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Case Study: BrettYoung Show-n-Tell Field Demos
Summary
BrettYoung, an established seed company, knew it had some excellent new canola varieties to offer: consistent high yielders with strong agronomic features to round out the package. The company had anecdotal as well as trial data to back their claims, and were confident that their canola varieties would provide a real benefit to growers.
The trouble is that every canola seed company in the marketplace uses anecdotal and trial data that demonstrate the superiority of their varieties. Growers are overrun with data and BrettYoung’s media-based brand messages were getting lost in the clutter.
 BrettYoung was confident that if growers could see the company’s varieties in side-by-side trials, they would see the yield advantages for themselves, as well as see how these varieties performed locally – two primary drivers when growers make variety choices.
The Challenge
The biggest challenge for BrettYoung was manpower. “Our reps are busy selling throughout the season and we did not want them to lose focus by taking on this large project,” says Rene Mabon, canola product manager for BrettYoung. “That’s when we called AgCall.”
The Solution
“Show-n-tell” field demonstrations are perhaps the most credible way to deliver variety data to growers. Establishing field-scale trials is a big task that requires a lot of organization and an enormous time commitment on the part of trial managers.
AgCall helped BrettYoung develop a field trial program that would do three things:
- Cover a wide area of the canola growing belt in Western Canada and provide enough trial sites to be statistically relevant.
- Select credible, respected grower/co-operators to run the trials on their farms.
- Design a trial protocol that would deliver meaningful results.
Here’s how the trial was done:
- Nine canola-growing regions were targeted
- AgCall recruited an associate for each region
- Each associate then:
- Approached and recruited four to six respected canola growers to conduct the side-by-side trials.
- Managed the trials from start to finish, including: field selection, seed delivery, in-season monitoring and record keeping, and harvest yield data and sample collection.
- All 37 trials consisted of:
- 20 acres each of four BrettYoung varieties and a check, for a total of 80 acres in each demo.
- Trials were seeded, sprayed, swathed and harvested with the participating grower’s equipment.
- Each site was evaluated six times throughout the season resulting in a solid data package on each variety in the trial. Evaluations were taken at:
- Field Observation
- Seeding
- Emergence
- Bolting – Early Flowering
- Pod Filling – Maturity
- Harvest
- Yield monitors and weigh wagons were used at harvest to gather exact yield data.
The Results
Seeing really was believing for growers who participated in the trials themselves, as well as those who came to see them. “These side-by-sides really proved to farmers and dealers that BrettYoung varieties perform well in the field, where it counts,” says Mabon. “The AgCall associates did a great job of getting great co-operators and sites, and we used many sites for summer field tours.
“Best of all, the associates engaged the farmer co-operators in all aspects of rating the trials,” recalls Mabon. “In the end, these farmers became our best spokesmen in the area. The trials changed farmer and dealer attitudes about our genetics and paved the way for increased sales.”
The program was so successful that BrettYoung expanded it the following year to cover 20 growing regions that saw over 90 trials go in the ground.
“Overall, the trials had credibility with farmers because AgCall managed the program as a third party. They found great associates who found great co-operators,” says Mabon. “The associates never let us down, and AgCall made it look relatively easy, although I know from experience it is never like that!”
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