Derry Forage Soybeans

Mennoniteman

Well-Known Member
This year I'm going to try Derry Forage Soybeans instead of Eagle Forage Beans. Derry beans are a relatively new variety that have very good reviews for forage production, and I can buy 3 bags for the price of one bag of eagle beans. They are not roundup ready, but that isn't important to me since there's many other options for weed control in soybeans besides roundup. These derry forage soybeans are supposed to also do well when broadcast, if broadcasting instead of drilling the recommended seeding rate goes from 1 bag per acre to 1 1/2 bags per acre. The bean picture is off their ad.
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Good to know. I’ll be following along.
Will you be planting stand alone?


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We use Hutcheson Forage soybeans around here. Non-gmo, not RR. Huge leaves and will produce beans if the deer don’t eat them all.


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Good to know. I’ll be following along.
Will you be planting stand alone?


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I will be planting mostly stand alone. However, I'd also like to drill some into existing clover that I mow short first to see how this performs but I cannot find any info online about anyone doing this, so that's an indicator that it probably won't work well.
 
Do you have local dealer or found somewhere that ships reasonable online? i've heard of these but never found anyone remotely close to actually getting supply
 
We have a large seed dealer close by. Specialty Seed has them online for $42 but the shipping is probably an exorbitant rate because of the weight and bulk.
 
My soybean tests for this year is complete and the results are pretty significant. I notill planted two different varieties of 3.6 and 3.9 maturity AG beans vs Derry forage soybeans vs Titan forage soybeans, for a total of four varieties, in identical conditions, with medium to heavy deer browsing. We had very good rainfall early on, no the past three weeks have been dry, but the beans tolerate dry spells much better than plants like yard grass, corn and clover.
So the results are; the ag beans are a 50% failure, which I think is mostly due to them struggling to recover from the constant browsing. The Derry forage soybeans have at least 50 to 60 percent more growth, and seem to recover well from the browsing. However, the Titan forage beans are growing side by side with the Derry beans, and the Titan Beans are outgrowing the Derry beans by a large margin. It's not noticeable in the pics, but it's very obvious by measuring, and also looks like a big difference from a distance, the Titan beans look healthier and much bushier. By random observation I did notice that the deer may have a small preference for the Derry beans, that is something that's rather difficult to analyze without collecting exact day to day data, and there's many other factors that play into that fact, such as, which side of the field the deer enter and what direction they want to head towards. But I do know that next year I will be planting all Titan beans, and perhaps doing a test putting them up against Eagle forage beans.
Top pic is Derry, bottom pic is Titan.
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What are you plan with the beans as they reach maturity?


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What are you plan with the beans as they reach maturity?


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I planted them for the summer greens for our deer herd, pods would be a bonus. If they have bean pods hanging when the leaves turn yellow I will let them stand for the winter. Otherwise I will plant brassica or rye in late summer/ early fall for a winter plot.
 
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I planted them for the summer greens for our deer herd, pods would be a bonus. If they have bean pods hanging when the leaves turn yellow I will let them stand for the winter. Otherwise I will plant brassica or rye in late summer/ early fall for a winter plot.
How was the pricing for the Titan and Derry? Did you get them directly from Kings?
 
How was the pricing for the Titan and Derry? Did you get them directly from Kings?
Yes directly from King's Agriseeds. $40 something a bag vs $60 something a bag for Titan's, Titan's are roundup ready and Derry is not. I couldn't get an itemized invoice from them this spring due to Covid19.

P.S. The leaves in the pictures had heavy dew on them, that's why they look whitish.
 
Yes directly from King's Agriseeds. $40 something a bag vs $60 something a bag for Titan's, Titan's are roundup ready and Derry is not. I couldn't get an itemized invoice from them this spring due to Covid19.

P.S. The leaves in the pictures had heavy dew on them, that's why they look whitish.
What were the sizes on the bags? If you remember....
 
They were the standard 140,000 seeds in each bag. I planted one bag per acre with a drill. If broadcasting you should go 1.5 bags per acre.
 
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