2026 Bertie County Full-Season Soybean Variety Suggestions
(Updated: Jan. 14, 2026, 5:21 a.m.)
A Note on These Recommendations
These suggestions are based on the overall yield consistency observed in the North Carolina Official Variety Testing (NCOVT) trials. Please use this information as a supplemental resource to support your own decision-making process.
For a deeper dive into the data and specific performance metrics, I strongly encourage you to consult the NC State University Official Variety Testing website and use the Variety Selection Tool directly.
2025 proved to be a variable year for soybeans across the county. Rainfall was essentially "feast or famine" depending on your specific location and planting date. Despite these challenges, overall yields appear to be average to slightly above average for most growers I have spoken with.
While there are many factors in farming we cannot control—like that rainfall timing—we can improve our yield potential through careful varietal selection and planting timing. As we look toward the 2026 season, here are my recommendations for Bertie County.
I know things are tight right now, and from what I’m hearing, we’re going to see a lot of soybeans in the ground next year. Since we are leaning on this crop, let’s make sure we select high performing and consistent varieties and plant them on time. Smart decisions now are a way to help keep everyone farming.
Selecting the Right Varieties: Consistency is Key
It is tempting to look at raw yield numbers for the county or the greater Coastal Plain region and simply pick the one at the top. However, a single high number doesn't tell the whole story.
To maximize your success, you need varieties that perform well across time (multiple years) and location (multiple testing sites).
How to use the Variety Selection Tool effectively: I recommend filtering the data within the Variety Selection Tool using the following criteria, which best represents practices for Bertie County growers:
Region: Focus on averages across the Coastal Plain region.
History: Filter for varieties with 2 or more years of performance data.
Performance: Narrow the list to varieties yielding 3% or greater above the trial mean.
By looking at the "% of trial mean" rather than just raw yield, we get a truer sense of which varieties are consistently performing above average across the entire area. This multi-year, multi-site approach helps us identify genetics that are truly worth the investment for your 2026 acres.
Top Performers for the Coastal Plain
The chart below outlines the full-season soybean varieties that meet these high standards: they have performed well in the NCOVT for at least two years and have achieved a yield greater than 3% of the trial mean for the Coastal Plain.
The table is sorted from highest above the trial mean to lowest.
Note: Most high-performers fall into Maturity Groups 4 and 5, with a few strong options in groups 3, 6, and 7.
I generally advise against looking at single-county data in isolation, as it lacks the reliability of regional testing. However, if we do narrow the NCOVT data down to just Bertie County and filter for varieties tested for 3 years, two varieties stand out:
Progeny P 4604 XFS: This was the only variety to meet the 7% above trial mean threshold that I recommend when looking at limited data sets.
Asgrow AG69XF0: This came in just shy of the threshold, yielding 6.9% above the trial mean.
Again, please use this local snapshot with caution and balance it against the wider regional performance data.
Promising New Soybean Varieties in 2026
With soybean varieties entering and leaving the market so quickly, it is often smart to test out new options to stay ahead of the curve. The table below highlights new varieties tested in 2025 that showed strong performance. It may be obvious but we're looking for new varieties with high potential while minimzing risk.
How to read this list: Because these are new to the NCOVT program, we do not have multi-year data yet. This makes it harder to predict exactly how they will perform in our specific region over time. To compensate for this and ensure we are only looking at the best options, I adjusted the criteria:
Statewide View: Look at performance across the entire state rather than just the Coastal Plain.
Higher Standard: To make the list, these varieties had to yield 7% or better than the statewide average (a higher bar than the 3% used for established varieties).
My Recommendation: If you decide to try one of these, keep the acreage small. Treat these as a "test plot" on your farm until we have more data.
Note: Most of the top performers on this "new" list were Maturity Group 5 varieties, but Maturity Groups 4, 5, and 6 were well represented.
Varieties that Perform at the Extremes
The NC State Water Resiliency Research Team has released the 2025 soybean performance data from the Tidewater Research Station.
These trials are designed to test how tough different varieties really are. They expose soybeans to three specific soil water conditions to measure overall resiliency:
Last year the BeanPACK decision support tool was made available to the public. This tool can help optimize your maturity group and planting date decisions. For 2026 the tool incorporates the NCOVT performance data to help further refine the output of the system. Last year the tool suggested that maturity groups 4 and 5 soybeans were doing well in the Northern Coastal Plain region but we could get high-performing varieties ranging from late 3 to mid-7 maturity groups. The 2025 recommendations from BeanPACK showed yield optimization planting date for soybeans grown in the Northern Coastal Plain with relative maturities between 3.9 and 7.6 (i.e., those best performers from the NCOVT outlined above) and planted between April 1st and August 15th, to be May 1st. However, as shown below, with the expanded data the planting date reommendation in 2026 for maturity groups 3.9 to 7.6 would be May 8th.
Similarly in 2025 when considering all tested relative maturities planted during April and May, a 5.4 RM soybean maximizes yield potential. In 2026 the yield optimizing relative maturity for the the Northern Coastal Plain moved to a 6.1 RM. If you tighten up the planting dates to a couple weeks before and after the May 8th optimal date then the yield optimizing relative maturity comes down to a 6.0 RM.
As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to the North Carolina Cooperative Extension - Bertie County Center at (252) 794-5317
