Posted: November 19, 2009

Syngenta Canada announced it has expanded its wheat herbicide portfolio with the development of two new brands – Sierra and Pace.

The move is designed to increase the diversity of grass weed management tools available to Prairie producers, the company said in a news release.

Sierra will be a Group 2 graminicide based on the active ingredient flucarbazone. Flucarbazone offers grass weed management control and provides a Group 2 chemistry option. Pace will be a co-pack based on flucarbazone and glyphosate (Touchdown) for pre-seed burndown in wheat.

For more information view the Syngenta news release.

Posted: November 19, 2009

The promotion of farm safety in Canada has received a funding boost of more than $5 million through a new investment by the federal government in the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association (CASA).

The funding will be put toward creating safety exhibits, web resources and training material to help farmers identify and fix hazards, according to an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) news release.

Funding will also be used to support CASA's Progressive Agricultural Safety Days - day-long events held throughout the country to make rural youth aware of the hazards on the farm and in a rural environment. CASA will be coordinating 75 such days in 2010.

The investment comes from AAFC's Growing Forward program. View the full news release on the AAFC website.

Posted: November 19, 2009

Delivering expanded herbicide-tolerant soybean options to farmers is the focus of a new commercial cross-licensing agreement between Dow AgroSciences and DuPont.

According to a joint company news release, under the agreement Dow AgroSciences is licensing non-exclusively its proprietary herbicide tolerant trait technology for soybeans to DuPont business Pioneer Hi-Bred. In addition, Pioneer is licensing non-exclusively its proprietary Optimum GAT trait for soybeans to Dow AgroSciences. Both companies have given the other rights to stack additional traits with their respective technology.

Dow AgroSciences expects to submit herbicide tolerant trait technology data to U.S. regulatory agencies this year. Dow AgroSciences anticipates commercialization early in the next decade pending regulatory authorizations.

When stacked together, the Optimum GAT trait from Pioneer and the new herbicide tolerant trait technology being developed by Dow AgroSciences would produce soybeans that are tolerant to 2,4-D, glyphosate and ALS herbicides.

The full news release may be viewed on the Dow AgroSciences website or on the DuPont website.

Posted: November 19, 2009

Dow AgroSciences and Chromatin announced they have entered into two agreements.

The first provides Dow with rights to Chromatin's Mini-Chromosome technology and the second establishes an exclusive research and license agreement to combine EXZACT Precision Technology with Mini-Chromosomes, creating a novel technology platform for the development of next generation traits in corn, soybeans and canola.

"One of the most critical challenges facing the plant biotechnology industry is the production of cost-competitive multi-gene and stacked trait products," said Dan Kittle, Ph.D., vice president R&D for Dow AgroSciences, in a joint company news release.

According to the news release, Dow AgroSciences' EXZACT Precision Technology provides a toolkit for targeted genome modification on plants, while Chromatin's Mini-Chromosomes are autonomous genetic elements built to deliver multiple traits of importance. Combining the two technologies will allow more options and efficiency for modifying trait combinations. View the news release on the DowAgroSciences website or on the Chromatin website.