Recently we attended the Legacy Seed Dealer Kickoff meeting. There have been a lot of changes within the seed industry this year. One small company that stands out is Legacy Seed, who had impressive growth again this year, mostly in alfalfa and cover crop sales. What is impressive is that a small regional company has put together a lineup that’s hard to beat. Legacy has added 21 new genetic corn families, including 8 new conventional hybrids from 80 to 112 days. I would say no other company has added this many. That means some of your old favorites may be gone or going away soon. There is some new traits to talk about from Agrisure (Syngenta) the Artesian, which is drought tolerance and the Duracade which gives more rootworm traits. We would also expect to see a $10-20 per bag increase this year, mostly due to the cost of production.
For Beans Legacy has 6 new varieties including a 2.0 food grade option. Most of the talk is about traits, by 2016 new herbicide trails should be released including Monsanto’s Xtend Beans (tolerant to Banvel) and Dow’s Enlist Beans (tolerant to 2-4D) and joint ventures between Syngenta and Bayer for HPPD (Callisto, Balance) to be stacked with Liberty at some point. My thoughts go back to when glyphosate tolerant beans first came out, the learning curve was steep. Seed supply looks great, and pricing should be similar to past years.
Legacy is proud to be the only privately owned alfalfa breeding program left in the US, most of the research gets done here at Janesville WI. They recently introduced the Aphanomyces Race 2 (APH2) resistant variety, which will significantly help around the state. They also released a new high digestible variety for 2014. Remember with all the winter-kill stocks are extremely low and there will be a price increase of $20/ bag.
Let’s not forget cover crops; Legacy’s Earth Builder Brand has a complete lineup for you to choose from. Including the Pile Driver radish and two new nematode control radishes, this will work for potatoes and carrots. These radish’s cost less than chemical fumigants, and do not destroy soil life, and rather build soil health. That’s enough for now, but let us help you with your seed purchases for 2014.
Jeff Luttropp
