Soy100 packs information on getting higher yields
March 18, 2025
There’s money to be made by growing more bushels of soybeans on every acre. Boosting soybean yield is the aim of Soy100, an annual event sponsored by South Dakota Soybean on March 27, 2025, in Brookings.
“Whether it’s market trends, agronomy [or] disease management, all the information that we’ll talk about is shared with farmers to help grow more soybeans,” said Bruce Haines, a Mitchell farmer and a board member of the South Dakota Soybean Research and Promotion Council.
Soy100 is about maximizing soybean yields, according to Haines. The one-day event focuses on providing soybean production and agronomic insights to growers as they approach the first day of the 2025 planting season.
“I think we first have to start with soils that are ready for planting, pick the best seeds, the best agronomy products that we can pick,” he said. “All of those things factor into the day that you put the planter into the field and Soy100 really addresses all of those things. Just giving the farmer that little edge to maybe pick up five, seven [or] ten bushels per acre yield by making better decisions at planting time.”
Soy100, held at McCrory Gardens in Brookings, features several speakers with advice on getting the best soybean yield possible.
“Professors from the University of Minnesota, South Dakota State folks, and then there’s weather information that’ll be coming, marketing, weed management, and then we’ll wrap up with the soy yield part of the program,” said Haines, who is delivering the welcome to open the Soy100 program.
A spot can be reserved at the South Dakota Soybean website. There is no charge to attend but a headcount is needed for the free lunch. It’s also important that farmers get together at the end of a long winter to compare notes and gain perspective from farming colleagues, said Haines.
“Anytime you get farmers in a room and they get a chance to network and tell their story to one another, I think that’s hugely important for South Dakota because we all come from different types of soils, a little bit different climates, a little bit different in rainfall amounts, but we all learn from one another and so networking would be number one,” said Haines, referring to the benefits of coming together. “And then number two is the industry experts, those folks that come from a background of whether it be college professionals, seed specialists, marketing specialists, those folks have your best interests at heart.”
Haines emphasizes the importance of continued learning among growers to strive for consistent yields that the event’s name implies – 100 bushels to the acre.
“And I think we’ve all been in our combines on given days and we look down at the monitor and we look over at the beans in the field and we go, ‘wow, these are good beans.’ Then we run out of them, and we say, ‘why was that part of the field on that day topping the 100 [bushels to the acre figure],’ said Haines. “And we need to figure out a consistency so we can make the whole yield turn out to be a hundred bushels at the gate.”