MINUTES SRIEG-33
CROP VARIETY TESTING
Myrtle Beach, SC
February10 & 11, 1997

CO-CHAIRS - Kathy Glass, Auburn University and James Thomas, Hornbeck Seed Co., Inc.
SECRETARY - Doyce Graham, Clemson University
CSREES REPRESENTATIVE - Mitch Woodward
DIRECTORS REPRESENTATIVE - Vance Watson, Mississippi State University

TUESDAY, FEB. 10, 1997

INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTS

Glass introduced our new AES director's representative, Vance Watson, from Mississippi State University. Dr. Watson indicated the unique nature of our particular information exchange group in that we were the first to include industry groups in our deliberations. The North Central(NC) has and is considering joining SRIEG-33.

MINUTES FOR 1996

Minutes for 1996 were distributed and approved.

HISTORY OF SRIEG-33, Variety Testing

An overview with highlights since 1984 was presented. Notable items such as directory, check varieties, and adoption of uniform dates were a few of the items.

GROUP INTRODUCTIONS AND NEW VARIETY RELEASES

TRANSGENIC TESTING GUIDELINES

Committee report will be forthcoming.

PERFORMANCE OF TRANSGENICS IN TEST

Harry Minor, U. of Missouri - Columbia - A concern for fairness to transgenic varieties has raised questions about testing of such varieties. In general the Roundup Ready(RR) varieties are lower in yield and are near the bottom of most tests when compared to conventional varieties. Several state yields test results were presented. Discussion moved to fact that some states will move to separate test in 1997.

Bob Harville, LSU - LSU will move to separate tests on the basis of farmers asking which RR variety to use. He wants to be able to say which of RR varieties is better.

Grover Shannon, Delta & Pine Land - Gave view that lower yields observed were more of a yield lag given the recent development of the technology. RR varieties will eventually yield like conventional varieties. Some companies are leaning toward entering RR varieties only in tests with only RR varieties. A poll indicated that four states were going to RR only test in addition to the conventional tests.

UPDATE ON STRUCTURE AND CONDUCT OF VARIETY TESTING BY STATE

Don Dombek, U. of Arkansas - Survey results of states with 90% response was distributed. Various technologies and techniques were detailed. Fee standardization was discussed with respect to public and private varieties. University royalties have caused some concerns in the private sector in that universities do not charge other universities to test varieties. No standardization was proposed but discussion raised some points of disagreement.

UPDATE ON STANDARDIZED DATA REPORT FORMATS AND USE ON WWW PAGES

Dewey Barefield, Clemson University - The report format was presented with a history of progression of use of floppy disks, email, and on-line methods for presenting data. Most universities are developing WWW pages of variety test data. Request for URL for universities was made. Mr. Barefield has subsequently developed a SRIEG-33 page. The page is located at http://hubcap.clemson.edu/varietytest/srieg33.htm. Links to all of the states in our group are on the page. All states are urged to contact Mr. Barefield with any changes in WWW pages or details that would affect the SRIEG-33 page

DIRECTORY UPDATE

Bob Harville, LSU - Annual update of corrections will be made. All are urged to contact Harville directly as changes occur in address and personnel. Please contact Harville if yours is one of the many telephone area code changes.

GOOD DATA, BAD DATA, DATA TOO BAD TO PUBLISH

Vance Watson, Mississippi State University - Stressed adequate explanations for all user groups of data. A technical advisory group assists in evaluating data before it is published by MAFES.

Daryl Bowman, NC State University - presented report on establishing a criterion level of precision for rejection of questionable data. The method uses 10 years of historical data to establish baseline error and possible rejection of data for publication. Agronomy J. 87:147-151(1995) has full text of the method.

Charles Graves, U. of Tennessee - talk centered around various situations where such crop characteristics as stand, weed populations, and maturity group separation are used to develop criteria for judgments as to good use of data.

Bob Harville, LSU - detailed steps and criteria for conducting tests and evaluating data before publishing.

Howard Gabe, Novartis Seeds, Inc. - indicated that means should be subject to separation tests. Tests with low mean yields were of minimum use; consider not publishing low mean yields. Gabe felt that C.V. did have some utility. If bad yields were the result of say severe disease, he preferred the disease ratings without low yields.

Grover Shannon, Delta & Pine Land Co. - emphasized starting test correctly with such details as choice of experimental units, stand, etc. Try for representative locations even moving from Experiment Station sites was indicated.

Kelly Day, Purdue University - presented data where C. V was presented for each variety. Advanced idea that reliable performance for a variety as well as staying in top yield group.

Koy Miskin, HybriTech - discussion around who is consumer for data. The farmer is paying in part for trials through taxes in that they are large consumer group. Had some comments about university varieties and releases and the payment structure(namely none). Had strong reservations about strip trials ever being reported since they do not have any associated statistics for mean separation or quality of data.

Tuesday, February 11, 1997

MECHANICAL SOURCES OF ERROR

Charles Tutt, U. of Kentucky, Princeton and Richard Dougherty, Hartz Seed Co - details with slides of procedures and processes where mechanical errors could possibly be interjected were shown. Some examples given were seeding with offset alleys, choice of plot areas to minimize soil and topography differences, end trimming (method and timing), blocking for maturity, and harvests operations including weighing.

IRRIGATED vs NON-IRRIGATED TEST

Daryl Bowman, NCSU - reported on data from NC and GA with corn and soybeans. Irrigated test tend give better separation of corn hybrids. A slight advantage existed to irrigation for statistical separation for soybean.

Charles Graves, U. of Tennessee - Presented data that supported the supposition that hybrids should be tested under irrigation if choices are to be made for irrigated culture.

UTILITY PATENTS vs. PVP

Steve Hawkins, Delta & Pine Land Company - various issues arising from using patents or PVP were discussed. Examples were degrees of protection and timing of protection against such practices as brown bagging or saved seed and use of genetic materials as parents. He advanced the idea that both should be done because of the wider range of protection for a developed product with observation that owner will shoulder more of the enforcement.

STATISTICAL PACKAGES

Sandy Swanson, U. of Kentucky - use of AGROBASE for variety testing support. Experiment management tasks such planting plans, randomization, and field books are routinely accomplished. File formats are recognized by Foxpro, Excel, Dbase, and Lotus. Also noted that a high learning curve and series of updates(costs) associated with AGROBASE.

Cindy Green, Delta & Pine Land Co. - AGROBASE for plant breeding use is built around an accession file concept. Accommodation of various breeding methods is in the program. Reports of various types are possible. Several statistical routines are available. Experiment management mentioned above is applicable to breeding experiments. A demo CD was passed to participants of SRIEG-33 for use on computers. Green also noted that a dongle(type of copy protection) was a part of AGROBASE.

SOYBEAN BENCHMARK

The variety testing program at NCSU will be using Hutcheson to divide the Group V soybeans similar to the division of Group IV. Division will be early and late Group V.

AWARDS

Koy Miskin was presented the Service Award by Barton Fogleman.

BUSINESS MEETING

Co-chairs, 1998 - Raymer, U. of Georgia and Fogleman, Agripro Seeds, Inc.
Co-chairs, 1999 - Pearce, U. of Kentucky and Howard, Delta & Pine Land Co.

Dombeck gave treasures report. Money will be carried forward to ease next year's arrangements process.

Participants at SRIEG-33, Myrtle Beach, SC, Feb. 10 & 11, 1997

Lanny Ashlock
U. of Arkansas

Mike Baker
N. C. Foundation Seed
Raleigh

Dewey Barefield
Clemson University

Richard Bond
U. of Arkansas

Daryl Bowman
NCSU

Bob Buehler
Monsanto
Chesterfield, MO

Anton Coy
U. of Georgia

Kelly Day
Purdue University

Ed Deane
Delta & Pine Land
Scott, MS

Don Dombeck
U. of Arkansas

Richard Dougherty
Hartz Seed Co.
Almyra , AR

Barton Fogleman
AgriPro Seeds, Inc.
Jonesboro, AR

Howard Gabe
Novartis Seeds, Inc.
Bay, AR

Kathryn Glass
Auburn University

Donnie Glover
Terra Seeds, Inc.
Lake Providence, La

Doyce Graham
Clemson University

Charles Graves
U. of Tennessee

John Green
Novartis Seeds
Henderson, KY

Cindy Green
Delta & Pine Land
Hartsville, SC

Steve Harrison LSU

Bob Harville
LSU

Lynn Hoffman
Penn State University

Al Hoggard
AgriPro Seeds, Inc.
Memphis, TN

Kevin Howard
Delta & Pine Land
Scott, MS

John Kelly
U. of Arkansas

Kevin Kelly
U. of Illinois

Harry Minor
U. of Missouri-Columbia

Koy Miskin
Hybritech Seeds
Lafayette, IN

Jerry Nail
Mississippi State University

Robert Palmer
Pioneer Hi-Bred
Huntsville, AL

William Pearce
U. of Kentucky

Grover Shannon
Delta & Pine Land
Scott, MS

Sandy Swanson
U. of Kentucky

Charles Tutt
U. of Kentucky West. Ky. REC

Garland Veasey
Clemson University

Brad Venuto
LSU

Vance Watson
Mississippi State University

Kelly Whiting
Delta & Pine Land
Scott, MS