Each day this week we are releasing information delivered at the Soybean Field Day at the NCDA&CS Piedmont Research Station in September for those who could not attend.

Variety Selection

The North Carolina Official Variety Testing (OVT) program tests hundreds of corn, soybean, small grains, and grain sorghum varieties across multiple locations in North Carolina to identify varieties with best fits to our varied crop environments. This data is then made available to growers through tables on the OVT website or through the variety selection tool. The tables are a good starting point for looking at a wide range of varieties that will fit for your operation, while the variety selection tool gives growers the ability to dig deeper by searching and filtering on criteria important for their farm (soil type, planting date, variety characteristics, etc). For those that are unable to use the variety selection tool, they can provide their selection criteria to their local extension agent who has been trained on how to use the tool. That agent can then create a report of 8 to 10 varieties that will best fit their operation based on the criteria that was provided. For any questions on the OVT, or how to access the variety data, feel free to contact the Director, Ryan Heiniger, at rwheinig@ncsu.edu or 919-389-8860.