Pioneer made my day a little sweeter yesterday when a package of holiday cookies arrived on our doorstep in a cute Pioneer Plenish coffee mug.

Can’t show you a photo of the cookies because daughter Chelsea and I gobbled them up. We didn’t even save any for Chuck, they were just so AMAZING! Chocolate chip and cranberry and I presume made with Plenish(TM) high oleic soybean oil. They tasted like they were just baked! Thanks to the Plenish team at Pioneer Hi-Bred for the treat.

We’ve been hearing about Plenish for some time now and have even had a taste of the soybean oil used in cooking and in salad dressings at events like Commodity Classic. Pioneer VP for Crop Genetics R&D John Soper talked about the Plenish soybean trait during an interview at NAFB Trade Talk last month and said it is coming for growers in 2012. “It’s a great new product, the first really biotech trait for end use,” he told me. “It provides an oil much more like olive oil, very stable, very heart-healthy, doesn’t require hydrogenation so no trans fatty acid issues. Really a wonderful product for end users and the food industry.”

John also talked about some other new products in the pipeline, like improved drought-tolerant corn. Listen to my interview with John here: Pioneer's John Soper

Plenish was also one of the topics addressed by Pioneer senior marketing manager for soybeans Don Schafer during Trade Talk. He explained that they still need to get regulatory approval for the new soybean trait before it can go on the market. “That is one of the things we have to do in the industry is make sure that we have this product completely registered worldwide so that the grower doesn’t have any concern about being able to utilize the crop in the marketplace,” Don said.

Don also discussed the 29 new Y-series soybeans from Pioneer coming out in 2011, which will bring the total for the Y-series up to about 80. Listen to Don’s interview here: Pioneer's Don Schafer