It is time to be thinking about enrolling in the 2016 Soybean Yield Challenge and there are plenty of categories to get involved in. The Illinois Soybean Association’s 2016 Yield Challenge categories are the same for 2016 as for 2015—both an ultimate yield contest and side-by-side comparisons. Generating higher yields from your soybean acres is critical to your bottom line, whether it is by achieving higher raw yields or by measuring yield increases and profits against your traditional practices.  The availability of new opportunities, along with tighter profit margin conditions, warrants a renewed focus on how to select the [...]

It’s been another challenging crop year–and a compelling reason to consider new technologies and ideas. In a five mile radius from where I live in Normal, Illinois, you can view fields that were not yet planted on July 1st alongside outstanding lush crops next to fields under severe stress caused by record rainfall. Some recent price rallies have restored a measure of enthusiasm in commodities, but growers are adjusting to prices far different than recent seasons. Black ink may seem harder to insure, but that is exactly why this season is not the time to regress in adopting new [...]

My name in Jim Nelson and I am ISA Yield Challenge Marketing Coordinator.  I have been with the Yield Challenge since the beginning, but took a two-year hiatus to focus on my seed business.  I am now back and helping market the Yield Challenge to growers and sponsors alike across Illinois.  And I am glad to be back working with high-yield soybeans. The Illinois Soybean Association Yield Challenge was launched in 2010, sparking growers to explore using new practices and technologies to raise the yield level for this important crop.  The Yield Challenge began as a side-by-side to encourage [...]