Corn Trials Go Interactive with
New Online Project
By Owen Roberts
Hundreds of field trial results from across the province have gone online
to offer farmers another way to assess the performance of Ontario’s major crops. The initiative, Ontario Field
Trials Online, can be accessed through the Ontario Soil and Crop Improvement Association (OSCIA) website at www.ontariosoilcrop.org.
Producers without Internet access can get print-outs of the data from their local OSCIA branches.
Corn and soybean trials are being posted now, joining wheat trials which have been available since August. Forages
are scheduled to be added later. In November, the site attracted more than 1,000 visitors.
OSCIA tackled the project to help producers have fast access to Ontario’s plethora of field plot trial results.
“The intent of the project is to provide reliable information faster to farmers, so they can make timely purchases
of the best seed varieties,” says Harold Rudy, OSCIA program manager for the online initiative. Traditionally,
producers have accessed trial results from several sources, including OSCIA farm trials, seed corn companies, and
the Ontario Corn Committee (OCC), an independent group consisting of representatives from OSCIA, industry and government.
The OCC’s results, published in last month’s edition of Ontario Corn Producer magazine, are based on Ontario corn
performance trials. These are conducted on 21 four- to five-acre plots at various heat-unit zones, from Windsor
to Cobden, mostly on rented land. Each of the 100 or so hybrids in the tests are grown at three or four different
areas within the test plots, which are typically two-rows wide and 20 feet long. Most seed corn companies enter
hybrids in these trials, and also conduct other field trials separately on private farms or on their own research
farms. Most companies tend to run strip trials in farmers’ fields, often in side-by-side comparisons and usually
on a larger scale. These trials give producers localized, representative results of how a hybrid will perform in
their vicinity. They run large numbers of trials; estimates of at least 3,000 trials in Ontario are common. The
OSCIA sponsors trials too, right across the province. Some involve the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and
Rural Affairs (OMAFRA), some are farmers’ or individual branches’ own trials. The online trials project gives producers
an opportunity to view data at one central spot. Seed corn companies will be invited to provide their field trial
results; local OSCIA branches will enter trial results they’re involved in. And OCC results, posted on the Ontario
Corn Producers’ Association (OCPA) website, will be linked to the OSCIA site. “This online bulk information complements
other sources available to producers,” says Brian Hall, soil and crop advisor in Clinton. “Farmers should use this
data, along with the agronomic information from seed corn companies, to make their cropping decisions.” Support
for the online project has come from OMAFRA and the Ontario Agricultural Adaptation Council. The project was spearheaded
by an OSCIA committee chaired by Guelph-area farmer Greg Kitching, consisting of representatives from OMAFRA, the
OCPA and industry. It’s expected the online project will become increasingly relevant to farmers following a new
public and private initiative to improve rural Internet access. In late October, the provincial government, along
with Bell Canada, the Ontario Rural Council and Regional Networks for Ontario, announced southern Ontario rural
communities would receive $11.5 million for extended high-speed data services, a necessity for meaningful business
communications. The initiative will, by necessity, make single-line service available for many who now have four-line
party lines.
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