215: That’s the number of soybean varieties tested in the Wisconsin Soybean Performance Trials in 2023. The trials are conducted each year in an assortment of conditions statewide to help growers select the varieties that will perform best under their specific management practices. Performance measures for the crops include yield in bushels per acre, extent of lodging (bending of stems), and time to maturity. The trials also assess varieties for their resistance to diseases and pests, response to pesticides, and protein and oil quality.

Among the soybeans tested are four public varieties that have been disclosed to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation for licensing. These varieties have demonstrated resistance to several common soybean diseases, including brown stem rot and Sclerotinia stem rot, also called white mold (see Resistance Is Not Futile, Grow, fall 2018).

The 2023 trials were led by professor Shawn Conley BS’96, MS’99, PhD’01, research specialist Adam Roth, and outreach program manager John Gaska MS’87 of the Department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences and professor Damon Smith of the Department of Plant Pathology. Trial results are available online going back to 2008.

This article was posted in Changing Climate, Food Systems, Number Crunching, Spring 2024 and tagged adam roth, Damon Smith, john gaska, plant and agroecosystem sciences, plant pathology, sclerotinia stem rot, Shawn Conley, soybean, white mold, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), Wisconsin Soybean Performance Trials.