ASA and Plant Health Care's Soybean Partnership Program

The partnership of Plant Health Care and the American Soybean Association (ASA) for the testing of N-HIBIT^® Seed Treatment on soybeans has been renewed for 2008 and enhanced with a farmer "Satisfaction Guarantee."

Replicated commercial and university research has shown that this technology lowers nematode counts — including Soybean Cyst Nematodes — and improves plant health and crop yield. The object of this partnership program is for ASA members and other qualified soybean producers to evaluate the technology on a commercial scale under their farm’s growing conditions.

The new program provides a risk-free aspect to the partnership by adding a farmer satisfaction guarantee from Plant Health Care. PHC will refund the farmer’s full purchase price if the farmer is not fully satisfied with the results of using N-HIBIT. Refunds will be paid via a check made out joint-payable to the farmer and the chemical or seed retailer and delivered to the retailer location that made the sale.

Plant Health Care and ASA urge growers to follow these suggested steps in setting up their partnership trials:

Select a uniform field for the trial - one with the same variety, cropping history, fertility, and other aspects of crop management. Use at least 20 to 50 acres for the N-HIBIT-treated area. The rest can be the untreated control. Keep the two areas as identical as possible except for the N-HIBIT treatment.
Have your local retailer spray N-HIBIT Gold CST onto the seed for the test. Or use N-HIBIT HB, which is a grower-applied, dry, hopperbox material.
Mark the N-HIBIT-treated area with flags or GPS equipment and retain these identifiers through harvest to facilitate comparison with results from the untreated area.
Keep records of the crop variety, planting dates, spraying dates and materials, harvest dates, and growing conditions.
At harvest, use your yield monitor and/or weigh wagon to record the yield for two treated and two untreated strips.
Please share this data by mailing it to Ned M. French, Ph.D., Plant Health Care, 15200 Burlingame Road, Little Rock, AR 72223. Or email this information to nfrench@planthealthcare.com. Also, please feel free to contact Dr. French during the season with any questions or concerns about your partnership trial, or to provide any comparative mid-season observations or data you may gather.

For more information on the partnership, contact Plant Health Care at 1-800-421-9051 or ASA at (314) 576-1770.

Complete rules for the 2008 N-Hibit^® & ProAct^™ Satisfaction Guarantee can be found on the Guarantee Program web page by clicking HERE.

Your participation in 2008 will be a significant contribution to helping ASA and Plant Health Care continue to learn more about how to optimize the plant health, nematode suppression, and yield improvements of this technology.