New Pricing for Pivot Bio Microbial Nitrogen Offers Greater ROI
As part of their ongoing support for farmers facing tough economics, Pivot Bio has announced a lower price for PROVEN® 40 microbial nitrogen in the 2025 growing season paired with a 0% financing program.
“We understand the evolving financial dynamics that farmers are facing,” said Chris Turner, Pivot Bio chief commercial officer. “We want to meet farmers where they are and set them up for success year after year. We’re proud to provide farmers with the tools they need to farm more confidently and mitigate risks effectively.”
A national study from 2022-2024 showed that corn treated with PROVEN 40, a microbially derived nitrogen source, had an average 9% increase in in-plant nitrogen compared to the standard practices.
During that same three-year period, farmers experienced, on average, nearly a bushel per acre yield advantage when replacing nearly 40 pounds of nitrogen with PROVEN 40.
In a recent customer satisfaction survey, farmers gave Pivot Bio a 91% customer satisfaction rating, citing plant health, ease of application and better ROI as reasons they incorporate PROVEN 40 as a foundational piece of their nitrogen management plan.
Syngenta Finds Soybean Growers ROI in Sliding Market
With the 2024 soybean harvest almost complete and growers evaluate this year’s decisions for 2025, return on investment (ROI) once again ranks as the most critical factor in a rollercoaster market, according to Syngenta.
At Farm Progress Show this year, Syngenta agronomic service representative Jesse Grote talked about how the Syngenta Seedcare portfolio delivers more value and more potential yield at harvest.
“It really is a season long approach…starting with a strong insecticide like CruiserMaxx® APX getting that early season protection against leaf beetles,” said Grote. And then choose a good insecticide that has two effective modes of action, and one that will provide residual control in in addition to knockdown as well.”
FPS24 - Interview with Jesse Grote, Syngenta 4:38Katie Jaeger, Syngenta soy seedcare product lead, says both CruiserMaxx® APX and Saltro® seed treatments offer stronger and healthier emergence with a lower risk of replants, healthier seedlings that thrive above and below ground, and higher potential yield and ROI. “CruiserMaxx APX and Saltro provide growers with the confidence and protection to plant whenever they want without the fear of replanting because they know their soybeans are going to emerge with less stress and will reach their full genetic yield potential,” said Jaeger.
During a recent Syngenta media event, Jaeger said they are looking forward to releasing a new seed treatment in 2025 for protection against soybean cyst nematode called Victrato with TYMIRIUM® technology. “So the expectation is 2025. We’re aiming for the 2025 planning season. Obviously registration pending, so it’s somewhat ambiguous, but that is our target is to enable production after registration to be able to provide an in field customer experience in 2025,” said Jaeger.
Interview with Katie Jaeger (3:42)Precision Ag News 10/23
Industry Ag News 10/22
USDA Celebrates $3 Billion for Climate-Smart Commodities
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack traveled to Pennsylvania to celebrate investing over $3 billion in 135 projects under the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities since its creation in September 2022.
Among the projects Secretary Vilsack highlighted during his address in Hershey were:
A project led by Farm Journal that is expanding climate-smart markets for specialty crops, beef, pork and other commodities while incentivizing Pennsylvania farmers to implement practices like cover crops and grazing management, and providing technical assistance and data-management support to track outcomes.
The Iowa Soybean Association’s Midwest Climate-Smart Community Program, which now has over 1800 farms enrolled in climate-smart production. The resulting corn, soy, sugar beats and wheat supply insetting markets where corporate entities aim to reduce their greenhouse gas footprint.
A project let by TH Cattle Company is quantifying the soil and biomass impacts of climate-smart ranching practices and rewarding livestock producers through premiums for added-value beef. Over 5,000 acres of ranchland are participating by implementing climate-smart grazing practices that will enable access to these markets.
Listen to Vilsack’s remarks:
Vilsack in Hershey, PA (26:41)
Terviva Offers New Biofuel Feedstock Grown on Trees
Agricultural innovation company Terviva has announced an investment from Chevron Renewable Energy Group to help scale production of pongamia for low carbon renewable fuel.
“Crude pongamia oil can be converted into biodiesel, renewable diesel, or sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). In working with Chevron Renewable Energy Group, we can increase the availability of feedstocks for production of these fuels while promoting our mission to revitalize agricultural land and communities. This relationship benefits stakeholders up and down the value chain, from farmers cultivating pongamia to fleets looking for lower carbon fuels,” said Naveen Sikka, founder, and CEO of Terviva.

Pongamia growing in Central Florida
Terviva recently expanded its executive leadership team to include Simmarpal Singh as Chief Operating Officer, previously serving as CEO-India for COFCO International and prior to that for Louis Dreyfus India. Singh will focus on strengthening the upstream and midstream processes to expand the footprint of Terviva and pongamia across India, the U.S., Australia, and other parts of the world. “I think there is huge potential around pongamia,” said Singh. “I look forward to leveraging my deep experience in farming, origination, manufacturing, and international stakeholder management to work in a new commodity value chain that directly contributes toward improving our global climate.”
Learn more about Terviva and pongamia in this interview with CEO Naveen Sikka and COO Simmarpal Singh.
Interview with Terviva (19:04)
ZimmCast 736 – Syngenta Advancing Innovation
Hello and welcome to the ZimmCast.
In this episode I am going to share some audio from the recent Syngenta Media Summit 2024 that was held in the new crop protection facility in Greensboro, NC. I am grateful for the opportunity to be with a group of agricultural journalists and have personal time with Syngenta leadership. You’ll hear more about the new facility.
I have created a virtual newsroom on AgNewsWire that contains photos as well as interviews and other audio for ag media to use.
I’ve picked out the welcome we had from Jeff Cecil, Head of North America Crop Protection Marketing, in the form of a one on one interview about advancing innovation for the US grower. After that you’ll hear closing comments from Vern Hawkins, Regional Director, North America President. He focused on advancing American agriculture.
That’s the ZimmCast for now. Please let me know if you have ideas for a future podcast. Just email me at chuck@zimmcomm.biz.
Listen to the episode here:
ZimmCast 736 - Syngenta Media Summit Focus on Advancing Innovation (38:13)
I hope you enjoyed it and thank you for listening.
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Animal Ag News 10/16
Syngenta Crop Protection and Taranis Announce Partnership
Syngenta Crop Protection and Taranis today announced a multi-year collaboration to bring Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven agronomic productivity and conservation-focused innovation to agricultural retail partners in the US.
Over the next three years, the partnership will focus on supporting ag retailers in the adoption of Taranis’ AI-powered agronomic platforms so retail partners can benefit from AI-derived leaf-level remote scouting insights and generative AI (GenAI) agronomic recommendations.
Syngenta will extend a unique offer focused in the Midwest to support targeted retailers’ adoption of Taranis’ AI-driven intelligence platform providing leaf-level 0.3mm/pixel resolution threat detection of weed species, insects, diseases and nutrient deficiencies. The service will enable retailers to remotely scout more acres, more comprehensively, from anywhere they access the platform, and to easily prioritize the fields that require the most immediate attention. Paired with Ag Assistant™, the Taranis GenAI agronomy engine, retail advisors can generate data-driven expert agronomic recommendations that save time and allow them to act decisively to help their grower-customers protect their crops using Syngenta’s market-leading crop protection portfolio, resulting in yield-enhancing crop management practices that improve retailer and grower productivity and profitability.
Ongoing development between Syngenta and Taranis will support the continued advancement of AI-powered agronomic platforms, including technology and features from Syngenta’s Cropwise platform with Taranis’ leading crop intelligence solution and will target innovation in areas including conservation agronomy, agricultural productivity, and AI-enabled agronomic solutions.