Inside Stine’s 2026 Experience Center plot tours: What’s driving yield forward

“Each stop on the Stine Experience Center plot tour gave guests a close-up look at the innovation that goes into creating the industry’s highest-yielding corn and soybean products,” says Myron Stine, company president. “We are invested in the future of the farmer, and it’s our job as innovators to move the needle. The Experience Center tour showed growers and other partners in the industry just how we’re doing that.”

The tour featured several stops throughout the farm, each highlighting a different aspect of Stine’s approach to advancing yield, including:

Stop: The evolution of a Stine hybrid

With Stine, great corn starts with great genetics. At the Stine corn nursery, Experience Center guests learned how Stine develops its own corn inbred lines for its commercial lineup.

“The selfing nursery is where we maintain and develop corn inbreds for Stine’s commercial product lineup and Stine’s hybrid yield trial testing system,” says Warren Stine, assistant director of corn research. “Inbreds are the parents used to make hybrid corn, and each hybrid requires two inbred parents — one male and one female.”

He notes that to create a stable inbred for commercial use, self-pollinations are a necessary step in the inbred development process.

“As corn is a naturally cross-pollinated crop, all self-pollinations must be controlled and done by hand,” says Stine.

The Stine corn nursery is 57 acres this year. Nursery staff conducted 930,000 hand pollinations in 2026, and Experience Center guests learned firsthand how Stine’s selfing nursery works, how the company's corn isolation blocks are used to increase seed for evaluation and how new corn inbreds are developed. They also gained insight into Stine's Elite Yield Trials, where the company has approximately 1,042,400 plots across the country and is testing approximately 94,900 hybrids this year.

“Guests saw the full process, from inbred development to finished hybrid,” says Stine. “No other corn development program compares to Stine’s. The scale of our testing is important, and it’s what sets us apart in research and development.”

Stop: Innovation in action

Next up, attendees visited the Stine corn demonstration plot, featuring 82 commercial and 32 experimental corn lines that showcased the company’s corn breeding innovation.

As the home to one of the industry’s largest corn breeding programs, Stine develops high-yielding hybrids built to perform under tough agronomic conditions. This stop let guests view some of the company’s top performers, along with the inbred crosses that brought them to life. Visitors also got a sneak peek at hybrids in Stine’s pipeline.

Stop: Choice growers trust — soybean lineup

The Stine Experience Center soybean demonstration plot featured Stine’s current lineup for the current growing season, including Enlist E3^®, XtendFlex^® and Elite conventional soybeans.

“With the industry’s most extensive lineup of Enlist E3 soybeans and a good mix of XtendFlex and conventional options, we emphasized the choices growers get when they choose Stine,” says Rodney Pentico, soybean research team leader for Stine.

Stop: How Stine's soybean research program works

Pentico explained how Stine’s large-scale soybean breeding program works, including how the company is positioned to get new varieties to market faster than its competitors. He explained how Stine uses winter nurseries in Guyana and Argentina to accelerate the growing season timeline, bringing new generations of soybeans and solid seed stock to market quickly and efficiently.

Stop: What's next in soybeans

One of the tour’s most anticipated stops gave guests a preview of what’s coming in soybeans, including:

• Vyconic™ (anticipated in 2027, pending regulatory approval)
• Enlist E3 and Nemasphere™ (anticipated in 2028, pending regulatory approval)
• Enlist E3 + Expance™ (anticipated in 2029, pending regulatory approval)

“Stine’s ability to turn new generations of soybeans faster than our competitors, combined with strong partnerships across the industry, positions Stine to bring next-generation soybean traits to growers’ fields as quickly as possible,” says Pentico.

Stine’s breeding and testing program is one of the largest in the industry, built on speed, efficiency and volume, from the Stine Seed Farm to Elite Yield Trials. As a family-owned business, Stine can move faster on new generations of varieties, giving it an early start on next-generation advancements.

Stop: Seed enhancement solutions

Another stop on the tour featured a discussion of Stine XP seed treatments and Stine’s new Stine XP SureFlow fluidity products.

Stine XP brand soybean seed treatments come in a range of options to help growers tackle a broad spectrum of seedling diseases and insects. From sudden death syndrome to bean leaf beetle protection, Stine XP soybean treatments provide that critical first line of defense against pests and diseases, helping growers make the most of every acre. Seed enhancements previewed at this stop included Stine XP Complete 3.0 RCR, Stine XP Complete 3.0, Stine XP Complete 2.0 and Stine XP-F&I, along with a new fluidity product, Stine XP SureFlow — available for both corn and soybeans.