Kevin...I'll try your questions 1 at a time. Please feel free to counter again.

You're saying it's a very good bargain to plant the smaller seeds when they're priced per lb. There's absolutely no doubt about that revelation or your math.

But-I ask....who do you think is getting the left-over larger (relative) sizes & what can they do about it? Are you getting them? Am I? How would we ever know?

Why is this different than corn seed? Heck-the cost per acre on seed on corn vs beans is getting very close to the same in some cases these days. Would anyone care to go back to the days of buying corn in 56# bags & hope their dealer gets them the best of the best sizes (= kernels per lb) & the hell with their neighbors? This beans vs corn sales scenario also addresses your point of various sizes vs varieties. I really don't care about varieties vs size. We're going to plant 165K/A x XXXX acres of all the varieties. You deliver that much seed & give me the bill for it....which many pay for 6 mos ahead of time. Oh....and there's more than 1 dealer involved...I'd guess that to be the case w/most farmers-maybe not all. You were a dealer...did you really rank your customers in order of importance & service? If every customer asked you for the smallest beans...what would you say?

I think you said you knew which customers planted seeds/A & which planted #/A. Would you not say this is changing mostly to seeds/A planting now? I know it is locally (NE IL). When I first remember anything about planting beans, we were planting so many #s/A & shooting for so many beans/ft. That was back in 38" row & bin run (OH NO!!) days. Our seed cost was probably $2-3/A....maybe. Now-if you get a large seed (2500/#) of $25/unit beans....your seed cost is about $33/A (RRSB). Of course, there is larger seed sometimes sent out. Some un-traited corn is about same $$. Things are different now...here. Are you able to say your customer base has not switched more to seeds/A of soybeans?

I'm aware of the bonuses & discounts involved in growing seed beans.

I propose that selling by the seed would simplify much of life. It is being done by some companies-criticized by others. Regarding cost increases.....everyone tries to tag some cost increase on this idea. I believe beans went up last yr-I'm told they're going up this yr-I think they went up the yr before that too. I'm expecting to hear about fuel surcharges on seed delivery (to the warehouses). We're getting about $5.20/bu locally for selling beans...not much changed there. Why are they going up without my cost-increasing ideas being instituted? Must be someone else beat me to it? At any rate, I got no satisfaction out of the increases.