In the farming community it is very well known that hybrid varieties offer a higher vigour, have a very good rooting system that makes them stress tolerant in order to deliver strong yields and qualities. Nevertheless in times of high costs or low prices, some farmers tend to use their harvested seeds again for sowing. That´s why Rapool started an independant replicated trial with two of their varieties in Poland on four official trial locations to look at the performance of hybrids compared to their farm saved seeds.
The results at harvest are very clear: Besides the fact of growing seeds with a guaranteed germination, purity and quality also the yield of the certified seeds from hybrids was more than 11% better on average compared to the farm saved seeds. With these high prices at the moment farmers loose money by growing farm saved seeds. The monetary loss with a price of 500€ would be already more than 200€ per hectare after seed costs.
Besides the Yield also the Oil Content in the farm saved seeds was 0,9% lower. It was also found out that the farm saved seeds suffered more from diseases that lead finally to weaker yields and qualities.
The reason for this poor performance is based on the fact that hybrids split up after one generation back into their parents, that have a much lower performance than the hybrid itsself, based on the result of the so called heterosis.
Source: Internal RAPOOL trials, 4 locations in Poland 2021