ASK THE AGRONOMIST BLOG

Last week, we explored the value of Stine’s Elite Yield Trials and what gives us the leading edge in delivering data-backed, high-yielding products compared to our competitors. This week, we delve into the growth of our corn Elite Yield Trials and the future of the program.

“There are over 100 companies in the U.S. seed corn industry directly competing with Stine^®,” says Brian Hartman, Stine national corn product manager. “But only a handful are developing inbreds to make hybrids. We have the unique opportunity to sell growers something they can’t get in any other seed bag.”

The path to Stine corn Elite Yield Trials

Stine is one of a few seed companies in the world with its own corn breeding program — an effort we started in 1978. This ensures we’re equipped to continuously generate new inbred (parent) material and make self-pollination crosses to develop the latest high-yielding genetics every year.

 “We’re taking the extra step of creating new inbred material, which you have to do to offer products that generally aren’t available in the industry,” says Hartman. “Our corn nursery is a huge undertaking, but it allows us to test different inbred lines to create high-yielding hybrids. Some match up, a lot don’t, but we don’t take any shortcuts from behind the desk. We test the products in real-world environments, unlike many of our competitors.”

The primary goal of the program is to build better corn faster. We cross more than 50,000 new lines of corn each year. Our off-season research facility in South America allows us to ramp up production of our parent lines and hybrids and churn four generations of seed per year in a process called fast-generation breeding.

“New hybrid combinations for yield testing are created in both North and South America,” says Warren Stine, assistant director of corn research. “Our South American station in Guyana runs non-stop 12 months of the year with a new breeding cycle every 90 days. This greatly speeds up the breeding process, allowing us to get new hybrids into testing faster than most of our competitors.”

Deciding what inbred lines to cross and hybrids to advance from our corn breeding program is a well-thought-out process. It requires years of strategy, testing and data compilation, and only a small percentage advance to the next level of research. In fact, of the 50,000 new lines tested, roughly 95% don’t advance to the next stage — Stine Pre-Elite Trials.

“Many companies use predictive analysis to tell them ahead of time which inbreds to move ahead, employing more of a mathematical model. We’re not into that,” says Hartman. “We use genetic markers to give us an idea of family backgrounds, disease resistance, etc., but we prefer to follow a naturalistic approach to breeding. It’s almost Darwinian; let Mother Nature sort through things.” 

Pre-Elite Trials

Once a hybrid has been selected to advance from our corn nursery and fast-generation breeding program, it enters our Pre-Elite Trials. These brand-new, first-year hybrids are tested to see how they adapt to stress and are equipped to perform in tough environments. This is the first “check” they undertake against other hybrids to see how they perform compared to our current products in the system.

“In the Pre-Elite Trials, our primary goal is to have uniformity across the board,” says Jason Behn, head of corn research for Stine. “Everything from maturity, planting population, row spacing, inputs and more are aligned to ensure each product — even competitors — has an equal playing ground.”

To make things fair, all hybrids are grouped by maturity and planted in their correct maturity zone. After these hybrids have undergone one complete growing and harvest season, approximately 5–10% advance to the next phase — our Elite Yield Trials.

The Elite Yield Trials

Stine’s corn Elite Yield Trials are the biggest yet in 2024. We’ll have 1,060,000 plots on 1,600 acres in 43 separate locations. This is DOUBLE the size of our program last year. Once in the Elite Yield Trials, corn products spend one to four years in research to ensure full confidence in the product before we bring it to market. 

“We’ve never had a program this big,” says Hartman. “It speaks to our passion as a company to get the right products to growers’ fields — ones we know will perform.”

As we covered in last week’s article, Stine corn Elite Yield Trials are tested in four different geographies throughout our selling territory and include early, early-mid, mid-maturity and full-season hybrids. We look at both conventional and traited products in the trials, so we’re able to determine when a trait might cause yield drag or when a situation might call for a conventional product or vice versa.

 What’s unique about our process is we test conventional first.

“We are still old-fashioned in that we develop conventional first. Once we get a high-yielding conventional product, then we’ll go back and start testing the traits, whether it’s glyphosate resistant or designed to tackle above- and below-ground pests,” says Hartman. “Sometimes, we find that hybrids work better as just conventional or with only glyphosate.”

Other logistics unique to our program are planting population and row configurations. This year, we’re pushing populations between 40– 50K and testing in narrow rows.

“We’re on the high side for populations this year, but that’s intentional,” says Warren Stine. “We’re trying to stress our material to see how it works in different situations. We want to know that even in the toughest of environments, it still performs.”

One of the factors we take very seriously in testing is the impact of shading. Taller hybrids will block light from neighboring shorter hybrids in testing, ensuring the shorter hybrid suffers a yield penalty. We counter this by collecting measurements on plant height for each hybrid at multiple locations and then calculating a yield penalty or boost to be applied at harvest if one is appropriate.

“All the hybrid measurements used to be taken by hand, but we are increasingly using drones for this,” says Warren Stine. “The drones save on time and people. Collecting thousands of height measurements from the middle of a corn field in mid-August is not popular.”   

While drones save time on in-season scouting and measurements, it still takes a lot of time and people to keep the program moving. Throughout the entire Elite Yield Trials process, it takes approximately 12 planter and 12 combine crews and hundreds of checkpoints during the busy growing season to measure product performance from emergence to harvest.

Commercialization bound

Before a hybrid is commercialized, it must pass our strict requirements for yield and standability.

“We have to have those two items to feel comfortable commercializing a product,” says Hartman. “This ensures we are providing the highest-yielding products to our growers; we owe it to them.”

 How these features are evaluated takes a lot of replications and a large footprint. With 1,060,000 plots in 43 locations, we are looking at multiple hybrids over a wide geography and averaging the results from those areas.

“With a wider geography, we see how our hybrids perform in many different environments and weather situations,” says Warren Stine. “Farmers know well that no season is the same, and whatever Mother Nature delivers is what you get. When we bring these averages together, we get a full picture of how these products perform against each of nature’s stressors.”

Once the results are in, company CEO Harry Stine, in collaboration with our corn research and agronomy teams, looks at the data to determine which products are ready for the market. 

Showstopper hybrids

We’ve had a lot of incredible products advance out of our Elite Yield Trials program and into the market, but a few have raised the bar on performance.

“Looking back at my 18 years with Stine, one of our original hybrids, 9724, really demonstrated what the Elite Trials and our breeding program are all about,” says Hartman. “It’s one of the first shorter hybrids we had and the most widely adaptable.”  

According to Hartman, 9724 was a workhorse product that featured strong emergence, excellent root and stalks, high test weight, outstanding moisture stress tolerance, great disease tolerance, and rapid drydown for easier harvesting.

Hartman also recognized Stine 9714-0 , 9808E, MX445-G and MX514 (an offspring of 9714) as standout performers. They are widely adaptable and perform well in all row widths and at higher planting populations, all with excellent agronomics, including stalk and root strength, and drydown.

Short-stature corn

Stine’s Elite Yield Trials have also benefited our selection of short-stature corn.

“While some of the big four breeders are just now introducing short-stature corn lines, Stine is well ahead of the game,” says Hartman. “As part of our corn breeding program and Elite Yield Trials, we’ve released commercially roughly 115 different high-population hybrids.”

There’s still a lot to learn in the short corn realm, but it’s the way of the future and the direction our programs have been evolving for the past few decades.

Future production

The future of Stine’s Elite Yield Trials program is bright. We continue to introduce new material while still keeping the proven material around.

New this year, Stine is looking at a handful of high-oil entries.

“This is the first time since 1998 we’ve done this,” says Warren Stine. “We’re looking at potential hybrids for ethanol, silage and the livestock market. Whether it’s dairy, beef or poultry, there’s a big demand for higher-energy food products in the livestock world.”

At the end of the day, it’s about continuous growth to bring new and proven options to the table. Our goal is to become the biggest breeding and research program in the industry, which is why we’ve doubled the size of our corn Elite Yield Trials in 2024.

“One of the most exciting developments on the horizon is that we’ll collect more data,” says Warren Stine. “This is a big year for us, and if everything pans out as planned, next year will be even bigger.”

Stay tuned for our next edition that will focus on Stine’s soybean Elite Yield Trials. In the meantime, be sure to contact your local rep for information on our products and agronomic services.

Our brand promise, STINE^® HAS YIELD, isn’t just a slogan. It’s our commitment to develop, offer and place the highest-yielding products on growers’ operations. Our access to the industry’s leading soybean breeding programs, innovative corn research and agility to make timely decisions allow us to test more unique material and bring higher-yielding products to growers faster. Our advantage lies in the scope and quality of our research, thorough product selection and testing process, and data-backed performance from our Stine Elite Yield Trials.

Most seed companies conduct seed trials, but it’s the sheer scale of our research and testing programs, coupled with the best genetics from the corn and soybean breeding programs we use, that set Stine apart.

“Breeding is a numbers game,” says Warren Stine, assistant director of corn research. “You must have high volume to increase your chances of finding good things. We not only have the most data, especially on the soybean side, but we also have the highest-quality data of any testing out there.”

From humble beginnings

In the 1960s Harry Stine began “yield checking” soybean lines — work previously only done by universities — which eventually inspired Stine’s Elite Trials program. Harry recognized what a large-scale, efficient testing program could bring to the soybean industry back then. Because of his intuition and fearless leadership in innovation, Stine now operates the largest soybean research and testing system in the world.

“Nobody has as many entries in soybean testing as we do,” notes Warren Stine. 

On the corn side, we first started our breeding program in 1978 and eventually began testing hybrids in the Elite Yield Trials in the early ’80s. Stine’s corn elite testing program continues to grow each year, with the goal of having the largest corn research and breeding program in the industry.

“At this point in time, we are about as big as any of the big players,” says Warren Stine. “Our goal is to surpass the big players in corn breeding and research in the future, and that’s more attainable for us than others as a privately owned company.” 

The inner workings of Elite Yield Trials

Stine’s Elite Yield Trials are the third year of the multiyear testing undergone by corn and soybean products being considered for commercialization. Brian Hartman, Stine’s national corn product manager, describes the Elite Yield Trials as our internal research and testing program to advance products.

“For corn, we test four different maturity ranges — early, early-mid, full-season and late. We test different corn products in various populations and research standability, yield and emergence. We also look at plant architecture and compare our newest material to proven material in the marketplace,” Hartman adds.

For soybeans, our primary focus is yield, but we also concentrate on traits, maturity and stress tolerance.   

The first couple years of testing are our Pre-Elite Trials. Only 5% of products evaluated in our Pre-Elite Trials move on to our Elite Yield Trials. At each step, as we narrow the number of products we are evaluating, we are increasing the number of repetitions and the number of locations tested for each. From there, less than 2% of those evaluated in Elite Yield Trials are ever commercialized.

Only the best of the best in our Elite Yield Trials advance to market. The rest essentially gets discarded.

“The process is tedious, but it's why it's the best," says Hartman. "We take an in-depth look at how these products perform against different variables over a wide geography and average results from those areas. We’re testing for broad adaptability — not everyone does that. This helps us sell our products with confidence.”

It’s not what Stine does but rather how we do it that separates us from the rest of the industry.

"Uniformity is key in our corn and soybean Elite Trials," says Jason Behn, head of corn research for Stine. "We make sure every variable is aligned, including fertilizer and herbicide applications, the soil types the products are placed in, and planting space and population. We want all products to have an equal playing field throughout the process, including the competitor products we test our material against."

Another advantage that's truly unique to our program is we're the only seed company actively testing in narrow rows for both corn and soybeans.

"We stand behind our belief that narrow rows are the way of the future and the best way to get more plants per acre for more yield across the board," says Warren Stine.

Over the past few years, our soybean Elite Yield Trials have grown tremendously — an increase of 15% year-over-year. We're also seeing growth in our corn Elite Yield Trials, which have doubled from last year. This means it's all hands on deck to ensure the process for each plot runs smoothly.

“The number of people involved in overseeing this process — from our nursery workers and our South American team to our techs and planting and harvesting crews — is massive,” says Warren Stine. “This is the start of a watershed year for us. We’ve never had a program this big. It’s going to impact how we go forward in ways we haven’t seen yet.”

The value to growers

Stine’s Elite Yield Trials are an integral part of delivering on the STINE HAS YIELD promise. It’s our commitment to yield, the scope and quality of our research, our meticulous selection and testing process and our investment in continuous research that deliver value to our grower customers.

“We don’t want failures out there,” says Hartman. “We want to advance the products we know we can trust in growers’ fields, and we want to place them in environments where we know they will perform because we have the data to back it up. That’s the endgame.” 

When it comes to research, yield is what matters most. But how we get there is also important.

“We have more product repetitions in our Elite Yield Trials than in our Pre-Elite Trials,” says Behn. “This means we plant more seed, conduct more research and review more data points, which ultimately ensures we’re looking at how that product performs against several different environmental and agronomic variables. We want a real-world look at how these products perform when they hit the field.”

We can say with a high degree of certainty how our products perform in certain situations and field environments. The more we grow our program, the better our data will be, which will equate to more confidence in our products and placement guidance.

“On the sales side, the value of Stine Elite Yield Trials is in the sheer amount and quality of data,” says Dustin Ellis, Stine regional sales agronomist. “Each year, the production team provides our sales reps with yield maturity graphs that include data points from the hundreds of thousands of plots they place each year. We use these graphs to show growers the trend lines of product performance, including those of our competitors. It’s truly unbiased research they can trust and is what growers want and need to help them make more informed decisions.”

Stay tuned for next week’s edition of Stine Weekly as we dive deeper into Stine’s corn Elite Yield Trials. In the meantime, be sure to contact your local rep on our Find Stine page for information on our products and agronomic services.

Stine^® Seed Company is excited to kick off its 2024 internship program. This year, five students from across the country have been hired to support our regional sales agronomists throughout the busy summer months. 

“Stine’s summer interns will serve as designated ambassadors of our brand and help us in our mission to deliver yield to growers across our sales regions,” says Todd Schomburg, Stine’s director of recruitment. “We have a great group of students this year who are eager to dive in and get to work.”

Stine’s 2024 class of summer interns includes: 

Dexter Wesson, Joliet Junior College in Joliet, Illinois. Dexter will assist Stine Regions 11, 12, and 13 (Illinois).

Claira Shimota, South Central College in North Mankato, Minnesota. Claira will assist Stine Regions 1 and 2 (Minnesota).

John Moellers, Northeast Iowa Community College in Calmar, Iowa. John will assist Stine Region 10 (Iowa).

Cooper Johnson, North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton, North Dakota. Cooper will assist Stine Region 21 (North Dakota).

Luke Nesler, Murray State University in Murray Kentucky. Luke will assist Stine Region 18 (Kentucky).

What does a Stine summer internship entail?

The interns will work directly with our regional sales agronomists to assist in day-to-day agronomic and sales activities. Specific job duties include seed delivery and returns, visits to targeted grower customers to share company information, job shadowing sales reps and agronomists during field visits, and more. Interns will also help plan and execute Stine success plots and spend time in the plots conducting research, such as stand counts and emergence testing, insect and disease identification, ear counts, and yield estimates. They will also be tasked with providing weekly reports on their activities and progress to their regionals sales agronomists.

“Our hope is these students use this time with our experts to ask questions, gain insights into the world of sales and agronomy, and actively engage with all aspects of their internship experience,” says Schomburg. “This is an excellent opportunity for professional growth and learning from some of the most knowledgeable professionals in the industry.”

All summer interns will receive compensation, and some students will be eligible to receive college credits toward their degree.

The future of the program

While our class of 2024 summer interns are already in place for the upcoming growing season, we look forward to continuing our internship program in 2025 and beyond.

If you or someone you know is interested in our 2025 summer internship program, please keep an eye on our Careers Page for future announcements. Ideal internship candidates are passionate about the ag industry, self-motivated, and either enrolled in a four-year university or two-year community college or will be approaching their final year of study. Preference is given to students pursuing a degree in ag business, ag management, agronomy or other related ag education fields.

“Students who choose a Stine internship will have their foot in the door at one of the most respected seed companies in the country, and if they prove themselves, they may even have a job offer before they finish school,” says Schomburg.

For questions related to the internship program, please reach out to Todd Schomburg at taschomburg@stineseed.com.