Just curious to see if anyone on here used any Monsanto Drought guard products as part of the Monsanto "Ground Breakers" group. I had a Drought Guard D1 plot on my farm this year but we have been classified as a D4 drought all summer and the corn never had a chance. I planted April 26th and by the end of June i had about .60" of rain fall and not a lot of profile to start with, had about 3" of rainfall since Jan. 1st on that quarter. Wish I could have collected some data from it but maybe next year. Regardless of seed companies, what hybrids on your farms showed the best performance and handled the drougth stress the best. Give company, hybrid, and Maturity. Thanks.
Permalink Reply by Mike Hannewald on I worked for Beck's Hybrids as an intern this summer and as part of my internship I spent a lot of time walking their test plots doing yield checks. In the plots that didn't get a lot of rain, the best hybrid was 5475. It is a 108 day hybrid and has the Aquamax technology from Dupont-Pioneer. Across all of the plots that I looked at, 5140 was the best hybrid, 105 days. This is a hybrid specifically designed for Ohio soil types. We haven't started shelling corn in northwest Ohio yet, so we don't have any yield data yet, this was just what I saw as I was doing yield checks.
Permalink Reply by Marlin Gloor on I havent had any exposure to the drought guard, but several plots I have been in have have Pioneer AquaMax hybrids. They looked alot better than our corn(Channel) early on, before ear formation, but now that we are close to harvest both look like they will yield about the same. From my understanding the early Droughtguard products are meant to be used in areas that always yield low becuase of light ground and so on. Its not really meant as a normal hybrid that has good drought tolerance...... if that makes sense. This is how it was explained to us dealers.
Permalink Reply by Jonathan Dansel on Yeah we have been dry all summer here and I looked at one of my plots the last week of July and the Aquamax was still pretty green and my Channel products were stressing much harder (not Drought guard products, just regular VT2 and VT3Pro) and I was kind of hanging my head to say the least. went back about 3 weeks later and to my surprise the Aquamax was still had more green color to it but didn't form an ear, a few hybrids formed an ear but did not pollinate. My Channel products looked like hell from the road but when you got out in it there was actually some corn out there, not a lot, but it had produced ears and pollinated, most were 10 or 12x18. I hate to say it but there is no new technology behind the Aqumax lineup...it is a fancy marketing name in my opinion. A local Dupont agronomist told us that they basically ran a bunch of new hybirds against 35F40 and if they out produced it in a dryland setting they made the Aquamax lineup. I don't think the EPA even had to approve anything before they proceeded with it, but I'm not 100% sure about that. I ran 3 channel products against 1151 AM last year and beat it by an average of 13 bushels, and it wasn't even drought guard products, just some good work horse numbers. The P0210AM number or whatever it is looks really impressive this year on a neighbors limited water circle. So far I have been impressed with Channel 208-71VT2Pro...really impressive vs. the drought. Dekalb 52-59 looks incredible also. Producers Hybrids has a little 96 day hybrids that looks tough as nails on a friends farm.
Permalink Reply by Matt Blanchard on You're absolutely right; AquaMax is nothing but marketing. All AquaMax means is that they performed a certain percentage above the mean in certain trials, and have a high drought tolerance rating.
This differs from the two other drought-tolerance products on (or close to) the market. DroughtGard is a genetic event. Agrisure Artesian (from Syngenta) is not a GM event, but the hybrids that have been designated as "Artesian" have been selected to perform under dry conditions. We have a couple of Artesian hybrids (45P, 70J) in some plots locally; both look fantastic.
Permalink Reply by Jonathan Dansel on Thanks for confirming. I don't think a lot of Pioneer folks know that and most of them don't understand thier refuge system either, clearly not a one bag solution but if you watch their commercials on t.v. they don't talk about the seperate structured refuge for above ground pest....marketing makes up for a lot of lost ground to performance
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