Data from variety trials conducted in North Dakota and Minnesota in 2016 are now available from the spring wheat Variety Selection Tool.

This tool is a web-based program that allows users to summarize and review the results from the spring wheat variety trials conducted during the last three years.

“With so many new varieties on the market, this tool can be a powerful and easy way to access available data to help select varieties that will perform best for a given location,” says Jochum Wiersma, University of Minnesota Extension agronomist.

The program also calculates least significant difference (LSD) values for all the comparisons that are generated, allowing the user a known level of confidence in any differences that are detected between varieties.

“One of the features of the tool, that many growers find most useful, is the option to compare varieties head-to-head,” says Joel Ransom, North Dakota State University Extension Service agronomist. “By simply selecting two or more varieties that are of interest, the tool provides the user with the yield data from every location where the selected varieties were tested in the same trial.”

Ransom adds, “You can imagine the power of comparing the yield of varieties at 28 locations. That was the number of locations included in the database that the tool uses for comparisons in 2016.”

In addition to yield, the tool also will generate comparisons of test weight and protein.

The Variety Selection Tool for Spring Wheat is available at https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/varietyselectiontool/.

NDSU Agriculture Communication - Jan. 26, 2017