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If you’re willing to set aside forty acres in the new year, you can become a Groundbreakers grower for the new Preceon™ short stature corn from Bayer.
“So we’re asking our growers to commit at least 40 acres in their first year of piloting the product so that they can kind of experiment on their farm with maybe some different densities, how might you take advantage of the in-season access benefits, maybe do some fertility differently,” says Preceon™ corn digital experience lead Dan Ader. He says many growers are dedicating more acres, up to a couple hundred on their farm.
Bayer uses the PAYYS acronym to stress the benefits of protection, access, yield, silage value, and sustainability when planting Preceon.
“We start with protection. They’re shorter plants but they’ve got thicker stocks and what that does is actually give you protection against green snap and lodging, especially in wind events. We saw a lot of growers benefit from that in this ‘25 season. Then we get to the access component. You can get your boom sprayer through that field much more easily and so you can think about how to do in-season fertility. With short corn you can get in there for in-season applications, V6 to VT to help boost your yield at that right time. Or if you’re seeing disease pressure you can get into that field more easily yourself, as opposed to having to go coordinate a plane to get over your field.”
Ader says the more tailored management capabilities with the Preceon system led to eight bushels more per acre than tall corn on the same farm in 2024.
A key element of the system is use of FieldView™.
“We sell Preceon with that digital enablement so you’ll have that FieldView Plus account as part of it,” Ader explained. “What that lets you do is take all of the data layers you historically generated for that field, and that you’re generating for your Preceon crop, look at them and in a connected way to say, how can I use all the data from my farm to pick the right product for this field, get the right density to maximize based on the historic yield of that field, the soil types, give you a planting script to distribute that seed investment in a variable rate across the field.”
Ader says there are new genetics coming in the new year too.
“We’ve got a couple of different RM’s that are going to be offered, still in that same 100 to 118 range, but some improved genetics there for the product. And then as we look forward we’re really excited about the biotech trait which should start launching in 2027 and will continue scaling from that area. And for your Michigan grows especially, if they’re silage growers we’re actually seeing some really great benefits of Preceon for silage. They got a really great pilot in that space this year.”
Learn more about Preceon at their website here.