Monsanto Launches ‘Game-Changers’
12 January 2010 ST. LOUIS, Missouri, US: Monsanto has 11 biotech projects moving closer to commercializaton, reports Farmers Weekly. Monsanto says the North American launches of its new genetically modified (GM) crop traits mark the beginning of an explosion of high-impact products. “This year you will see the first of those game-changing products delivering on the farm,” said Robb Fraley, Monsanto chief technology officer.
Planting of SmartStax corn — a combination of eight herbicide- and insect-tolerant traits in one product, developed in conjunction with Dow AgroSciences — is expected on around 1.6 million hectares (ha). While SmartStax-growing farmers in the US and Canada must now also plant a small refuge of a non-protected variety to minimize tolerance risk to target pests, Monsanto is now working on a way to allow growers to plant just a single product in fields. The product combines biotech with 5% refuge seeds in one bag, so there is no need to plant a separate refuge. The US Environmental Protection Agency is currently evaluating the “refuge-in-a-bag” product, which Monsanto expects to be available for first sales in 2012 or 2013.
In the second of what are Monsanto’s largest commercial product launches ever, its second generation of Roundup Ready 2 Yield soybeans is expected to be grown on 3-4 million ha this spring.
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