When do you start thinking about seed selection?

[gil.gullickson]

All,

We had a conversation a few days ago at a meeting when farmers start thinking about seed selection for the next year. It used to be in our business that our March issues were the thickest, chocked full of seed ads. Now, actually, our fall issues are some of our larger ones, in part reflecting the earlier shift in seed ads.

According to that barometer, it seems a lot of seed decisions are being made in late October/Early November. Is that the case?

Or are you ordering seed even earlier than that? It seems lots of seed company field days I've been at in August are accompanied by lots of order taking, but that's a gut feeling on my part--no hard data.

Thx,

Gil 

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

I shop around and like to see the FIRST and ISU yield trials come out, so I order near the end of the year.  That also fits into tax planning, in case I need to pre-pay some expenses.

Sometimes, dealers will tell  you then that a hot number is selling out, but usually I can get what I want.  

My sense is a lot of farmers can tell by September or October what numbers they want to order.  Some are strongly influenced by seed salesment.

Years with big financial shifts or uncertainty might see later seed decisions, I suppose.