At the National Association of Farm Broadcasters Convention, Oklahoma Farm Report’s Maci Carter caught up with Bill Backhaus, BASF Midwest Agronomist, to talk about his role with BASF and more.
Focusing on the Midwest region, Backhaus’s specialty is soybeans. He finds solutions for building yield and maximizing each variety from a management standpoint.
“I like to put a picture of a triangle in peoples’ minds,” he said. “We have genetics on the bottom – so the foundation,” he said. “Then, the two legs are environment and management. To build yield, breeders have to think about how the genetics and environment interact, and as an agronomist, I have the management layer. What row spacing do I use? When do I plant it? What seeding rates do I use? When do I spray which fungicides? All of that timing stuff is what we agronomists really dig into.”
He explained further by using the example of a 100-bushel-producing bean variety. He said that 32 bushels of that outcome is contributed to selecting the correct bean variety for that farm indicating genetics. The environmental component depends upon the year’s rainfall and timing of the rainfall, the soil type and land slope, and the presence or absence of irrigation.
BASF’s role is to provide products for the management side of the equation. Liberty ULTRA is for weed control, Revytek for fungus control, and various seed treatments for early seedlings such as Obvius Plus, Relenya, or ILEVO are just some of the options they offer.
BASF is launching its first branded soybean genetics into the marketplace for the 2025 growing season.
“We are going to continue to get a fuller and fuller season for Oklahoma, but right now, we will probably just be in Southern Kansas with some group fours,” Backhaus said. “We are very excited to get those out.”
In 2028, Nemosphere, a BT soybean, is scheduled to launch, and Backhaus is excited about the powerful potential of the genetics that BASF is producing in each of its varieties.
In 2035, BASF is anticipating the release of a new PPO herbicide to complement the PPO trait in soybeans.
“Think about spraying liquid fire over the soybeans and killing all of the weeds, but not the soybeans,” Backhaus said. “We’ve seen a very, very impressive result from that. It is a different PPO, so it is going to control PPO-resistant weeds that we already have out there.”
Nearing the end of the next decade, BASF plans to release a weed control product with an entirely new mode of action.
Backhaus continued to talk about the 2024 corn and soybean crops in the Midwest. Click the listen bar at the top of the page to listen to the entire conversation. Visit BASF.com for more information and to find a local retailer. Also, xitavosoybeanseed.com is the place to research seed varieties.
