By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

DES MOINES, Iowa — When shopping for seeds for 2009, farmers across the United States will have a new choice from Pioneer Hi-Bred, for what the company is advertising as a new higher-yield soybean.

Pioneer will offer 32 varieties of the new Y Series Class (so named for the letter “Y” in each variety name).

Paul Schickler, president of Pioneer and a vice president with parent company DuPont, said with current high commodities prices and low stocks, the company made the decision to use science to address the “incredible demand” for soybeans.

“Nobody in the industry is bringing this kind of soybean yield to the market … that Pioneer is,” he said.

The company is using proprietary technology to improve a soybean’s base genetics; Schickler said the yield increase is not based solely on engineered traits such as herbicide resistance. Don Schafer, Pioneer senior marketing manager, said the Y Series has showed an average 5 percent yield increase across 1,800 acres of test plots – with some places as high as 10 percent.

In soil that normally produces 50 bushels/acre, he explained, this would mean about 52.5 bu./acre – or, at current market prices, close to $40 more an acre. Pioneer is projecting enough seed potential for nine million acres, or approximately 19 million more bushels of soybeans in the late 2009 harvest.

“This is truly the best class of new soybeans I’ve seen in my 27 years at Pioneer,” Schafer said.

Senior Research Director John Soper explained Pioneer developed accelerated yield technology (AYT) molecular markers that track specific genes through the breeding process – they narrowed it to about 100 (the soybean has more than 30,000 genes). Each gene is “fingerprinted” to show researchers which are present in different growing outcomes through several generations.

Soper said there is no one gene to improve yield; it’s a variety of genes working in concert.

Before AYT tracking, he said Pioneer soybean customers saw about 1 percent yield improvement each year. Broader-based AYT technology should at least double that, he said. He added all test plots from Canada down through the U.S. showed “significant yield enhancement” over Pioneer’s competition, especially in the region of southern Illinois down into Arkansas.

Also, Soper said Pioneer would be using similar molecular markers to introduce varieties in the next three to five years with transgenic and nontransgenic traits to fight Asian soybean rust, frogeye leaf spot and soybean aphids. Currently, soybean seed sales make up about 16 percent of Pioneer’s revenue.

As to whether farmers will have to use different fertilizer or chemicals for the Y Series, Schafer said farm practices shouldn’t require any more adjustment than the release of any other new varieties. “Maybe (they’ll need) bigger bins,” he said with a laugh.