A soya bean range for all conditions

Nico Barnard, an agronomist in the central Highveld for Pannar, explains the importance of planting different soya bean cultivars to spread risk. This is how Pannar’s soya bean range can help!

- Nico Barnard

Pannar’s soya bean cultivars demonstrate excellent performance and stability over different yield potentials, production areas and seasons. These cultivars provide a winning combination of yield and agronomic characteristics, allowing farmers to plant their crops with the utmost confidence. The package includes a full range of maturity classes covering almost all planting dates, densities and production needs, ensuring all soya bean farmers are geared for success.

The newly launched PAN 1479R is a glyphosate-tolerant, quick-growing soya bean cultivar that replaces PAN 1454R. PAN 1479R is recommended for the main planting window in the cool production areas. It is also recommended for eastern temperate production areas such as Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal as part of a cultivar package, or where a quick-growing cultivar is required to extend the length of the harvesting period. It is a homogeneous cultivar.

GROWING SOYA BEANS

Plant density, planting date and the growth class or maturity group of a cultivar are the most important factors to consider when selecting a cultivar. These three factors are major contributions to the success of a soya bean operation.

Soya bean cultivars are classified into 12 maturity groups (MGs), from MG 00 to 9, with 00 the quickest and 9 the longest or latest maturity. This division is determined by the daylight length that a cultivar needs to develop optimally and produce a crop. An MG 9 cultivar is suitable for planting in areas close to the equator. MG 00 is ideal for areas as far north or south of the equator as possible. In South Africa, cultivars in MGs 4,5 to 7,5 are a safe choice and offer good crop security for local conditions.