The entire agriculture industry seeks ways to increase soybean yields. In Illinois, soybean yields have increased by an average of 1.1% per year as a linear trend over the last twenty years. There is frustration and concern by many people that average soybean yields have not kept with the increasing pace of corn. This perceived lagging yield trend has soybean producers and academic researchers alike questioning current management practices and investigating new ideas.

The University of Illinois has been regarded as an outstanding source of unbiased product evaluation information for genetics and discipline-specific pesticides (i.e. variety testing, herbicide, fungicide, and insecticide...