By Darren Hefty

I got so many questions after harvest wondering how XtendFlex soybeans performed in the field. There is a lot of excitement about this new trait and the potential to spray Roundup, Liberty, and dicamba post-emerge for weed control.

Perhaps the number one question I fielded about the technology was this: When can I switch over all my Xtend acres to XtendFlex.

It’s a great question, as many of the Xtend varieties on the market have set world, state, regional, or even personal farm yield records. Will XtendFlex be able to completely replace Xtend any time soon? The answer is yes, it’s just going to take a few years, but not necessarily for the reason you may be thinking.

Obviously YIELD is the top characteristic you are looking for in a soybean variety. You can have every defensive and stress tolerance in a variety, but if it doesn’t yield, you’re not planting it. Fortunately on this one, XtendFlex overall has comparable yield to Xtend. Clearly, there are still some filthy-good-yielding Xtend products that will earn their share of acres in 2021 and likely for a year or two after that, as well. However, as a whole, XtendFlex varieties hold their own, and if you were strictly picking which beans yielded the most, there are several XtendFlex varieties in almost every maturity zone worthy of planting.

This is where there’s a little call for patience. Is XtendFlex ready to replace my best Xtend varieties in ALL maturities? That’s an easy answer: NO, not today. Like all new traits that have come on the market, in year one or even year two they just don’t have the depth in the lineup at every maturity zone to fit for everyone. In the case of XtendFlex, the earliest maturities are mid-Group 0’s. Really, below a Group 1 there are only a couple varieties of consequence on the market.

On the late end, though, you’re good to go all the way up into Group 6 beans provided you have the agronomics you need.

Ah, here’s where the real question comes for the soybean grower who has done the research and found that XtendFlex carries some good yield and is available in the right maturity. Are there XtendFlex varieties that check all the boxes for needed agronomic characteristics?

Are you looking for frogeye tolerance, root knot nematode protection, and a salt excluder at a Group 4 maturity? Well, they don’t have all that yet in XtendFlex.

Is SCN resistance, white mold tolerance, iron deficiency chlorosis protection, and a phytophthora stack more your game in a Group 1? You will have to wait a little bit longer for this, as well.

True, in the case where you need a whole bunch of defensive traits in a single offering, it’s tough for any trait to fill the bill, but your best bet is still likely Xtend.

In the meantime, you should definitely be looking at a portion of your farm in the new XtendFlex trait. Get a feel for the weed control program. Pick your #1 and possibly #2 defensive need, and you should be able to find it in most cases in XtendFlex. You could always just go for yield in your best ground where you don’t need the defense. I bet you’ll like what you find with this new trait, and within a year or two you will be converting most or all of your farm so you can skip the dicamba drift concerns post and run with Liberty instead. Good luck!