Compound the challenge with high ground that does well when it's wet, low land that triumphs over drought, loams that welcome the no-till drill and bottomlands that begs for the plow, and you'd better buy graph paper by the ream and sharpened number twos by the case. Keith and Clem Horsley farm 1,500 in 15-acre increments. The Horsley's bottomland beans, STS varieties among them, suffered a bit from wet feet last year, but Synchrony did an excellent job, they agree. Evidently some of the weeds had shut down, locked up, and we saw some that didn't intake the chemical right, and they escaped from the herbicide. Still, other chemicals fared no better in the drought, he adds.
Variety is a spice.
It's also a comfort. Glyphosate-tolerant beans, conventional beans and conventional beans with an asterisk, like the STS varieties, add up to good risk management. One of them will hit with a big year, two if you're real lucky. With the varied soils and conditions that we farm, I'd be reluctant to put all the eggs in one basket. They're top-tier beans, premium or not.