Parrish & Heimbecker will conduct field-scale variety and crop input trials at nine locations across Western Canada beginning this year.
Seed and crop protection manager John Devos said the new trials, known as Field Intelligence Trials, will involve professional agronomists and farmer co-operators.
The trials will test a variety of products, including new and existing cereal and oilseed varieties, pesticides and yield-enhancing products such as micronutrients, seed primers and seed inoculants.
The trials are designed to provide unbiased production and performance data to farmers and assist P & H agronomists with their local sales programs.
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The trials will be conducted at Wilson Siding (Lethbridge) and Mossleigh in Alberta, Tisdale, Yorkton, Quill Lake and Watrous in Saskatchewan and Swan River, Glossop and Dutton in Manitoba.
“Farmers look to us for reliable advice on cropping plans and product information,” Devos said.
“If we can provide high quality, local information from these new field-scale trials, we help continue the P & H tradition as farmers’ partner in business.”
Patrick Bartko, crop inputs manager at P & H Watrous, said managers at each of the nine locations helped design the trial programs in their areas.
“They kind of left it open to each location as to what they thought they’d like to promote,” Bartko said.
In Watrous, the trials will compare five top-selling Roundup Ready canola varieties: 94H04 from FP Genetics, 6060 RR from BrettYoung, 1990 from Canterra, 74-44 from Dekalb and 73-75 from Dekalb.
Two experimental canola varieties will also be included in the Watrous program, as will trials of new and existing wheat varieties, including two hard red spring varieties that may be available through P & H next year.
Bartko said each plot in the Watrous canola trials will cover four to five acres and each trial will be replicated twice.
He said the trials will be conducted at no cost to producers.
Seed companies whose varieties are represented in the trials donated seed to the programs.
Equipment, labour and land for the trials were donated by farmer co-operators.
Data collected from the trials will augment information that is generated through the Canola Performance Trials (CPT).
Last year, the CPT program tested more than 20 canola varieties, including Clearfield, Liberty Link and Roundup Ready types, at more than 80 locations across the West.
“I think it will supplement PCT,” Bartko said.
“From my perspective, it’s data collected right in our own backyard. It’s fine to quote what’s happening … in some of these other places, but the local farmers put a little bit more stock into stuff that’s been done locally.”
“It (the FIT program) is part of a larger attempt to recognize that P & H has some agronomically sound and strong people working for them and … to sort of increase our profile in the industry.”
