Yield Teams: A New Twist On An Old Concept for On-Farm Education Plots.

Over the last few years many soybean growers in Illinois have wanted to initiate a soybean yield contest. One positive feature of yield contests is the opportunity to learn how high yield levels can reach for certain crops. Unfortunately, the disadvantages too often include a lack of educational merit for others to duplicate the successes of some contestants and a sometimes unhealthy display of character that can arise in the spirit of competition. To try a ‘new twist’ on an ‘old concept’, the Illinois Soybean Yield Challenge (www.soyyieldchallenge.com) was created after much input between the Illinois Soybean Association, agribusiness industry representatives, and University Extension. The Yield Challenge seeks to discover the management practices and environmental conditions that enable the production of higher soybean yields and promote sustainable high yields in Illinois through teamwork and total practice disclosure. The major differences between the ‘challenge’ and a ‘contest’ include cropping system comparison and teamwork. Each location will not only have a ‘high-yield’ plot, but they must have a ‘normal-practices’ plot in an adjoining side-by-side arrangement. Adjoining plot locations of five acres each must be identified prior to planting and a minimum of two contiguous acres harvested for final yield submission. No contestant enters the challenge alone; rather, teams must work together with a minimum of five and maximum of ten members per team. The yield that ‘competes’ for prizes is an average of the five highest yields for the team, and they are only compared within the nine NASS USDA crop reporting districts of Illinois. Season-long cropping information including scouting reports is collected through an interactive website and primarily managed by ‘team captains’. In the initial year, (2010) we have over 230 individual growers each with side-by-side plot comparisons. The trials and tribulations we’ve learned during the first year of launching this program will be discussed.