12/3/21
Peter Piper Planted a Pack of Profitable Pioneer® brand Plenish® High Oleic Soybeans!
Written by Travis and Marissa Hake – Edon, OH
I am a cow veterinarian (Marissa) married to a farmer (Travis). Our farm is located in NW Ohio, and when I say Northwest I mean NORTHWEST. We’re right on the Michigan/Indiana boarder. Our farm has planted Pioneer Plenish® high oleic soybeans for almost a decade. At this point, we plant 100% Plenish soybeans because we have been happy with the performance and consistency, as well as the premium.
This growing season wasn’t “typical”, although I’m not sure we know what is typical anymore! Thankfully, we had ideal spring planting conditions. We have very heavy clay ground that is almost entirely tiled for drainage, so it was odd seeing dust fly behind the planters. Then like clockwork, once we finished up planting it started to rain. We couldn’t have asked for a better spring!
After planting, harvesting wheat, side-dressing corn and first cutting hay our second son Hayes Parker Hake was born June 14th. The growing season was still going well until about August when we experienced severe dry conditions in late summer. At the time we thought soybean yields would be impacted during pod fill, but the Plenish soybeans seem to stay green a little longer which was advantageous when we finally received late rains. We believe that this helped our Plenish beans perform better than other varieties.
Between the beginning of October and mid-November we received roughly 20 inches of rain, which caused an extended harvest season. This year Plenish soybean yields were above average and among the top bean yields for our farm. Harvest is simple for Plenish soybeans because they are harvested and stored the same as traditional beans. We store as many of our beans as possible on-farm for winter delivery. The rest we haul directly to our local co-op, as they are a Plenish soybean collection site. Beans are then hauled ~1.5 hrs to our closest processing facility.
Our premiums were higher than previous years at $0.65-0.75/bushel and we are looking forward to even higher premiums next year. Gearing up for 2022, we plan to continue planting 100% Pioneer Plenish® high oleic soybeans. Even in an untypical year with stressful growing conditions, our Plenish soybeans performed extremely well. We would definitely encourage other farmers to try out Plenish soybeans on their farms. They are easy to manage, perform consistently and offer competitive premiums!