With 47 years of supporting breeding programs, FFR’s agronomy team has expertise, experience and equipment for conducting field research trials.  The team still supports the forage breeding and wheat sourcing programs, and now also works to plant, treat, maintain and harvest high quality field research plots for demonstration, training and data purposes.   The Lafayette location crews run trials at many on farm locations from Northern Alabama to Northern Indiana.  The Virginia crew runs trials from South Carolina to Pennsylvania.  Data collected from these approximately 30 test locations allows product managers to evaluate new hybrids, varieties and seed related products before they are marketed to farmers.

Genetics, traits, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, micronutrients and other performance enhancing treatments and products are studied for their value to crop production systems.  GPS technologies are incorporated to precisely locate each plot in each location while planters with variable population and fertility options are used.  Equipment for harvesting grain yield and biomass are utilized by FFR’s agronomists to evaluate performance in high quality field production systems.  Data is quickly transferred from field computers to main servers where data for owners and seed industry partners is analyzed.  Both field and lab NIRS technologies are used for analysis of samples.