist E3 trait, have achieved over 100 bushels per acre in recent years.

There are plenty of agronomics one needs to consider for high yielding soybeans. Harvest standability is one of the most critical. Typically, soybeans that lodge in the fall will get disease, and yield losses will be attained from the disease or your combine header won’t be able to pull them into the combine.

Knowing your field history for diseases and soil types will help you look for the right agronomics in a soybean. Pioneer has a large selection of soybeans that have very strong defensive traits that are critical to avoid losing yield to unforeseen season events. Look for products with rigorous trials and local testing to guarantee performance where it counts – in your fields.

• Plant early – this allows for more branches and nodes per plant to help increase yield. When Pioneer researchers looked at the most trial locations that broke 100 bu/A from 2021-2023, they found that the majority were planted in the last half of April through the first half of May.
• Always use LumiGEN^® seed treatments to protect from early season diseases.
• Review last year’s corn yields – did you leave enough fertilizer out there to raise 100 bu/A soybeans? A lot of times we have better than expected corn yields that potentially utilize the Phosphorus and Potassium we were counting on utilizing the next year for our soybeans. For this reason, I recommend doing a soil test. A soil test will give you a lot of insight on how to manage your soybean crop: residual Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, pH and other micronutrients – then you can make a plan and a yield goal.
• Consider a timely harvest and plant different maturity groups to minimize harvest losses due to head shatter and soybeans getting too dry.
• Planting soybeans in two consecutive years is generally not recommended. If you do need to plant consecutively, avoid poorly-drained soils due to higher risk of disease and consider using cover crops in fields prone to erosion.

Rates have trended lower in recent years, but research and weigh checks over 100 bu/A has indicated that optimum rates are around 140,000 seeds per acre. We also like to increase seeding rates in less productive environments. Consider your unique circumstances ahead of planting.