Approximately 4 bushel an acre can be a difference in variety alone. Your trial and a different field might have been yield favoring the non gmo, I feel when within 5 bushel an acre is a wash. Being able to store non gmo soybeans on farm and finding a premium market for them is a bonus. I planning on growing some non gmo soybeans in upcoming years, I think planting green into rye and lower priced seed can compete with enlist soybeans in the commodity market.
I’ve been looking at this for a bit now. I would like to go the route of non gmo beans but I believe I would need a premium of over the $1 mark in order to justify it. $.40 simply does not appear to pencil out for me with the extra risk of fewer high quality weed control options and a less diverse range of genetics to choose from. In my research I’ve found premiums range from $.40 to $1.50. It’ll hinge on finding the right market for me.
You're not without risk as it is. As an organic producer who grows public seed, is no till, uses cover crops, plants green when the rye is at boot stage, and mechanically terminates when it reaches anthesis, I get 50-70 bushels per acre and this year, all my contracts are for $35 and up. But I am no longer out there with row mowers and weed zappers like I used to be. Instead, my kids ride around on their motorcycles and find neighbors with GMO beans who are having problems with resistant weeds, so my equipment is being used on GMO ground and earning a (very) small fee.
It's never been true that GMO varieties are the reason for current soybean and corn yields. Corn and Soybean yields had been increasing steadily long before GMO roundup ready crops were introduced in 1995, and theres no indication that conventional soy and corn yields would have stopped increasing between 1995 - present since they had been steadily increasing for decades without any signs of slowing.
That's a great, common sense presentation. We went WAY out there personally to the beyond organic realm and raising public only seed, even growing a few hundred acres of seed corn from parent seed available openly to anyone, and raising soybeans specifically to be held back as seed. But we are organic feed producers, and we are providing a product that has to meet the criteria of actual doctorate holding animal nutritionist. The beans are doing fantastic for us, usually in the 50's, but can get as high as 70, and our varieties have RM's more like what one would see in Minnesota and parts of Canada, not the corn belt part of Illinois. We do 4 passes on our beans ground. Planting, mechanical termination, harvest, and planting a cool season package. Corn gets 5, because we add a warm season package that we drill in March when the ground freezes at night, and thaws during the day, catching it at the in between stages. We love to have fun and pick 200 plus bushel corn, and once every 2-3 years, we get a chance to put an old Pioneer number out. Good old 1197, all non treated of course. But most of the time, we're selecting populations and RM's that we can plant later, letting the cover crops work longer, and get them out sooner so the cool season mix of cover crops can get a good start and both spring and fall cover crops produce some amazing weight gain on our cattle. Those cattle and a few sheep and hogs are along with the cover crops are the only fertility program we have. I'm very happy with 140, 150, 160 bushel organic corn, and I can shrug off 120 and not lose any sleep over it, because it's the over all big picture that matters. I'm growing microbes and fungi, the cash crops and meat are the byproduct.
Approximately 4 bushel an acre can be a difference in variety alone. Your trial and a different field might have been yield favoring the non gmo, I feel when within 5 bushel an acre is a wash. Being able to store non gmo soybeans on farm and finding a premium market for them is a bonus. I planning on growing some non gmo soybeans in upcoming years, I think planting green into rye and lower priced seed can compete with enlist soybeans in the commodity market.
It's about redox and oxidized
I’ve been looking at this for a bit now. I would like to go the route of non gmo beans but I believe I would need a premium of over the $1 mark in order to justify it. $.40 simply does not appear to pencil out for me with the extra risk of fewer high quality weed control options and a less diverse range of genetics to choose from. In my research I’ve found premiums range from $.40 to $1.50. It’ll hinge on finding the right market for me.
@Byron Grey bot
You're not without risk as it is. As an organic producer who grows public seed, is no till, uses cover crops, plants green when the rye is at boot stage, and mechanically terminates when it reaches anthesis, I get 50-70 bushels per acre and this year, all my contracts are for $35 and up. But I am no longer out there with row mowers and weed zappers like I used to be. Instead, my kids ride around on their motorcycles and find neighbors with GMO beans who are having problems with resistant weeds, so my equipment is being used on GMO ground and earning a (very) small fee.
It's never been true that GMO
varieties are the reason for current soybean and corn yields. Corn and Soybean yields had been increasing steadily long before GMO roundup ready crops were introduced in 1995, and theres no indication that conventional soy and corn yields would have stopped increasing between 1995 - present since they had been steadily increasing for decades without any signs of slowing.
That's a great, common sense presentation. We went WAY out there personally to the beyond organic realm and raising public only seed, even growing a few hundred acres of seed corn from parent seed available openly to anyone, and raising soybeans specifically to be held back as seed. But we are organic feed producers, and we are providing a product that has to meet the criteria of actual doctorate holding animal nutritionist.
The beans are doing fantastic for us, usually in the 50's, but can get as high as 70, and our varieties have RM's more like what one would see in Minnesota and parts of Canada, not the corn belt part of Illinois. We do 4 passes on our beans ground. Planting, mechanical termination, harvest, and planting a cool season package. Corn gets 5, because we add a warm season package that we drill in March when the ground freezes at night, and thaws during the day, catching it at the in between stages.
We love to have fun and pick 200 plus bushel corn, and once every 2-3 years, we get a chance to put an old Pioneer number out. Good old 1197, all non treated of course. But most of the time, we're selecting populations and RM's that we can plant later, letting the cover crops work longer, and get them out sooner so the cool season mix of cover crops can get a good start and both spring and fall cover crops produce some amazing weight gain on our cattle. Those cattle and a few sheep and hogs are along with the cover crops are the only fertility program we have. I'm very happy with 140, 150, 160 bushel organic corn, and I can shrug off 120 and not lose any sleep over it, because it's the over all big picture that matters. I'm growing microbes and fungi, the cash crops and meat are the byproduct.
160 bushels is around average for GMO corn by the way. You're doing as well, if not better.