All posts by Ryan Blair, County Variety Trial Coordinator

2025 County Standardized Trials-Corn Data

Thank you to all those who participated in County Standardized Trials this year.  Our corn data is in and reported below.

For more information or assistance with the CST program, please contact your local County Extension office.

Early Maturity <113 day RM

Medium Maturity 114-116 day RM

Full Maturity >116 day RM

These CST plots are large strip trials located ‘on-farm’ with a minimum of 300 feet in length.  Inputs and management decisions are on a by location basis and determined by the cooperating producers.  Three relative maturity groups divide the trials, Early Corn will be 113 day and earlier, Medium Corn will be 114-116 day, and Full Corn is 117 day plus.  Thank you to everyone involved in the CST program for your support and contributions: County Agents, UT Extension/Research, Growers, Industry, Retail.

 

Soybean and Cotton CST trials to follow. Visit search.utcrops.com for all variety testing data.

 


Top Bean-TN Soybean Yield Contest

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UT’s ‘Top Bean’ Contest, sponsored by TN Soybean Promotion Board

Our contest has been growing each year, with over 50 entries submitted last year.  This is a great opportunity for producers to show off some of their high yielding fields while giving us an idea of their practices used to achieve them.

Growers are encouraged to work with their local county Extension agent to enter their best irrigated and dryland fields and compete for ‘Top Bean’ in the state.  Tennessee is divided into five yield districts for the contest.  District winners will receive awards and all district winners will compete for state winner in irrigated and dryland production.

Producers (farm entity) are allowed to submit in two categories; one irrigated submission and one non-irrigated submission.  As so, a producer may only submit one entry per category.  Producers may submit in two districts if they submit an irrigated from one district and a non-irrigated from a different district.

Agents with access to a weigh wagon can use their wagon to weigh contest harvest, and document weight on a new UT weight certification form. Producers and agents without access to a calibrated weigh wagon should continue to weigh harvested seed at a nearby certified scale and include a copy of the weigh ticket to certify weight.

An entry form acknowledging your intent on entering must be submitted by September 1st.  Please get with your local County Extension Office for more details and to submit your forms.

Entry form

All the rules and information on how this contest is ran are attached below.

2025 Top Bean Rules 

Use these forms at harvest to submit a completed entry.  Due December 8th, 2025

Soybean Yield Contest Harvest forms

All forms and additional information can be found at your local Extension office or email rblair2@utk.edu


County Standardized Trials-Wheat Harvest

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2025 CST Wheat Results

Last fall, we planted 10 locations and had 6 of those make it into the table.  We lost the others to this wet weather that seems to stick around.  Overall,  better yields around W. TN than I was expecting.  We had several acres planted a little later than hoped for and then a wet sparing had quality and yield goals questionable.

80 bu. average across our 18 varieties in 6 locations.   A tight group with a 10 bushel range keeps the mean separation close at a 95% confidence interval.

2025 CST Wheat Table 

Yields have been adjusted to 13.5% moisture.  Each variety is evaluated in large strip-plots at each location, thus each county test is considered as one replication of the test in calculating the average yield.

Statistical analysis is conducted at 95% confidence interval.  Varieties with the same MS letter are not significantly different.

Official test weight of No. 2 wheat= 58 lbs/bu. TWT was averaged from 5 locations.

(‘) indicates a missing plot, SAS calculated yield.

Thank you to all those producers, agents, and industry for your support with our CST programs.

Please contact your local County Extension office for more information.

 


Can we predict Corn N response using Mineralizable N?

 

Most of the soil nitrogen (N) is present in organic form, especially in the top 6 inches (75 – 95%), which is not readily available for plant uptake. Only about 0.1 – 0.3% is in inorganic or bioavailable forms such as nitrate and ammonium that plants can utilize. So, organic soil N is converted to inorganic forms for plants use, a process referred to as mineralization. The fraction of organic soil N that can be converted to inorganic form is referred to as potentially mineralizable N. Several factors including soil, previous crop, weather, and nitrogen management determine the extent of N mineralized. Nitrogen rate trials (>30) conducted over the past five years in West and Central TN suggested that mineralized soil N can contribute more than 20% of the total crop N requirements. Current N fertilizer recommendation for corn in Tennessee is based on realistic yield goals, which does not account for potentially mineralizable N that is available for the plant. Continue reading


Does Soil Test Phosphorus and Potassium Values from Haney Soil Health Test (H3A-4) Translate to Mehlich-3?

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More recently, with emphasis on sustainable crop production, there are a number of tests that assess soil health. Some of the soil health tests such as the Haney Soil Health Tool (HSHT), which is adopted by USDA-NRCS, assess soil quality parameters as well as nutrient availability. The HSHT uses the H3A-4 extractant to estimate ‘plant available’ nutrients. The H3A-4 extractant simulates plant root environment by using organic acid plant exudates and has been touted as more representative of phosphorus availability. Some commercial soil testing laboratories offer HSHT and provide corresponding fertilizer recommendations. How does the test values and recommendations from H3A-4 relate to Mehlich-3 extraction? Publicly available information relating H3A-4 to Mehlich-3 extractable nutrients is limited. Continue reading


2024 County Standardized Trials-Corn/Soybean tables

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The CST program consist of large, on-farm strip trials across the state to evaluate yield performance and adaptability of new and commonly used varieties/hybrids.   We have a lot of good offerings to choose from when selecting varieties and hybrids to plant each spring. We hope that this data will give you a non-bias look into performance and aid in selecting your seed for the following crop with confidence.

We really appreciate all those who contributed to this data (County Agents, TN Farmers, Industry Seed Partners)

For more information on CST data or to book a trial on your farm next year, please contact your local County Extension Office.