Hybrids ® - More Than A Number. ™

Post co-authored by Bob Wyffels, VP Production and Joel Francque, Field Operations.

How many of you enjoy roller coasters? Space Mountain, The Beast? Do you enjoy hair raising turns, ridiculous ups and downs, that gnawing fear of what lays beyond the next turn? If so, then seed corn production is the place to be, because the most amazing roller coasters simply can't compare to what producing seed is like.

Wyffels Hybrids, along with the seed industry, has been challenged the last couple of seasons to produce enough seed to plant into an expanding corn market. The weather challenges facing corn growers are even more challenging from a seed corn perspective. Hot weather, and warm nights in particular, are detrimental to corn yield. In seed production, these same environmental conditions can be devastating. This isn't a "manufacturing" process, but an organic, living organism that we carefully multiply.

In 2011, we planted what was expected to be our largest seed crop ever. After a good start, July and August dealt us a pretty rough hand. Windstorms topping 100 mph, coupled with record setting heat translated into a sub-par seed crop. When the dust settled, we produced about 25% less than what we set out to make.

This was an industry wide situation. In my opinion the U.S. seed crop was down about 35% from normal, contrary to what some “big guys” were admitting. It's these situations where experience and being "close to the ground" really pays off.

With multi-nationals, seed yield estimates are done by a myriad of personnel, including trainees, college kids, interns, etc. We do it differently. I own the company and I do yield estimates (35 years of experience), along with Joel Francque (20+ years). By August, I probably shucked 1,000 ears checking yields, but Joel had done 10times that. If you do this enough, your thumbs will be stained by browning silk for a couple weeks.

What does that gain for us? Knowledge. We knew the status of this year’s seed crop well before the rest of the industry. The benefit of this knowledge? Tremendous competitive advantage.

By the time September rolled around the rest of the world learned what we figured out a month earlier. Demand for seed acres in South America skyrocketed.

Fortunately, we already had our acres placed. Our long term partner in Chile ensured our seed was planted on the best fields and in the earliest window. This put us in a position to achieve normal yields in Chile while the rest of the industry will probably harvest approximately 90% of their target. Having our seed planted in a timely manner means the seed returns to us in a timely manner by ocean freight, putting us in an enviable supply situation.

The disparity in Argentina is even more glaring. Generally, all of our contra season production takes place in Chile. This year, due to the volume of seed acres we decided to place seed in Argentina to spread the risk. Again, these decisions made in August provided the best fields and the best growers. We were ahead of the pack.

But, why does this matter? Because, it quit raining in Argentina mid-November.

While seed in Argentina is all irrigated, not all irrigators are created equal. There are differences in well capacity and pump capacity; in fact many irrigation systems are only considered "supplemental" to expected rainfall. These things don't matter in a normal year, but when it doesn't rain for six consecutive weeks it certainly does. There will be seed fields in Argentina that won't be harvested due to drought stress. And, did I mention the temperature was between 90-100 degrees during most of the pollination period?

Our production in Argentina will yield about 85- 90% of target. This compares to the rest of the industry at about 70% of target and commercial corn production (largely not irrigated) at about 60-65% of normal.

Our harvest has just begun. In a few days the first seed lot will be on the ocean headed for a an all-expenses paid cruise to Philly, where it will then be transloaded (1 metric ton bags) onto van trailers for a short two day trip to our seed plant in Atkinson, IL. Within 24 hours it will be cleaned, sized, conditioned with your favorite seed applied insecticide and shipped to your farm. That process will continue daily until the first part of April, when all seed is back home in our Atkinson facility.

So, what's the point? To illustrate the differences in production and supply management between companies. While we don't have the perfect supply of every hybrid, we are sitting in a far better position than most.

Is it luck? No. It’s experience, hard work, and a passion for sweating the details. I’ve been doing this my entire life and our production department is filled with crazies who have been doing this 20+ years. We are all a little odd in that we actually enjoy this job.

When you buy your seed from Wyffels, you can trust that it was produced, conditioned, and shipped by someone who has a passion for it. Not by someone who just needs the checkmark on a fast track resume. We all have choices as customers.

You can buy your seed from a company where inventory decisions are made by people who have never been in a seed field. Or you can buy from a company where the owner is in every field on a weekly basis. We hope you can see and feel the difference when you do business with the latter.