July 27, 2012, Fort Collins, Colo. –The 2012 Colorado Wheat Field Days featured the Second Annual Yield Contest. All in attendance were given the chance to pick the variety they thought would yield highest at that plot location. The person predicting the top variety, or the variety closest to the top, won a $25 Visa gift card. The tie breaker was the yield, so the winner was the participant who guessed closest to the actual yield.
The top yielding variety at Sheridan Lake was PlainsGold variety Byrd, at 37.0 bushels per acre. Five people selected Byrd, but Scott Smith of Cheyenne Wells had the closest guess at 32.6 bushels per acre.
At the Burlington plot location, the highest yielder was CSU experimental variety CO07W722-F5 at 65.3 bushels per acre, which no one chose. The next highest variety that anyone picked was Byrd, which was picked by three people. Bruce Unruh of Burlington estimated 61.5 bushels, which was the closest to Byrd’s actual yield of 59.7 bushels per acre.
The top yielding variety at Roggen was PlainsGold variety Bill Brown, at 28.2 bushels per acre. The variety closest to the top that anyone guessed was PlainsGold’s Ripper, and the closest estimate on bushels per acre for Ripper was 35.2, by Janette Neal of Wiggins.
At the Genoa plot location, the highest yielding variety was CSU experimental variety CO05W111 at 57.3 bushels per acre, which no one guessed. The next highest variety that anyone picked was Byrd, which was selected by six people. Bernie Gordon of Colorado Springs estimated 52.5 bushels per acre, which was the closest guess to Byrd’s yield of 50.9 bushels per acre.
The Walsh location was not harvested because of variable stand. The yield contest cards from Walsh were used for a random drawing instead. The winner was Michael Brooks of Walsh.
The contest was not held at Lamar because of limited attendance.
At Yuma, the best yielding variety was CO08W218, which no one guessed. It yielded 68.6 bushels per acre. The highest yielding variety that anyone chose was PlainsGold variety Denali, which was selected by Steve Andrews of Yuma. His estimate was 52 bushels per acre, and it yielded 66.9 bushels per acre.
The top yielding variety at Orchard was Denali, at 56.4 bushels per acre. The variety closest to the top that anyone guessed was Byrd, which was picked by Irwin Jess of Fort Morgan. He estimated a yield of 47.5 bushels per acre.
The best yielding variety at the Haxtun irrigated trial location was WB-Cedar (WestBred), which no one selected. It yielded 145.6 bushels per acre. The highest yielding variety that anyone chose was CSU experimental variety CO050233-2 at 133.2 bushel per acre, which was selected by two people. Tom Edwards of Haxtun had the closest estimate with 107 bushels per acre.
At the Julesburg plot location, the best yielding variety was CSU experimental variety CO07W245 at 73.6 bushels per acre, which no one picked. The highest yielding variety that anyone chose was CSU experimental variety CO050233-2, at 73.6 bushels per acre. The only person to select this variety was Ted Carter of Julesburg, who estimated that it would yield 53 bushels per acre.
The top yielding variety at the Akron plot was CSU experimental variety CO07W245, which was selected as the winner by John Wright of Akron, the only person to choose that variety at that location. He estimated yield at 31 bushels per acre, and the actual yield was 58.6 bushels per acre.
PlainsGold is the new brand for varieties developed by CSU and released to the Colorado Wheat Research Foundation such as Byrd, Hatcher, Ripper, Bond CL and Snowmass.
The complete results of the 2012 Uniform Variety Plot Trials are available at: http://bit.ly/co2012trials.
