Timely News from Your Federated Agronomists
Soybean Plot Harvest Underway

Federated's soybean plots - both Discovery Plots and others - are being harvested now and full results will be published in early November. Kevin Carlson, Federated's senior agronomist, recently walked the Legend Liberty Link soybean plot and found "two varieties that express yield punch in [their] seed size."
LS1230LLN
LS1230 produces a slightly larger seed (see above) and also branches more than LS1527 (see below). Both are very well suited for 15-30" rows. "They close row early in the season," said Carlson.
LS1527LLN
According to Carlson, all the Liberty link soybean varieties  are in very tight supply. He recommended talking to your Federated Agronomist today to secure your supply for next year, before they are gone.
 
An adjoining Federated plot featured Croplan 1200 soybeans - drilled - with "good pods, standing really well," said Carlson. They are not as branchy as the Liberty Link variety, "but they are drilled," he added. See video below.
Croplan 1200 Beans (Drilled)
Croplan 1200 Beans
See this characteristics chart  for details on Croplan 1200, as well as this link for more information on this variety.
 
Talk to your Federated Agronomist  soon about soybean seed options for 2018.
Federated Growers Named 
Grand Champions in Alfalfa Production 

Federated is proud to share the success of Osceola, WI, farmers Donald and Nancy Hasselquist, who this month took home the grand prize for alfalfa production in a contest sponsored by Winfield United, the crop inputs and insights business of Land O'Lakes, Inc. Craig Loen, Federated agronomist at the Osceola location, often works with the Hasselquists.
 
Donald and Nancy Hasselquist
The Hasselquists' accomplishment was announced in the following Winfield news release.
 
Donald and Nancy Hasselquist of Osceola, Wisconsin, farm 160 acres and raise dairy replacement heifers. Their goal is to meet most of the growing heifers' needs with a high-quality alfalfa hay while balancing the ration to keep grain energy content at a minimum.
 
The couple sent a sample of  their 2016 seeded CROPLAN® brand HarvXtra® Alfalfa to the World Forage Analysis Superbowl and won the grand champion title. A good portion of the Hasselquists' acres are on highly erodible soils (HEL), making alfalfa a smart option. The Hasselquists plan to rotate these HEL acres to HarvXtra® Alfalfa and keep it in rotation longer, whereas their flat acres of alfalfa are aggressively cut. The two work closely with their agronomist, Craig Loen, at Federated Co-ops in Osceola.
 
The contest is based 70 percent on forage quality analysis and 30 percent on the judge's score, providing an overall ranking score. There were 15 top notch entries in the Dairy Hay division and over 1,000 total entries in this year's contest, which is twice as many as last year.
Winning Alfalfa
 
Dairyland Labs conducted the contest sample analysis. Below are the H asselquists' results from their sample of CROPLAN® brand HarvXtra® alfalfa.
  • %DM: 85.21
  • %CP: 25.98
  • %NDF: 26.42
  • 30HR IV NDFD: 55.36
  • RFQ: 281
  • Milk per ton: 3,680
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