I interviewed one of those researchers, Dr. Mike Owen, during the NAFB Trade Talk in the Syngenta booth. He says his role was to investigate the issue of herbicide resistance. He says the information basically reinforces what most people already knew about the impact of using glyphosate resistant crops with glyphosate to the exclusion of a lot of the other tools in the agricultural toolbox. He says farmers are still in denial about this issue. They need to diversity in weed management! You can find a number of links on this subject posted by Dr. Owen here.

Listen to my interview with Dr. Owen here: Interview with Dr. Mike Owen

According to a release from Syngenta (pdf) on this subject:

U.S. consumers and society benefit from atrazine and other triazine herbicides by up to $4.8 billion per year, due to increased yield as well as decreased producer costs and reduced soil erosion, according to new studies released today in Kansas City.

In addition, the U.S. economy benefits from atrazine and other triazine herbicides by as much as $22 billion over a five-year period. Benefits to farmers and consumers from the triazine herbicides include increased corn, sorghum and sugar cane crop yields, lower weed-control costs, significantly reduced soil erosion and less carbon released into the atmosphere. Atrazine and the triazine herbicides account for as many as 48,000 American jobs in corn production alone.

You can watch the AgriTalk program with all the researchers, as they share highlights of the new data, documenting atrazine’s impact on weed management, crop yields and jobs.

2011 NAFB Convention Photo Album

The Conservation Technology Information Center annual tour is taking place in Northwest Ohio and focusing on the impact of agriculture on the Maumee River and Bay, as well as Lake Erie.

We started out the event with a boat tour of the river and bay and out into the lake to get a view from the water of what the issues are for agriculture in the area. I talked with Ron Olson (left) of The Mosaic Company and Rex Martin of Syngenta about the purpose of the tour and why their companies are involved with the event and CTIC.

Florida-based Mosaic, which is the world’s leading producer and marketer of concentrated phosphate and potash, is the sponsor of this year’s tour. “The industry has adopted the 4R stewardship campaign,” Ron said. “The right product at the right rate, at the right place at the right time – and this is part of getting that message out to the farmers and the fertilizer dealers who are users of our product.”

Listen to my interview with Ron here: Ron Olson, Mosaic

Rex is head of industry relations for Syngenta and chairman of the CTIC Board of Directors. “We do a good job of taking folks that need to learn about conservation technology and matching them with folks that need to know about conservation technology,” Rex says about CTIC. This year’s tour has record-breaking attendance and Rex says they have lots of great stops planned on Tuesday to find out more about innovative conservation practices in the area.

Listen to my interview with Rex here: Rex Martin, Syngenta

CTIC 2011 Conservation in Action Tour Photo Album

You can listen to and download the Syngenta press conference here: Syngenta Press Conference

2011 Commodity Classic Photo Album

Syngenta Seeds plans to sell corn containing Event 3272 under the “Enogen” seed brand. “Enogen corn is a breakthrough product that provides ethanol producers a proven means to create more value per gallon while offering targeted corn growers an opportunity to cultivate a premium specialty crop in a contracted, closed production system,” said David Morgan, president of Syngenta Seeds. “Also, Enogen corn can substantially reduce the energy and water consumed and the carbon emissions associated with ethanol production.”

The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) is happy with USDA’s decision.

“Corn amylase is the first processing output trait to be scrutinized by our regulatory system,” said NCGA president Bart Schott, a grower from North Dakota. “The potential importance of output traits to growers and industry will only increase as other output traits are developed.”

Corn amylase is approved in Japan, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, and the Philippines. Amylase was found to be safe for food and feed by the Food and Drug Administration in 2007.

I could almost smell the dirt from freshly-plowed fields.

Read rest of poem

Wayne says they’re very lucky to have three major launches this year including Agrisure Viptera, Aphid Management System and a first wave of drought tolerant corn with Agrisure Artesian. In my interview he will tell you the status of each of these product launches. You can listen to my interview with Wayne here: Syngenta Interview

Incidentally, Syngenta Seeds just announced that they have submitted a petition for the deregulation of its Event 5307*, a next-generation corn rootworm trait to USDA.

Syngenta’s Event 5307 expresses the eCry3.1Ab protein, which has demonstrated resistance to corn rootworm in Syngenta trials. This protein has a novel mode of action that binds differently in the gut of target insects than the protein in Syngenta’s Agrisure® RW corn rootworm trait. As such, once approved, the new event will provide Syngenta with the opportunity to create proprietary trait stacks with multiple modes of action against corn rootworms.

Read more here.

NAFB Convention Photo Album

Syngenta customers who are participating in trials are seeing and experiencing a new level of control, the highest level of control soon to be available on the market according to Ozipko, as well as the broadest spectrum of control. Once Agrisure Viptera hits the market in time for the 2011 planting season, it will control 14 different pests including corn earworm, fall army worm, Western bean cut worm, and black cut worm, among others.

The protection is something Ozipko says growers are confident about when they plant the trait stack in their fields. “They’re going to have protection from planting all the way through harvest,” said Ozipko.

Ozipko continued, “At the end of the day, the grower is really driven by yield. We’re experiencing a 14 bushel benefit. Growers are excited about that 14 bushels per acre in the presence of corn earworm.”

This equates to about a half ton truck of grain on every acre and Ozipko said this is a pretty big yield loss if growers don’t control pests.

Regardless of environmental conditions, Agrisure Viptera is going to provide protection against pests. Many farmers in the Midwest suffered from excess moisture this growing season that can lead to mycotoxin or aflotoxin from pests that get into the corn ear. However, planting Agrisure Viptera can reduce damage from those pests, minimizing toxins and help the grower market his grain more effectively.

You can learn more about Agrisure Viptera at www.agrisureviptera.com and by listening to my interview with Grant Ozipko here. Introducing Agrisure Viptera for Pest Control

Check out our Farm Progress Photo Album.

Chuck Lee, head of Syngenta Seeds corn and soybean marketing, says they look forward to making financing an option for their customers. “At Syngenta, we are always looking for ways to help growers build a successful and profitable business,” he said.

“Farm Plan is a great fit with Syngenta because we serve the same customer, ” said Scott Cline, vice president of marketing at John Deere Credit. “Our strategic relationship with Syngenta is helping us achieve our goal of providing dependable solutions that help qualified producers get what they need when they need it.”

Qualified growers will have access to financing through Farm Plan this coming fall.

Syngenta Seeds just announced that EPA has approved a natural refuge option for its VipCot™ cotton technology.

VipCot* cotton contains the transgenic cotton events COT67B, which produces the Cry1Ab protein, and COT102, which features the novel Vip3A protein. Vip3A is the same protein found in Syngenta’s Agrisure Viptera™ trait in corn and is a totally new mode of action in both cotton and corn. The natural refuge option for VipCot affects growers in 16 cotton producing states but does not apply to areas where pink bollworm is a key pest including Arizona, California, New Mexico, and some parts of Texas.

Syngenta Seeds also noted that the first signs of possible black cutworm and dingy cutworm infestations are being seen throughout the Corn Belt as agronomist moth traps have reported significant captures of black cutworm in Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota and Iowa. Growers are being urged to scout fields now to determine if treatments are necessary, but the arrival of the Agrisure Viptera 3111 multi-pest complex could make that obsolete.

“With Agrisure Viptera 3111, growers will be better able to manage these pests without worrying about costly spraying and scouting,” said Syngenta Seeds agronomy marketing manager Bruce Battles. Once the remaining key import market approvals are received, growers will have the option of planting seed with the new Agrisure Viptera™ 3111 trait stack to protect against black and dingy cutworm damage without scouting.

BIO annually honors companies in the categories of “Healing, Feeding and Fueling the World” based on a pre-conference poll of attendees. Syngenta was named the “Buzz of BIO” award winner in the “Feeding the World” category by attendees at this year’s BIO International Convention.

“The Buzz of BIO contest has been a popular part of our pre-convention activities. BIO International Convention attendees voted for their choices and Syngenta was the winner this year in the Feeding category. Congratulations,” said John Craighead, Managing Director of Investor Relations & Business Development, Biotechnology Industry Organization.

The Agrisure Viptera trait will be combined with the Agrisure 3000GT trait stack to form the new Agrisure Viptera 3111 trait stack. The introduction of the Agrisure Viptera 3111 trait stack continues the tradition of the Agrisure Corn Traits system — providing high-performance traits to growers looking for an alternative that delivers maximum productivity.

The Agrisure Viptera 3111 trait stack has demonstrated unsurpassed multi-pest control of 14 yield- and quality-robbing insects. The Agrisure Viptera 3111 trait stack is able to provide the broadest spectrum of above-ground insect control because of Vip3A, the industry‘s first non-Cry (non-crystalline) insect control protein. Vip3A has demonstrated highly effective control of the multi-pest complex, including corn earworm, fall armyworm, Western bean cutworm, black cutworm, dingy cutworm, stalk borer and sugarcane borer, among others.

I interviewed Agrisure Marketing Manager Tracy Mader last fall about the trait prior to the regulatory approval. You can also find out more on the Syngenta Seeds Agrisure traits website.

He’s based in Iowa and says there are areas that still have up to five percent of their corn left standing. Couple that with a very wet start to the spring and there are challenges out there. He thinks the big issue is “timeliness.” Soil preparation is behind due to the winter and early spring challenges and that includes using a pre-plant, soil active herbicide which he’s a big proponent of. He’s afraid there will be some very loose soil out there that never fully froze due to early snow cover. However, we’ve had some good weather all of the sudden that’s helping dry things out.

We also discussed topics like insect pressure and nematodes in corn fields. I asked about post-emergence weed control and he brought up the issue of glyphosate resistance. He says there’s no way post-emergence weed control is going to be enough so that’s why pre-emerge is so important and when you factor resistance in it might be time to look at a conventional herbicide that has an alternative mode of activity.

Thanks to our ZimmCast sponsors, Novus International, and Leica Geosytems for their support.

You can listen to this week’s ZimmCast below.

The ZimmCast is the official weekly podcast of AgWired. Subscribe so you can listen when and where you want. Just go to our a Subscribe page.

I asked Stone to tell me what the mission of the new sustainability team was and he explained, “Our focus is helping growers produce more from less and to realize where they’re at in terms of not just how much they are producing but now much energy, water, soil loss and other impacts they are having from production.”

There is a lot of talk now about how the world will need to feed nine billion people in the next 30 years so I asked Stone how sustainability and world food production go hand in hand. “Farmers are the original stewards of the land and when you think about land, you have to think about soil and the soil is the farmer’s bread and butter,” explained Stone. “They’ve been very careful about the health of their soil and the more healthy the soil, the more productive it will be.”

Water optimization also goes hand-in-hand with sustainability and Mader gave me an update on their technology that is close to market. “Our water optimization technology is on track and has made several technical milestones. We plan to introduce this technology in the 2011 planting season for growers in the plains and the Western cornbelt of the United States.”

Nebraska and California are the two most irrigated states and Syngenta did research in both of these states as well as other regions. However, they are developing the technology to both work during drought conditions and during optimal conditions.

“We are really committed to two guiding principals,” said Mader. “Number one to help the plant maximize its yield based on the available water and number two, when growing conditions are ideal, that the technology doesn’t offer any yield penalty. And our initial hybrids will meet both of these criteria.”

Listen below to my back-to-back interviews with Terry Stone and Tracy Mader.

Commodity Classic Photo Album

AgWired coverage of the 2010 Commodity Classic
is sponsored by: and

Mader most recently served as the Agrisure marketing manager, responsible for branding, launching and marketing of Agrisure® corn traits. Mader joined Syngenta in 1995 as an employee of predecessor company Ciba. He brings a wealth of marketing experience and knowledge to the product marketing role, having had various positions within Syngenta throughout the U.S. He has an agricultural economics degree from Kansas State University.

I talked with one of Syngenta’s Resistance Fighters of the Year at the National Farm Machinery Show. Paul Barchenger of Hutchinson, Minnesota was honored by Syngenta this year, along with Jeremy Kichler of Oglethorpe, Georgia. Both were recognized for exceptional leadership and advocate proactive management practices in the battle against glyphosate-resistant weeds.

“We have confirmed resistance in giant ragweed to glyphosate, started around 2004,” Paul told me. “We’ve been able to keep it isolated to a couple of townships in my geography, but it is growing.” He says that Syngenta is working to create awareness among growers and retailers that resistance can happen and they need to watch out for it.

Listen to my interview with Paul from NFMS here:

Syngenta sponsors the Championship Tractor Pull at the National Farm Machinery Show, which kicks off each year to Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” This year it kicked off to Lee Greenwood performing his signature song live at the arena and on Thursday morning he was in the Syngenta booth, signing CDs for fans and helping Syngenta kick off a new campaign called “Weeding Out Hunger.”

“This is a very important event for the tractor pull and for Syngenta, there’s a great cause here and that’s feeding America,” Lee told me in a real quick interview as he was signing autographs. You can here more from Lee on today’s AgriTalk from the NFMS.

I learned more about the campaign, which is associated with Halex GT herbicide, from Carroll Moseley with Syngenta Crop Protection. “We directly affect and feed the population by controlling weeds in corn, this is a product for glyphosate-tolerant corn,” he said. “What better way to relate it to another direct way to impact people more needy than others than to have this Weeding Out Hunger campaign where we are contributing to feeding America affiliates across the United States.”
Find out more about the campaign at WeedingOutHunger.com.

Listen to back-to-back interviews with Lee and Carroll in the player below and here’s a little video from the Syngenta booth.

You can listen to my interview with Wayne below:

See NAFB and NAMA Trends photos here.

“They’re our primary customer at the end of the day and we can have the greatest technologies, the greatest genetics but if we don’t understand their business and the challenges they face, it could all be wasted,” said Agronomy Marketing Manager Bruce Battles at a recent ag media day at Syngenta Seeds new headquarters in Minnetonka, Minn.

Bruce says they use their seed innovations to meet grower needs and one example is the aphid management system they are preparing to launch in the next year. “In this example, we have taken genetics and taken a trait and put it with the genetics for controlling aphids. But, we’ve also taken our expertise from our seed care group in using a product like Cruiser as a seed treatment to help suppress aphid pressure,” he said.

Find out more about the Syngenta AMS, launching in 2010, here. Listen to or download my interview with Bruce in the audio player below.

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Syngenta is going beyond drought-resistant corn to introduce water optimization traits, which will reduce the amount of moisture needed to optimize yield and minimize yield loss in drought conditions, as well as reduce water use in average years. Business Lead Corn Product Manager Wayne Fithian says this trait will help farmers be more productive and more sustainable. “Part of it is helping farmers do a better job of managing their environment,” Wayne said during a recent media day at the new Syngenta Seeds headquarters in Minnesota. “Sometimes it rains, sometimes it doesn’t rain and farmers get caught in this yo-yo of yields connected to rainfall. So if we can break that relationship and help farmers increase yield potential in times when Mother Nature doesn’t give them all the rain they want, then that would be a great thing.”

Wayne says water-optimized hybrids are expected to be available in 2011 through Garst, Golden Harvest and NK brand seeds. Listen to an interview with Wayne below.

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They are a bunch of nasty wormy creatures – technically lepidopteran corn pests – that make up what Syngenta calls the “multi-pest complex” which costs growers over $1 billion each year in lost yield and grain quality. They include corn earworm, fall armyworm, Western bean cutworm, black cutworm, stalk borer and sugarcane borer.

Agrisure Marketing Manager Tracy Mader says the pests are challenging because they affect all areas of the country and all growth stages of the plant. “The industry has done a very good job controlling corn borer root worm, but the next step is to control this group of broad lep pests, like black cutworm, that can attack the crop at the very early stages.”

That is what they are striving for with the Agrisure Viptera™ trait for corn, which is still awaiting all necessary regulatory approvals and authorizations before it can be marketed. “We’re working really hard,” Tracy said. “What we do have is deregulation from the EPA and the FDA and we are working hard with USDA to receive deregulation for Agrisure Viptera™ and they’re also working in all the key export countries as well.”

I interviewed Tracy about Agrisure Viptera™ during the recent grand opening of the Syngenta Seeds headquarters in Minnetonka, MN. Listen to or download that interview below. And if you want to find out more – and see a really creepy but impressive video – go to agrisuretraits.com.

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Principal Research Scientist for Insect Resistance Dirk Benson talked about Syngenta’s global research capabilities during a symposium for agricultural reporters during the grand opening event. “In Europe, we have insecticide development, we have herbicide technology development, in the US we have formulation development on the crop protection side,” Dirk said. “On the seeds and traits side, we have capabilities for biotechnology in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, we just opened a new site in Beijing, China to augment that. We do other seed research in Australia, we do some in Toulouse, France for our vegetable businesses, we do sugar beet work in Scandinavian countries.”

Dirk is based in North Carolina and he says they deal with everything from new trait discovery to building the vectors to insert in plants. “At Syngenta biotechnology in RTP, we have about 400 employees which represents about 10 percent of Syngenta’s global R&D force,” he said.

He is excited about the new headquarters because it provides great opportunity for collaborative opportunities for the organization as a whole.

Listen to or download my interview with Dirk Benson below.
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Dan Dyer, Syngenta Seeds Soybean Product Development Lead, told ag media during the grand opening of the company’s new headquarters that varieties like this prove how Syngenta Seeds is raising the bar. “Over the last couple of years, we’ve noticed in our own data and what we are hearing back from the field, about just how strong the performance is in our varieties,” Dan told me in an interview. “If you’re looking for top yields, these really are the top-yielding beans in the market.”

“It’s real simple for us, doesn’t sound too sophisticated, but we’re going to sell the highest yielding soybeans,” Dan said. “Our objective is to make the growers the most profitable they can be.”

Listen to or download my interview with Dan Dyer below.
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Ben Hable (pronounced Hobbly) is Syngenta Seeds Corn Product Development Lead. During an agricultural media seminar following the grand opening of the new Syngenta Seeds headquarters in Minnetonka, MN this week, Ben said that producing seed corn in Hawaii allows them to fast track new products to market. “In Hawaii we can actually turn a crop every 3 and a half months so we can increase the seeds that we need to get back here to the mainland for seed production,” Ben told me during an interview. “Syngenta now has over 300 full time staff in the state of Hawaii working on corn and soybean seed production.”

Ben told us that seed corn is now Hawaii’s biggest cash crop, and he was telling the truth. Just today, a story came out of Honolulu about the latest report from the the Hawaii Field Office of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) that says the value of Hawaii’s seed industry for the 2008/2009 season was a “record high” of $176.6 million. Seed corn accounts for $169.3 million, or 96 percent, of the total value.

A recent Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation study shows that seed crops have become the largest agricultural commodity in the state, exceeding the value of both sugar and pineapple by 180 percent and 90 percent, respectively. The photo is of seed corn growing on the island of Molokai.

Listen to or download my interview with Ben Hable below.
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The CEO of Switzerland-based Syngenta helped to do the honors of opening the new headquarters of Syngenta Seeds in Minnetonka, MN on Monday.

Mike Mack says the new building represents Syngenta planting the seeds of the future. “We’re really proud of this extraordinary building which embodies the forward-looking, sustainable qualities and spirit of innovation that have driven Syngenta and its predecessor companies for more than a century,” Mack said during the grand opening ceremony. Mack highlighted the features of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certified building, which include natural light, recycled materials, and other environmentally-friendly features.

Mack also talked about how Syngenta Seeds was built on the acquisitions of several well-known seed brands, leading with Northrup King, which was started in Minnesota 125 years ago.

Listen to Mike Mack’s remarks at the grand opening below.
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Governor Pawlenty was pleased to congratulate Syngenta Seeds on the new headquarters building and their continued commitment to agriculture. “They’re not making land anymore, so there’s a finite amount of land,” said Pawlenty. “That’s why it’s imperative that we find a way to continue to feed the world and Syngenta is on the cutting edge of that technology.”

The governor noted that he was very proud of Minnesota agriculture and the fact that one out of every seven jobs in the state is related to agriculture. “We can’t have a successful state without a successful agriculture,” said Pawlenty.

Syngenta Seeds Headquarters Opening Photo Album

Listen to or download the governor’s remarks below.
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Morgan praised the employees of Syngenta seeds for their hard work and commitment and recognized three exceptional sales reps responsible for $6-10 million in sales for the various Syngenta seed brands, including Garst, Golden Harvest and Northrup King. Morgan called the new building a symbol of the company’s increasing strength in the seeds business. “Our reputation is growing as a leader in agriculture and our new headquarters reflects our accomplishments and underscores our intent as we move confidently into the future.”

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is expected to arrive shortly to join the celebration.

Syngenta Seeds Headquarters Opening Photo Album

Listen to or download an interview with David Morgan below.
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We are gearing up for the festivities now at the site. The new LEED Gold certified building was just completed in July and boasts 116,000 square feet on 14 acres. There are more than 300 employees working here who enjoy such amenities as a wellness room, free health clinic, fitness facility and more.

The dignitaries are arriving now, the Syngenta employees lining up in their bright blue company shirts. Among those expected to take part in the celebration are the governor of Minnesota and several state lawmakers. Stay tuned for more.

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While I was attending the Farm Progress Show I visited with Syngenta’s Bruce Battles and Tracy Mader in their exhibit about one of their upcoming new traits called Agrisure Viptera. They believe that this product, which is due out in 2010, will take a corn grower’s yields to the next level.

Bruce says that when they were doing research on the product they discovered a whole new class of vegetative insecticidal proteins.

Agrisure Viptera™ Broad-Spectrum Lepidopteran Trait

The Agrisure Viptera trait is the first of many new traits being developed from an entirely new class of Vegetative Insecticidal Proteins (VIP) within the Agrisure system of high-performance corn traits.

During the development of Agrisure Viptera they’ve looked at the collection of pests which they call the Multi-Pest Complex and found that it has cost American corn growers up to $1.1 Billion/year in lost yield and grain quality. They believe Agrisure Viptera can help mitigate that risk for the grower.

You can listen to my interview with Bruce and Tracy here:

Chuck says that the product helped farmers back in the late 50′s and sustains its usefulness today. It’s used on many acres and particularly those devoted to conservation tillage. He says over the years farmers have learned a lot about how to use it and continue to see great value in it. One thing he mentions that is interesting is that even when Syngenta came to the market with a new class of herbicide called Callisto they found that using them together they work better than separately. He says Atrazine is found in over 40 different mixes today to control weeds in corn.

I asked about concerns that people have about the safety of Atrazine and Sherry says it’s probably the most studied products on the market. She wants the public to know that drinking water is completely safe where Atrazine is concerned. They work very closely with EPA on this.

Chuck points out that a looming threat in the field is glyphosate resistance and Atrazine plays a role to control many of the weeds that glyphosate controls so the they work to sustain each other. You can find a lot more information on the Syngenta Atrazine website.

For 50 years, farmers around the world have relied on atrazine — one of the triazine family of herbicides — to fight weeds in corn, grain sorghum, sugar cane and other crops. And for good reason: it’s still one of the most effective, affordable and trusted products in agriculture today.

Syngenta believes in atrazine, its effectiveness, its safety, its importance to agriculture – in the U.S. and worldwide.

You can listen to my interview with Chuck and Sherry here: