Pioneer Hi-Bred, a DuPont business, announces it is commercializing soybean varieties developed using a technology that increases yields by as much as 12 percent per acre. Pioneer is introducing five varieties with the technology for 2008 planting, pending wide-area product advancement trial results. This announcement officially launches one of the company’s three soybean yield traits from its pipeline to commercial …

Fat-phobic girls are mistakenly shunning calcium-rich dairy foods, just at the time when their young bodies most need it. A recent Canadian study found no difference in changes in percent body fat over two years between girls eating varying amounts of calcium from food. The study, published in the journal Obesity, found girls concerned with body shape and size had …

Trimble announced that it has acquired Ingenieurburo Breining GmbH of Kirchheim, Germany, a provider of customized field data collection and office software solutions for the cadastral survey market in Germany. Financial terms were not disclosed. The addition of Breining software resources, expertise and products enable Trimble to further address local application requirements and provide customized survey solutions for the German …

Beck’s Hybrids, a leading corn seed company in Indiana, is teaming up with Bayer CropScience to offer growers an opportunity to earn up to $6.25 back per acre when they apply Liberty® herbicide to their Beck’s stand alone LibertyLink™ hybrids and Herculex® hybrids through the Liberty Greenback Offer. The Liberty/LibertyLink system is the only non-selective alternative to the Roundup Ready® …

Those in the ag industry following the movement of western bean cutworm (WBCW) are not surprised by the latest find in Frankfort, Mich. In the last decade, WBCW has moved from the dry bean fields of western Nebraska into eastern Nebraska and throughout Iowa. Within the last two years, WBCW crossed the Mississippi River and became a pest of cornfields …

The National FFA Foundation and Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. are proud to announce the arrival of the Red, White, and Forever Blue College Tour at the University of Nebraska. The college tour will appear at five major NCAA college football games across the country this fall, premiering at the University of Nebraska. The tour celebrates more than 30 years …

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that 162 recipients in 40 states and Puerto Rico will receive $22.7 million through the Value-Added Producer Grant program. Part of the USDA’s rural development mission, the Value-Added Producer Grants, are used for planning activities or to provide working capital to market value-added agricultural products and farm-based renewable energy projects. Value-added products are …

The 30th edition of Husker Harvest Days featured cattle with information from the comprehensive IGENITY profile. Mike Hynek, Goldrush Genetics, Guide Rock, Neb., displayed two Balancer bulls at the show, promoting his herd’s genetics and the use of DNA technology. The comprehensive IGENITY profile includes analyses for economically important traits such as tenderness potential, fat thickness, ribeye area, yield grade, …

Monsanto and Dow AgroSciences LLC, a subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company, have reached a cross-licensing agreement aimed at launching SmartStax™, the industry’s first-ever eight-gene stacked combination in corn. The agreement is expected to create a new competitive standard for stacked-trait offerings and present an expanded growth opportunity for both companies’ seed brands and traits businesses by the end of …

Monsanto Company has acquired Agroeste Sementes, a leading Brazilian corn seed company, for slightly more than $100 million. Agroeste focuses on hybrid corn seed production and serves farmers throughout Brazil, the world’s third largest corn production area. Brazilian farmers planted approximately 30 million acres of corn in the 2006-07 growing season. Today, Monsanto estimates that the Brazilian hybrid corn seed …