Stine® Seed Company is home to the industry’s largest private soybean breeding program and the most aggressive corn research. Our ownership in this space can be attributed to our speed and agility to move seed through our research program and into growers’ fields faster. Our program doesn’t take a season off. We rely on our winter nurseries and off-season research facilities to keep product moving in the winter months.
Rodney Pentico, Stine soybean research lead, recently discussed the details of our off-season production work in the South American countries of Argentina and Brazil on the Stine Seedcast. As soon as harvest is complete in the U.S., he and his team are tasked with getting seed to South America as quickly and efficiently as possible to ensure it reaches our operations there in time for their planting season. A great deal of planning goes into this process.
“Harry [Stine] and Bill Eby both expect us to be very, very efficient and on a timely manner to be able to plant a winter nursery, get it harvested, get it back here [the U.S.] so we can get it planted on time and work two different locations in one given year,” says Pentico.
Full circle for soybean production
The soybean planting season in South America begins around mid-November, just as the U.S. harvest wraps up. Depending on the maturity of each product, the harvest season in Brazil and Argentina can start around Feb. 20 for Group 0s and go through April for later maturity groups (up to Group 6). The earliest maturity products are then shipped back to the U.S. in March, with the latest maturity groups arriving in April, just in time for the U.S. planting season.
Essentially, what we’re doing in South America, we’re mirroring in the U.S. The programs are just six months apart. Every process we do in the U.S., we do in South America. The crosses for U.S. seed and our South American brand come around full circle, and it all comes down to one thing — yield.
Timing and logistics
Because there is little to no downtime between seasons in the U.S. and South America, timing and details are of the essence. This is referred to as contra-season production as it’s a quick-turn process.
“It’s a rapid return. You have to start making selections right away. You have to be ready to ship, have your logistics in place. Once you get into the first week or so of November, you’ve got to have seed moving. You’ve got to have it planted,” notes Pentico. “Our goal is to have the majority of everything planted by Dec. 1. That’s a timely date just so we can make sure we have the harvest started at the end of February and have it here ready for us the first of April.”
Items Pentico and his team plan for to accommodate the short turnaround include what seed is being transported, the mode of transportation, the fields and row configurations the seed will go on and be planted to, and the completion of the phytosanitary certificate —official documentation that the seed has been inspected and meets the current regulations of the importing country — among other items.
“We ship the seed on Thursdays, it flies over the weekend, and then heads to the farm on Monday or Tuesday of that next week … They plan ahead, so when it arrives at their facility, they already know what’s there and where it’s going to be planted,” says Pentico on the process to ship seed from the U.S. to South America.
On the way back to the U.S., seed sometimes ships twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and flies to Miami, where it is then trucked back to our facilities for planting.
Farming in South America
Pentico notes that the climate of South America during the planting season is much like that of Tennessee and the southern U.S.
“We’re very impressed with the quality of soil we have to work with. It’s good, black soil; it yields very high,” he says.
What is unique, however, is that they can grow all maturity groups in one area in Argentina — Group 0s through Group 6s. Pentico and his team have been impressed with the high yields across the board, especially with the earlier maturity material.
This year, in particular, Pentico predicts a great season.
“This year, I was very impressed with all the fields and all the research that I looked at. We had very good stand, great emergence. Things were growing very well. We had some rain while I was there, and in the last three weeks, we’ve received some more timely rains, so we’re set up to have a great crop,” says Pentico.
Program growth
Since Stine first started contra-season production in 1996 in Argentina with a company called Don Mario, we have continued to send more seed and equipment down to the region each year. In 2020, we purchased our own production facilities and began hiring employees to run our program. Now, we’ve trained 30+ people with our entity in Argentina alone to keep up with the growth of our operation, including the products we produce for the Stine brand in the U.S. and South America.
“Recently, we had our first soybean product show up in the U.S. catalog that began at our South America project. We truly have two programs complementing each other,” says Pentico.
Each year, we continue to grow the program. The more seed we send to our off-season production facilities, the more varieties we can introduce into the marketplace both in South America and the U.S.
“The volume of material that we handle every year is amazing,” says Pentico. “It’s amazing that we’re able to do the volumes we have in the program and successfully bring many new varieties to the market every year. We challenge ourselves every year to make sure we continue to be the genetic leader in the marketplace.”
Learn more about our off-season production in South America on this episode of the Stine Seedcast. If you’re interested in learning more about our research of products, contact your local Stine sales rep for more information.