Seed Today - 2012 3rd Quarter

Third Quarter 2012 Vol. 16 No. 3

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2_Summit_Fullpage.indd 3 8/2/2012 10:51:02 AM

Third Quarter 2012 3

Product Reviews Post-Harvest Gas Fumigant – Dow AgroSciences LLC ....................... 62

RiceTec, Inc.Headquarters/ResearchAlvin, TX

Case StudyHubner IndustriesRIB Packaging System

126

w w w . s e e d t o d a y . c o mThird Quarter 2012

16

Cover Photo

Seed Shorts

32

Feature Reports 6 ....................... Larger Bt Refuge

63 ............... No Bt Corn Allergens

72 ................. Insects and Bt Corn

How’s It Made LMC Inc, Donalsonville, GA . ................................................................34

Corporate Notes Collaborations . .................................................................................... 50

Global Biotech Notes Nigeria Biotech Crops. ..........................................................................76

APHIS Permits80 ..Second Quarter APHIS Permit

Applications for Field Testing of Regulated Plants

Columns4 ..............................Editor’s Notes

26 ......................................... ASTA

28 .......................................AOSCA

RiceTec, Inc.Production FacilityEagle Lake, TX

Profiles18 ..........Arcadia Biosciences, Inc.

30 ............................Dale Wimmer

31 ................................... Ben Lang

Short row hybrid rice evaluation trials, RiceTec, Inc., Alvin TX. Two cytoplasmic male sterile female production rows surrounded by four pollinator rows.

3_Contents.indd 3 8/6/2012 3:40:06 PM

language of genes and ge-nomics that I tend to lose sight of their wonder and complexity.

In 2009, the completed sequence of the corn (aka maize in the rest of the world) genome was pub-lished. Comparisons to the human genome abound. Each of our cells has 23 chromosomes, corn has 10. Corn has 32,000 genes. We have an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 about the same number of genes as dogs

and mice, but half as many as rice.Within our 23 chromosomes are 3.3

billion base pairs which have been identi-fied and make up our genome. Corn has about two billion base pairs.

A Fickle MasterIt is also a mystery to me how 25,000 or so genes in our DNA can generate RNA, which produces 20 basic amino acids that yield two million (five million, ten million? no one knows for sure) proteins that form our bodies.

It is all part of a natural process. For all its wondrous accomplishments, “natu-ral” is not to be worshiped as perfection. Congenital birth defects are “natural.” My brother died of “natural” causes at a very young age. In a sense, even cancer is a “natural” – albeit unwelcome - process.

So it is a mystery to me why making some changes in a crop’s genetic makeup to gain a more desirable result is vilified as being unnatural when we have been altering the natural world for our benefit from time immemorial.

As is so often the case, objections to technological progress are more philo-sophical than scientific. When you don’t know what your are talking about, any-thing and everything is possible.

It is still a mystery to me how crops can be altered for our benefit, but I am happy to accept these genetic changes and the benefits they provide.

Joe Funk, editor • [email protected]

It has been within my lifetime that the concepts of DNA, genes, and genom-ics have entered the populist lexicon.

The discovery of DNA’s structural symmetry was an astounding revelation to scientists in 1953, but it meant little to most people.

Publication of the first draft of the human ge-nome in 2003 gained some traction on the street, but overall, that achievement was little more than an interesting phrase to be dropped in social conversation.

Today, popular conversations are sprinkled with references to “having the right (or wrong) DNA” as an explana-tion (or excuse) for everything from why some people become serial killers to why Michael Phelps has become the most deco-rated athlete in Olympic history.

Talk about genes, genetics, and genome has become so cheap that reality has be-come obscured by unknowing chatter. Too many people still believe GM crops are the only plants with DNA.

It’s Still a Mystery to MeThere are a lot of things in life that are beyond my comprehension when I take a moment to really think about them. The fact that airplanes and bumblebees can both fly, that one single fiber optic cable can transmit 100 terabits per second, that a giant oak tree started as a small acorn, and that a tea olive tree can perfume our entire front yard with a most delightful fragrance – these are still mysteries to me.

How can every one of the 100 trillion cells in my body have in its nucleus a complete set of the three billion base pairs that comprise my genome that somehow – when paired with a matching set of base pairs from my wife – resulted in children, each of who have their own set of three billion base pairs in each of their 100 trillion cells.

I have become so familiar with the

Amazing Genes

4 Third Quarter 2012

E d I t o r ’ S N o t E

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4_Editor Notes.indd 2 8/6/2012 1:43:23 PM

Response No. 51

5_SGS_Fullpage.indd 2 8/2/2012 1:24:48 PM


Recent research suggests IPM refuge areas for Bt crops should be more than doubled to effectively delay pest resistance to Cry proteins.

cally important crop pests in the United States – has rapidly evolved resistance to Cry3Bb1 in some areas of the U.S. corn belt.

For Bt corn to remain effective against rootworms, they recommend in-creasing refuge requirements to 50% for corn producing one Bt protein and 20% for corn producing two Bt proteins.

WCR 2012 ActivityIn mid-June, 2012, University of Illi-nois professor of entomology and crop sciences extension coordinator Mike Gray reported severe injury to Bt corn expressing Cry3Bb1 protein in western Illinois fields.

“Thus far, resistance to this protein in Illinois has not been confirmed,” says Gray. “However large numbers of WCR adults are visible in the whorls of plants.

Seed industry representatives con-firmed that beetles were observed this year nearly a full month earlier than when they are usually first reported, around the 4th of July.

“Corn rootworms can cost U.S. farmers close to $1 billion each year. Bt corn has helped to reduce these costs and to decrease insecticide sprays, but evolution of resistance by the pests can diminish or even eliminate these ben-efits,” says Dr. Tabashnik.

Most of the corn seed currently pro-duced in the United States is transgenic and includes genes for insect control.

“Enlarging refuges will require more seed without corn rootworm control genes. This shift in production will take time, so this process should begin im-mediately,” says Dr. Gould.

In addition to increased refuge sizes, the researchers say the best way to post-pone resistance is to use a system of integrates pest management (IPM) in which Bt corn is combined with other control tactics, judicious use of insecti-cide sprays, and less prophylactic use of Bt crops.

corn rootworm Diabrotica virgifera (WCR), the EPA currently requires a 20% refuge for corn producing one Bt protein (Cry3Bb1), and a 5% refuge for corn that simultaneously produces two different Bt proteins.

However, Tabashnik and Gould note that WCR – one of the most economi-

Transgenic crops that produce insect-killing proteins from the bac-terium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) have reduced farmers’ reliance on insecticide sprays. However, just as insects become resistant to conventional insecticides, they also can evolve resistance to the Bt proteins in transgenic crops.

As a condition of approving unre-stricted use of Bt crops, the U.S. En-vironmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires farmers to plant “refuges” of non-Bt crops near Bt crops to delay buildup of resistant pests. But how much refuge acreage is enough?

How Much Is Enough?In June, Bruce Tabashnik, Ph.D., at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and Fred Gould, Ph.D., at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, published research that indicates the EPA should more than double the percentage of corn acres planted to mandated refuges to delay insect resistance, encourage integrated pest management (IPM), and promote more sustainable crop protection.

To slow resistance in the western

Larger Bt Refuges NeededResearchers recommend 50% refuge for single Bt protein corn

“Two entomologists rec-

ommend increasing WCR

refuge requirements to 50%

for corn producing one Bt

protein and 20% for corn

producing two Bt proteins.Bruce Tabashnik,

University of AZ, Tucson and Fred Gould,

NC State University, Raleigh

6_Larger_Refuges.indd 2 8/2/2012 2:26:01 PM

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c o v e r f e at u r e

Brazil and India, thus marking its evolu-tion into a marketing company while retaining its strong R&D foundation.

Modernizing Hybrid ProductionHybrid rice seed is not a new product. Chinese farmers have had access to hy-brid rice for decades. After development of cytoplasmatic male sterile parent lines, Chinese plant breeders developed hybrid rice for commercial production.

With an abundance of very inex-pensive labor, seed producers employed large numbers of workers to march across flooded paddy fields to manu-

From its beginning in 1982 as a busi-ness venture to develop a new method for producing hybrid rice for Farms of Texas, RiceTec, Inc. has evolved into the world’s leading mechanized producer of hybrid rice seed.

Since RiceTec introduced its im-proved hybrid varieties in 2000, its U.S. market share continues to increase and is now the leading supplier of rice seed to American farmers. The leading com-petitors are public non-hybrid varieties.

In 2005 and 2011 respectively, RiceTec began efforts to introduce and distribute its hybrid rice seed products in

ricetec, Inc.

Transitioning from a research company to a fully integrated

research, production, and marketing company

ricetec, IncHeadquarters: Alvin, TX

Production facility: Eagle Lake, TX877-580-7423 • www.ricetec.com

Key Personnel• John Nelsen, President/CEO• Doug Merkle, Production Manager• James Watson, Plant Manager

company Profile• Established 1982 as an independent

entity inside Farms of Texas to develop hybrid rice for mechanical production.

• Introduced its first hybrid rice variety in 1999/2000.

• All seed products are non-GM.• Sister companies in Brazil and India.

RiceTec, Inc. President/CEO John Nelsen

Hybrid rice seed.

ricetec, Inc.

8-10_RiceTec.indd 2 8/6/2012 10:23:38 AM


2013 that will reduce the internal wear to harvest equipment caused by rice’s normally abrasive leaves.

“We have the double challenge of maintaining both agronomic traits and the milling qualities that are necessary to satisfy millers’ standards,” Ré says. “Milling quality can vary depending on a farmer’s cultural practices, so we must also continually work to educate our customers and ourselves while helping them shift to a new paradigm when it comes to growing our products.”

For example, because RiceTec’s hybrid products tiller more profusely that common varieties, farmers need to reduce seeding rate by two-thirds.

“Farmers were initially reluctant to use seeding rates so contrary to their traditional farming practices,” says Jim Thompson, technical service advisor. “We continue to study the growing habits of our products so we can provide the best technical information to help our customers be financially successful.”

Cultural DiversityEstablishing a hybrid rice breeding pro-gram is south Texas eventually became a study in cultural diversity within the RiceTec staff. There was little local, ready-made experienced talent to de-velop a hybrid rice research team.

The answer was to form an inter-national group of scientists who could each make a contribution to achieving RiceTec’s goals.

“In terms of our people, we may be the most diverse seed company of our size in the world,” says Ré who in a for-mer life was a hybrid sunflower breeder in Argentina. “Diversity is a feature of rice. As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for nations across the globe. At last count, our R&D staff represents 17 nations. Fortunately, we all speak English.

“Together we bring to the discussion a wide variety of viewpoints that is found in very few other companies. Because we are all working together toward

ally beat the male rice plants to loosen pollen in order to cross-pollinate the normally self-pollinating plants. Follow-ing pollination, Chinese workers manu-ally transplanted the fertilized plants to seed production fields. That process is extremely labor intensive and is in no way suited for use by highly mechanized U.S. rice producers.

RiceTec originally was formed to develop hybrid rice as a new alternative crop with the expectation that hybrid vigor would boost income for the 50,000 acre Farms of Texas owned by the Prince of Liechtenstein Foundation.

Farms of Texas was largely disbanded, but the company’s efforts to develop hybrid rice continued. In October 1999,

RiceTec applied for its first patent for hybrid rice varieties A0044 and B0044.

By using advanced breeding tech-nology coupled with molecular marker technology, RiceTec scientists had de-veloped new parent lines with improved agronomic traits that were suited to large-scale mechanized seed production.

The company also developed pol-lination methods for seed production and new farming techniques to take advantage of the unique agronomic characteristics exhibited by the hybrid varieties.

Instead of manually flogging the male plants to spread pollen, RiceTec contracts for a fleet of helicopters to fly low over seed production fields. By timing the flights to correspond to mid-afternoon pollen release, the helicopters’ downdraft moves sufficient pollen to produce hybrid seed.

Research efforts led by José Ré, Ph.D., RiceTec research and technology lead, continue to develop and identify improved parent lines that are both compatible to mechanized pollination and possess the desired agronomic traits and milling quality.

Evidence of the company’s continu-ing varietal improvement is the antici-pated release of a smooth leaf variety in

RiceTec, Inc. President/CEO John Nelsen

RiceTec, Inc. Headquarters, Alvin, TX. The third flagpole is reserved for the flag of Liechtenstein when RiceTec’s owner His Highness the Prince of Liechtenstein or a member of his family is present.

José Ré, Ph.D. RiceTech Research and Technology Lead. (JWF photos)

8-10_RiceTec.indd 3 8/6/2012 10:23:52 AM

a common goal, our differences are one of RiceTec’s greatest strengths.”

Strengthening the U.S. Rice Production IndustryOn the surface, RiceTec’s breeding pro-gram has goals and objectives that could apply to any seed company: “From our plant breeders to our management teams to our Board of Directors, demonstrate a level of technological expertise and strategic prowess that meets the highest standards of our industry.”

Below the surface, however, there is a sense of urgency that extends beyond next year’s sales targets.

“The rice industry is in a competitive battle with corn, soybeans, cotton, and others for crop acres,” says Production Manager Doug Merkle. “The crop also has high water usage, the cost of which has a direct bearing on farmer profitabil-ity. As a leading supplier of rice seed to a relatively small commodity, we have an obligation to raise the bar for all growers in order to keep rice an economically competitive crop.

“Long-term, we must be responsive to the changes taking place across the en-tire industry from growers to consumers. It is essential to maintain a sufficiently large base acreage so that rice will be able to continue to attract the various R&D activities and other innovations needed to support U.S. production of one of the

world’s most critically important food crops,” Merkle says.

On October 31, 2011, the World’s population hit 7 billion. “It is gratifying to work in a crop that is eaten daily by 50% of its people. However it is unset-tling to know that every six seconds a child, somewhere in the world, dies of starvation or malnutrition,” Nelsen says.

Experts are forecasting continued


growth in the world’s population which means more people to feed and will most assuredly place more strains and con-straints on our limited natural resources such as land and water.

Nelsen concludes with a challenge to the seed industry: “As seed develop-ers, we must all continue to challenge ourselves to develop new products that will produce the same amount of grain/food using fewer acres, less water, less fertilizer and reduced chemicals to feed more people.”

Joe Funk, editor

Advanced hybrid rice evaluation trials. Two female rows bordered by male rows. Note the abundant tillering, a characteristic of RiceTec’s hybrid varieties.

With only a foot between the wider female seed production strips and the male pol-linator plants, GPS guidance eleminates cross contamination.(RiceTec photo)

Plant breeder Liping Diao making hand pollinations at RiceTec’s Alvin, TX greenhouse.

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Response No. 111

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conventional rice conditioning.To design the new facility, RiceTec

President John Nelsen turned to the Bratney Companies, Des Moines, IA, because of his earlier experience with them building corn conditioning plants.

“This is the first new greenfield hy-brid rice seed plant in North America,” says Bratney Project Manager Derek

world’s few seed conditioning operations specifically designed for hybrid rice.

“The challenge with conditioning hybrid rice has not as much to do with the finished product, as it is with the inherent nature of producing hybrid rice,” says Production Manager Doug Merkle. “On its own, rice is for the most part a self-pollinating plant. The ease of producing commercial quantities of hybrid seed falls somewhere between producing open pollinated corn and self-pollinating soybeans – but a lot closer to soybeans.”

An inherent result of forcing a self- pollinating plant to cross pollinate is a relatively high amount of seedless hulls on the cytoplasmic male sterile plants that are harvested along with the hybrid seed. These empty hulls and the abrasiveness of rice seed are the two considerations that make designing a hybrid rice seed plant different from

T he 2011 crop was the first production at RiceTec’s new seed conditioning facility about

an hour west of Houston near Eagle Lake, TX. The facility is one of the

Hybrid Rice Seed Facility

Supplier ListContractor ...........Bratney Companies Aspirators ..... Carter-Day and CimbriaBagger, bulk tote ...... Chantland MHSBagger, paper ....Premier Tech ChronosBucket elevators....Universal IndustriesBulk storage ....... GSI, Meridian Mfg.Conveyors ..........Universal, ChantlandDust filters ... Camcorp, Cimbria HeidGravity separator ...........Cimbria HeidLength sizers ..................Cimbria HeidPrecision sizers ...................Carter-DaySeed cleaner .................. Cimbria DeltaSeed treater ....................Cimbria Heid

RiceTec hybrid rice seed production field with alternating strips of male (light color) and female plants. Flood irrigation levee ditches crisscross the field. (RiceTec photos)

F a c i L i t y F e at u R e

Production Manager Doug Merkle

New seed conditioning facility designed to withstand abrasive rice seed

12-14_Developing Rice.indd 2 8/6/2012 2:14:24 PM


Gage. “Our biggest design challenge was how to deal with the very abrasive rice hulls caused by their high silica content.”

To some degree, Bratney engineers could anticipate vulnerable wear zones and strengthen them with stainless steel components. Everyone anticipated that there would be other wear zones that would not be immediately apparent.

“After the plant had been operating for a year, we would occasionally find indications of a wear point when rice began falling to the floor,” says Jamie Watson, plant operator. “Rice was wear-ing holes in pipes that might never have worn through had we been running another commodity. This is all part of working with rice.”

The second unique feature of con-ditioning hybrid rice seed is the light, fluffy empty hulls that come into the facility. Although a small portion by weight (total clean-out seldom exceeds

RiceTec’s new seed conditioning facility began operation with the 2011 harvest. 16 outdoor bulk bins provide storage for 100,000 cwt of rice prior to cleaning. (RiceTech photos)

three percent by weight), the hulls are both bulky and dusty.

While the discards from corn and soybean conditioning contain sufficient grain to have feed value, the rice discards are virtually all dry, blank hulls with little or no feed value.

“Feed mills don’t want them,” says Watson. “We spread them on our fields just to get rid of them.”

Drying Bins“Hulls are also a problem in the corru-gated steel drying bins,” says Merkle. “As the bins are filled for drying, the blank hulls and chaff tend to accumulate along the sidewalls.”

The grain stirrers used during the drying process further tend to push the empty hulls toward the outer walls.

The accumulated hulls can prevent the sweep auger from getting traction during unloading. To solve this prob-

lem, the drive wheel is replaced with a large diameter wheel with paddles that brush through the chaff and make floor contact (see photo next page).

A reduction drive gear in the wheel’s hub slows the wheel’s rotation.

To maintain milling quality, the rice is dried with high air volume and only a few degrees of added heat. The process can take three or four days depending on beginning moisture content and weather conditions.

Red Rice“With aspirators and a good air screen, we can separate the blank hulls,” Watson says. “A far more difficult separation is eliminating any red rice that was not rogued out of the field. For that we rely on a series of Carter Day sizers. Red rice is slightly wider that the good rice.”

Merkle says maintaining good field sanitation to keep red rice and other



weeds out of the production fields is the most effective method of producing good seed.

“During harvest we stay in contact with our producers and alert them whenever we seed indications that they

need to make some adjustment to their combines,” he says.

RiceTec seed production fields are all inspected and certified by the Texas Department of Agriculture.

Most seed is packaged in bulk totes

and immediately shipped to warehouses closer to growers in Arkansas and Louisi-ana where the majority of southern rice is produced.

Joe Funk, editor

Top row (left to right): Jamie Watson, conditioning facility operator; (center) Abrasion-resistant cushion boxes atop stainless steel elbows at a critical location subject to accelerated abrasion; (right) A series of Carter Day precision sizers.

Center: Paddle wheel on the outer end of the sweep auger inside a 36-ft. diameter GSI drying bin gains traction on the floor through empty hulls that accumulate along the outer wall.

Bottom row (left to right): Cimbria Heid batch seed treater; (center) Automatic grain samplers; (right) High volume dust col-lection system with two dust storage bins. (JWF photos)


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c a s e s t u d y

art technology that brought increased capacity and new efficiency to the family-owned business.

In 2012, that system was dismantled and carried out the back door because it was too slow, too inefficient, and too old to be upgraded to meet the demands of packaging refuge in bag (RIB) seed corn.

RIB seed corn products are a blend of insect-resistant Bt hybrids with a small amount (usually 5%) of non-Bt seed that provides a safe refuge for Bt-target insects.

“Everything has changed since we put the old system in place in 1999,” says President/CEO Bob Hubner. “Seed technology has made dramatic advances, the overall standards for seed quality have increased, and most recently, RIB products and the attendant record keep-ing requirements have added an entirely new dimension to what it takes to pack-age seed corn.”

Blending too little non-Bt seed into a package violates the EPA insect resis-tance management (IRM) requirements. Packaging a blend with too much non-Bt seed is in violation of the licensing agreement seed producers have with trait providers.

Thirteen years ago, a new packing system was installed in Hubner Indus-tries’ seed corn production facility in west-central Indiana. It was state-of-the-

Meeting RIB RequirementsFully automated system provides speed, documentation for RIB packaging

Hubner Industries LLcWest Lebanon, IN • 866-404-8324

www.hubnerindustries.com

Key Personnel• Bob Hubner, Owner/President• Greg Smith, General Manager• David Dunk, Operations Manager• Rodney Keeling, Packaging Line

Manager

company Profile• Family-owned contract corn seed

production business.• Retail brand Monsanto owned.• Established 1972.

Hubner Industries’ Fischbein-Inglet RSV-100 Simplex duplex refuge scale system blends Bt seed and refuge seed +/-0.001 lb. (Fishbein photo).

Blended seed is packaged in single units or in bulk boxes.

16-17_Hubner Case Study.indd 2 8/6/2012 10:26:57 AM


2011 was the first year blended RIB seed corn was commercially available to growers.

“There is also a practical side to hav-ing a precise blend and that is our cost of licensing fees to trait providers.” Hubner says. “Even if our blend is off by a few ounces per bag, it becomes a sizeable amount over thousands of bags.”

Alternative ChoicesAs Hubner assessed his operation, he realized he had three options.

First, bring together enough parts and pieces to enable his existing system to package RIB seed products.

Second, install some new equipment in a piecemeal fashion to make the RIB blend.

Or third, replace everything with one integrated system that provides sufficient capacity to meet future needs.

“We had to make one fundamental decision: are we planning for today’s business or are we planning for our fu-ture?” he recalls. “We chose to make an investment in new equipment in excess of our current needs, confident we will gain enough new business and increased volume to fully utilize all the capacity that we install today.”

The only piece of equipment not replaced by the new packaging line is a Conveyco semi-automatic palletizer.

In consultation with Robin O’Mara, O’Mara Ag Services, Urbandale, IA

(515-223-5391/www.omara-ag.com), Hubner selected a Fischbein Inglet 3597 automatic bagging system cou-pled with a Fischbein-Inglet RSV-100 Simplex duplex refuge scale system accurate +/- 0.01 pound per weighment.

“We have worked with Robin in the past and are comfortable with his recom-mendations and service,” Hubner says. “Having an integrated system means all the components are designed to work to-gether. Should a problem develop, we are not caught in the middle with one supplier blaming the another for the shutdown.”

Performance and DocumentationOne of the drawbacks with upgrading the 13-year old bagging system is the documentation required for RIB pack-aging. The old system could support the required record keeping but only by operating at a reduced speed.

“With this new system, we can package 20 bags per minute and col-lect all the documentation needed for EPA and trait provider compliance. In a few years we may need that capacity, but today we are content to operate at 12-14 bags,” says General Manager Greg Smith.

“At this packaging rate, production throughout the system is balanced. Cleaning, treating, and packaging all operate at a comfortable speed for maxi-mum seed quality,” he says.

(l to r) General Manager Greg Smith, Owner/President Bob Hubner, Pack-aging Line Manager Rodney Keeling, Operations Manager David Dunk.

System FeaturesSome of the system’s features noted by Hubner include a two-speed vibratory conveyor feeding the scale, red dust collection at the open bag as it is being filled, bag settling as it is being filled, and fully automatic tagging.

If future refuge requirements increase to 10 or 20%, a simple adjustment in the controller is all that would be needed to change the blend percentage.

Early in the new system’s operation, Hubner’s staff witnessed an advantage of having an integrated system when the empty bags were not being properly advanced into position.

“We figured someone would have to come out and rebuild everything,” says Operations Manager David Dunk. “Instead, a technician remotely accessed the equipment via the Internet, made some program changes, and solved the problem in a few hours.”

So, why not replace the old palletizer as well? “I like how it makes tight, square stacks,” says Hubner. “It allows the op-erator to make certain the tags all lay the same way on the bags so they will look neat and tidy when stretch wrapped. I believe neatness enhances the percep-tion that these bags contain superior quality seed. As a contract producer, maintaining image is an important part of business.”

Joe Funk, editor

Automated bag handling.

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s u p p l i e r p r o f i l e

Grain growers inspect a drought-tolerant soybean crop in Argentina..

Arcadia Biosciences, inc.Developing agricultural technologies that benefit

the environment and human health

Arcadia Biosciences, inc.Davis, CA and Seattle, WA

530-756-7077 • www.arcadiabio.com

Key personnel• Eric Rey, President and CEO• Vic Knauf, Ph.D., Chief Scientific

Officer• Steve Brandwein, Vice President,

Finance and Administration• Wendy Neal, Vice President and Chief

Legal Officer• Don Emlay, Vice President, Regula-

tory Affairs • Roger Salameh, Vice President, Busi-

ness Development, Agriculture

Company profile“Arcadia Biosciences has strong capabili-ties in agricultural technology develop-ment, field validation, and regulatory affairs,” says Eric Rey, President and CEO. “The company leverages a variety of modern biotechnology tools such as

high-throughput screening, advanced breeding, and genetic engineering.”

In 2012, Arcadia formed Verdeca, a 50-50 joint venture partner with Bio-ceres – an agricultural investment and development company owned by more than 230 of South America’s largest soybean growers – which develops and deregulates soybean varieties with next-generation agricultural technologies for global markets.

“Working in partnership with South American growers, Verdeca technologies will help increase crop productivity and make more efficient and sustainable use of land and water,” Rey says.

Commercial and Collaboration AgreementsArcadia traits are developed in collabo-ration with and licensed to companies, and agencies worldwide, Including:

• Advanta US – Water efficient sor-ghum, salt-tolerant sorghum.

• Australian Centre for Plant Func-

tional Genomics (ACPFG) and the Commonwealth Scientific and Indus-trial Research Organization (CSIRO) – NUE wheat and NUE barley.

• African Agricultural Technology Foundation – Improved rice varieties.

• Bioceres (Verdeca JV) – NUE soy-beans and other crops.

• Bioriginal Food and Science Corp. – High GLA safflower oil.

• Bioseed Research India – Long shelf life tomatoes.

• Cal/West Seeds – High GLA saf-flower.

• DuPont – NUE corn.• MAHYCO – multi-crop, multi-

technology. • Monsanto Company – NUE

canola.• Ningxia Academy of Agricultural

and Forestry Sciences – Carbon credit methodology.

• ScottsMiracleGro – NUE turf grass.• Semillas Fito – Long shelf life

tomatoes.• SESVanderHave – NUE sugar

beets, water efficient sugar beets.• South African Sugarcane Research

Institute – NUE sugarcane.• Targeted Growth, Inc. – Herbicide

tolerant wheat.• USAID – Salt-tolerant rice for

Bangladesh and Indonesia.• U.S. National Institute of Health –

resistant starch-enhanced wheat. • U.S. Sugar Corporation – NUE

sugar cane, water efficient sugar cane.• Vilmorin – Nitrogen efficient

wheat, water efficient wheat.

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Response No. 191

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Response No. 201

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Response No. 211

fields, the results were the same.

Plant SimilaritiesThe two standbys rice relies on for its ability to grow in water are adventitious roots and aerenchyma – plant tissue with large air-filled spaces.

Adventitious roots grow out of the plant’s stem near the soil surface and work in tandem with aerenchyma to provide more oxygen to flooded roots.

VanToai found that the soybean plants that survive flooding use some of the same mechanisms as rice grow-ing in paddies.

For more than two decades, USDA-ARS scientist Tara VanToai has studied soybean flood tolerance in a range of environments, including greenhouses, laboratories, growth chambers, experimental fields, and farm fields.

She and her colleagues are finding and incorporating genes from non-native soybean varieties in an effort to improve soybean tolerance to wet soil and associated diseases.

In one study, VanToai used outdoor screenhouses to assess the flood tolerance of 21 soybean lines. The study included soybean lines native to Vietnam and Cambodia, lines de-veloped via selection by farmers, and modern lines from Australia, China, Japan, and Taiwan.

Grown in pots, when each plant was in full bloom, it was placed for two weeks in water two inches above the soil surface. The screenhouse tests identified the top three flood-tolerant lines: Nam Vang, native to Cambodia; VND2, native to China; and ATF15-1, native to Australia.

When the study was replicated in flooded experimental

Flood-Tolerant Soybeans?Rice and soybeans exhibit similar features to survive flooding

White, secondary aerenchy-ma tissue (soybean) follow-ing five weeks of flooding (dashed line indicates water level).

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21_Rice-Soybean Rotation.indd 3 8/6/2012 10:22:36 AM


U.S. Attorney Eric Holder (fourth from left) makes an opening presentation at the joint Department of Justice/USDA workshop on competition and regulatory issues in the agriculture industry in Ankeny, IA in March 2010. (Jerry Perkins photo)

For more information:Complete May 2012 DJO summary reportwww.justice.gov/atr/public/reports/283291.pdf

petition and – consequently – vigorous antitrust enforcement.

“Bolstered by this understanding, the Division remains committed to taking all appropriate investigatory and enforcement action against conduct threatening harm to competition in agricultural markets,” the report says.

GM Seeds Summation“The issue of genetically modified seeds implicates the careful balance of the antitrust laws and the intellectual property laws.

“The antitrust laws preserve the competitive spur to innovation, and the intellectual property laws create incen-tives for innovation.

“Antitrust law recognizes the critical role that intellectual-property rights play in driving innovation and values those rights. As the Seventh Circuit held, the ‘price of ’ a patented product ‘cannot violate the Sherman Act: a patent holder is entitled to charge whatever the traffic will bear.’

“However, if conduct goes beyond the appropriate use of intellectual property and harms competition, it should be disciplined by appropriate antitrust en-forcement. The Division stands ready to take the appropriate action in those cases.

“Thus, if the patent holder has crossed the bounds of the antitrust laws and abused his rights in a man-ner that leads to competitive harm, the Division is prepared to challenge that action. There may also be opportuni-ties for clarification of how patent and antitrust law should align,” according to the DOJ May 2012 summary report section about GM seeds.

Joe Funk, editor

shop, the DOJ in May 2012, issued its summary report: Voices from the Workshops on Agriculture and Antitrust Enforcement in our 21st Century Economy and Thoughts on the Way Forward.

18,000 CommentsThe DOJ was provided ample opportu-nity “to listen to and learn from” those interested in agriculture. In addition to five days of open testimony, the public responded with more than 18,000 com-ments.

According to the May report, the workshops did provide “a wealth of dis-cussion and information on the state of competition in the agricultural sector.”

Anyone anticipating the DOJ’s sum-mary report to include a glimpse into specific actions to affect agricultural competitiveness will be disappointed. The report offers little more than sweep-ing generalities and a commitment to continue business as usual.

“These discussions confirmed that a healthy agricultural sector requires com-

Heralded by no less than 17 news releases, the U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) Anti-trust Division and the USDA launched a series of five public workshops in 2009 to “explore com-petition and regulatory issues in the agriculture industry.”

The goals of the workshops, accord-ing to a DOJ announcement are to “pro-mote dialogue among interested parties and foster learning with respect to the appropriate legal and economic analyses of these issues, as well as to listen to and learn from parties with experience in the agriculture sector.”

Specific areas of focus for the first workshop in Ankeny, IA in March, 2010 “may include seed technology, vertical integration, market transparency and buyer power.”

Topics for subsequent workshops are the poultry industry (Normal, AL), dairy industry (Madison, WI), livestock industry (Ft. Collins, CO), and margins (Washington, DC).

Fifteen months after the final work-

DOJ-USDA Workshop Take-AwayThe DOJ’s summary report provides few details

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© BioDiagnostics, Inc. 2009. All rights reserved.

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Response No. 231

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Response No. 241

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Response No. 251

Adoption of GM traits has reached a “slow growth” stage with little room for increased application.

contributor to economic growth in U.S. agriculture, states the USDA’s May, 2012 Agricultural productivity report.

It is widely agreed that increased productivity, arising from innovation and changes in technology, is the main

U.S. GM Trait AdoptionUse of Bt traits fluctuates more than HT traits

Adoption of GM crops in the United States, 1996–2012 Adoption of GM crops in the United States by trait, 2000-12

Source for both charts: USDA, Economic Research Service

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meetings, conversations, and e-mails that our nation’s policy makers really enjoyed hearing from the seed industry and learning about science, sustain-ability, technology, and the innovation that drives it.

Advocacy or “Agvocacy” can take many forms and it doesn’t have to be time consuming or complicated. Once you do one or more of these steps I’ve listed above, be sure to let the ASTA government affairs team (Leslie Cahill and Pat Miller) and myself know how it went by sending an e-mail to [email protected] or calling 703-837-8140.

If you have an issue, let them know so they can follow up and take the ap-propriate action. If you have a success story, let them know and they’ll also make sure it gets featured online and in ASTA’s member communications.

I’m excited for what the year ahead will bring and I hope you’ll join me in helping tackle issues so our businesses can operate in a better business environ-ment and with confidence.

Let’s Sing!The conference theme for ASTA’s 130th Annual Convention is “Sing a Song about the Heartland.” The seed industry is at the heart of agriculture and when we collectively use our voices, we sing one song in harmony and can be heard far and wide. They’ve heard us, now let’s sing.

fee and a tour of your operation.3. Write an op-ed for your local

paper.4. Participate in the American Seed

Trade Association through commit-tees, working groups, and attending meetings.

Advocacy in ActionAs a business person, don’t be surprised what you have access to or what trans-ferable skills you might have. We heard from our Storm the Hill Day follow up

First and foremost, let me say what an honor it is to serve as chairman of the American Seed Trade Association. I’m extremely pleased to have this op-portunity and will do my best as chair to represent all interests of the seed industry and keep you apprised of issues and ASTA actions throughout the year.

I’d also like to take a moment to thank past ASTA chairmen, including Mike Gumina, for setting the stage and focusing on the importance of “making your voice heard.” Each seed company/business is as unique as each type of seed and has its own story to tell.

A Story to TellFor example Stipa comata (also known as needle and thread) is a perennial grass that can live up to ten years and is deep rooted and drought tolerant. It gets its name because the shape of the seed looks like a needle and thread. The shaft is tightly twisted like an auger.

With a little bit of moisture, the shaft begins to uncoil causing the seed to stand up on end and the sharp point allows the seed to plant itself leaving only the thread above ground.

We are a diverse industry serving a diverse clientele, but often times the challenges or obstacles we face are similar in nature. ASTA does a great job of prioritizing these issues and working on behalf of its 700 plus membership.

While ASTA diligently works at the national and international level, I challenge you to get out and tell your story and that of the seed industry at the local level. Often times, action at the local level can make a big impact – think global, act local.

You can make a big difference by doing four key things:

1. Add your Congressman and Sena-tors to your mailing list.

2. Invite them to your place for cof-


A c c o r d i n g t o A S t A

Bl a k e Cu r t i s i s 2012-2013 Chair-man of ASTA, the A m e r i c a n S e e d Trade Association, A l e x a n d r i a , VA (703-837-8140/www.amseed.org) and pre s ident o f Curtis & Curtis Seeds, Clovis, NM.

“Often times, action at

the local level can make a

big impact – think global,

act local. You can make a big

difference.”Blake Curtis

2012 - 2013 ASTA Chairman

Local Action Will Lead to a new crop of Singing Stars for the Seed industry

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Response No. 271

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My daughter graduated from college four years ago and now has a career in business. We were recently talking about the economy and the general state of affairs in the world today. I made one of those “the way things used to be” remarks that parents past a certain age are prone to make.

Her reply made me realize how things actu-ally are in today’s world. For her, having lived in the cocoon of college life during the stock market crash of 2008 and having been unaware of the really good times in business just a few years ago, today’s reality is the new normal that she relates to and lives within.

I have to admit that it should be mine, too, and I need to adapt to it rather than wish for a comfortable return to the good old days.

Finding the New NormalThis got me thinking about the new normal we are facing in the seed industry and how a new generation of seed cus-tomers are more likely to relate to the future’s technology rather than the way things used to be.

Considering the aver-age age of farmers, they should be commended for rapidly adopting biotechnology and new traits moving into the marketplace.

However, for tomor-row’s new generation of farmers, using biotechnology will be their new normal when it comes to operating profitably.

At its recent Annual Meeting in Sun Valley, ID, AOSCA adopted new seed certification standards referred to as “Additional Certifi-cation Requirements.” Traditional means of identifying a variety by its physical characteris-tics may not apply to varieties that are unique because of their internal genetic traits.

Plant breeders may now specify if non-phe-notypic traits identify a variety and designate

AOSCA Notes

the tests necessary to confirm them. By adopt-ing these new, voluntary standards, AOSCA positioned itself to stay abreast of new varieties that carry advanced technology.

New Crop TypesAOSCA members also approved seed certifica-tion standards for new crop types and AOSCA expanded its National Variety Review Board process to allow for semi-annual review ses-sions. These changes allow plant breeders to move new varieties into Certification programs more quickly and will facilitate the international movement of seed.

Another topic receiving much discussion was how to inform a new generation of farm-ers about the benefits of using Certified seed. Seed certification programs exist in 44 states, as well as in several other countries that belong to AOSCA, and certified seed acres have remained

stable for several years for most crops.

However, AOSCA recognizes that younger producers may not be fa-miliar with how Certified “Blue Tag” seed provides value by assuring varietal purity and seed quality.

CollaborationAOSCA’s members voted to collaborate with other seed industry stakehold-ers to educate growers about the extra value that

comes from planting Certified wheat seed. The goal of the initiative will be to promote

the use of all classes of Certified seed as the “new normal” in crop production.

Adapting to the new normal in any endeavor insures that we will be relevant participants in the years to come.

Chet Boruff, Chief Executive OfficerMoline, IL (309-736-0120)

[email protected] / www.osca.org

The Seed Industry’s New NormalMoline, IL • 309-736-0120

www.aosca.org

“Today’s reality is the new

normal that we relate to and

live within. We need to adapt

to it.”Chet Boruff, CEO AOSCA

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Response No. 291

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Dale WimmerFoundation Seed Production

Advanta USCrosbyton, TX • 806-786-9265

www.advantaus.com

Response No. 301


Response No. 302

P e r s o n a l P r o f i l e

Hometown: Grew up on a farm near Slaton, TX, the third of six children. Only Dale and his brother Chris are still involved in agriculture.

Family: Wife Belinda (20 years) and four children.

Education: Business Administration, Texas Tech University, Lubbock.

Years at present location: 24 years.

Career summary: With Cargill Seed 10 years prior to My-cogen, then with Crosbyton Seed until its acquisition by Ad-vanta US Inc. in 2010.

Best U.S. seed experience: Being president of the Texas Seed Trade Association in 2011. A big focal point of the Associa-tion is raising funds for its scholarship program to help sup-port 12 students each year. It is money well spent, especially for students attending smaller schools.

Best overseas experience: Four months in Indonesia with Cargill to oversee building of a seed corn production plant. It was the first introduction of hybrid corn on the island of Java.

Biggest management challenge: Learning to live with sor-ghum ergot when it moved in during 1997. We scrambled to learn how to combat the fungus. We learned that good polli-nation and good management practices to maximize yields are the best defense. It is not a question of whether we have ergot, it is a question of how severe.

Best ideas for dealing with people: Be honest. Answer peo-ple’s questions. Focus on common goals. Keep a positive at-titude – expect a positive outcome.

Best ideas for producing sorghum seed: Anybody can grow sorghum, but it takes a community to produce quality sor-ghum seed. Everyone must be on the same page to coordinate isolation. Follow your plan.

Whatever is true for seed production is doubly true for foundation seed. This is a good area for foundation seed be-cause the growers understand the challenges and they work together to insure good isolation.

Professional honors: President Texas Seed Trade Association 2011.

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30_PP Wimmer .indd 2 8/3/2012 2:59:27 PM

Hometown: St. Paul, MN.

Family: Wife Debra (28 years), two children.

Education: B.S., Univ. of MN.

Years at MCIA: 32; President/CEO since 2008.

Your best ideas for dealing with people: People deserve to be treated with respect. One of the best ways to show respect is to listen to what oth-ers have to say. Pay attention to the feedback you get, think about service from the customer’s vantage point, and follow up as needed. Consider other views – even when they are not what you want to hear.

Personal key to success: My key role is to be a team builder. As President/CEO, I strive to empower each member of my staff to reach his/her potential. I try to clearly communicate what I expect – commitment to quality, professionalism, best effort, and responsibility for results.

I want to make it clear that each individual needs to take ownership of his/her position and encourage the innovation needed to continue to improve our organization.

Biggest management challenge you have faced: The ser-vices provided by MCIA has been greatly expanded in recent years as the organization has responded to the needs of a changing agricultural industry.

In the last few years, we have undertaken a major rebrand-ing effort that includes logo redesign, new website, and up-dated, enhanced promotional materials to better reflect the current organization and what it can provide. Service di-versification has allowed MCIA to achieve revenue growth, retain skilled experienced personnel, and remain a strong, viable resource for Minnesota agriculture.

What do you enjoy most about life? Family time is my favorite time. Now that my daughters are grown and are out on their own, I especially appreciate holidays, vacations, and other times when we are all together.

Professional honors/offices: MCIA Honorary Premier Seedsman (1995); Minnesota Invasive Species Advisory Com-mittee; Noxious Weed Evaluation Committee, NRCS Min-nesota State Technical Committee; Northern Region’s repre-sentative to AOSCA Certification and Standards Council.

Ben LangPresident/CEO • 612-625-7766

Minnesota Crop Improvement Association

St. Paul, MN •www.mncia.org


P e r s o n a L P r o f i L e

Response No. 311

Response No. 312

31_PP Lang.indd 3 8/2/2012 2:13:18 PM


transformational for people and the environment,” says Sir Gordon Conway, Professor of International Development, Imperial College London.

Drought-Tolerant Crops: Seeing is Believing

Will this summer’s heat and drought be a boon to new “drought tolerant” seed varieties? “Farmers will believe what they see,” says Peter Eckes, president of BASF’s plant science division.

Seed company executives say drought-tolerant seeds are not intended to allow farmers to grow corn in the desert, or in the midst of a severe drought.

Roundup Ready® Sugar Beets In compliance with a 2009 district court decision, APHIS completed an exten-sive environmental impact statement (EIS) and determined Roundup Ready sugar beet variety “is not likely to pose a plant pest risk.”

This is APHIS’ final regulatory deter-mination in this matter. The deregula-tion became effective July 20, 2012.

Once Again, a New Meta-Analysis Shows GM Feeds Are Safe

A team of researchers at University of

During the International Seed Federation’s (ISF’s) World Seed Congress, held June

24-28 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tim Johnson, vice president of Illinois Foundation Seeds, Inc. (IFSI), Tolono, IL, was elected 2012-14 president.

In his acceptance speech, Johnson, who is based in Westfield, IN, told Con-gress participants that he will use three guiding principles during his two-year tenure as president: “find the win-win, make money, and have fun.”

ISF facilitates the international move-ment of seed, know-how and technology, mobilizes and represents the global seed in-dustry, informs its members, and promotes the interests and image of the seed industry.

Nitrogen-Fixing CerealsA £6.4million ($10 million) grant to de-velop crops capable of nitrogen fixation was awarded to The John Innes Centre in Norwich, England, by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in July.

“If we cracked N fixation in cereals, in this case maize in Africa, it would be perhaps the greatest agricultural breakthrough of the century, perhaps of the millennium. It is a hard problem, but if successful it would be blindingly

Indiana Seedsman ISF President

S e e D N O T e S

Nottingham, Nottingham, England, performed a meta-analysis of 24 pub-lished studies looking for the long-term impacts of feeding GM products in animal diets. They conclude that GM plants are nutritionally equivalent to their non-GM counterparts and can be safely used in food and feed.

The review collected data concerning the effects of diets containing GM corn, potato, soybean, rice, or triticale.

Twelve long-term studies between 90 days and two years in duration and 12 multigenerational studies were analyzed.

The researchers studied many param-eters using biochemical analyses, histo-logical organ examination, hematology and the detection of transgenic DNA.

High-Yield Rice GeneChinese Academy of Sciences research-

ers reported in June that they have identi-fied a gene labeled GW8 in Basmati rice from Pakistan that could not only improve the shape and color of rice grains, but also change the arrangement of starch inside the grain, enhancing its eating quality.

A variant of the GW8 gene in some types of high yield Chinese rice improves grain weight and boosts yield 14%.

Let them eat GM feed products. (Patriot photo)

In second quarter 2012, two seed companies in Missouri and South Dakota paid a total of $3,600 to settle alleged violations of the Federal Seed Act (FSA).

The alleged violations include failures to keep or provide records, presence of noxious weeds, and false germination labeling.

The USDA-AMS administers the FSA with the help of state seed regulatory officials.

Money paid to the USDA to settle FSA violations is returned to the U.S. Treasury and is not used to fund USDA programs or activities.

Second Quarter Seed Law Violations

32_Seed Notes.indd 2 8/6/2012 3:38:27 PM


Response No. 331

Long grain rice.

Basmati is a variety of long grain aromatic rice grown for many years in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. It is notable for its fragrance and delicate flavor.

Since the mid-1900s, ‘’bas-mati’’ has been used in the United States to describe long-grain aro-matic rice grown domestically. In 1994, premium grain American aromatic rice was being sold as Calmati brand from California

and the Texmati and Kasmati brands marketed by RiceTec, Inc., Alvin, TX.

This usage went unchallenged by India to the extent that RiceTec’s July 1994, patent claims for new varieties of basmati rice were made under the plea of “long usage’’ provided for by trade-related intellectual property rights.

RiceTec’s patent approval by the U.S. Patent Office in September 1997, aroused foreign opposition heretofore un-perturbed by these products.

Piracy of Indigenous ProductsIndian basmati exporters challenged the RiceTec patent and described the American premium varieties as basmati imita-tions. They challenged the RiceTec patent application and claimed “piracy of emerging nations’ indigenous products.”

According to the Indian officials, the distinct aroma and the texture of basmati comes from the Indian soil irrigated by waters from the Himalayan rivers.

India urged the United States Patent and Trade Office in April 2000, to re-examine certain RiceTec claims that India felt posed a threat to Indian basmati exports to the United States. In hundreds of pages of scientific evidence, India ar-gued that its basmati varieties already had the characteristics claimed as unique by RiceTec.

India formally protested RiceTec’s claim to the term bas-mati, and insisted that the appellation be reserved for rice grown in a specific region in India. The argument is much like the one used to limit Champagne to France and Scotch whiskey to Scotland.

RiceTec subsequently withdrew 15 claims from its 1994 patent to satisfy India’s objections. RiceTec’s consumer prod-ucts division continues to market Texmati premium aromatic rice throughout the United States.

Basmati Rice“Piracy of emerging nations’

indigenous products” resulted in 2000 legal battle

33_Basmati Rice.indd 3 8/3/2012 3:03:53 PM


LMC, INC. (Lewis M Carter)Donalsonville, GA • 800-332-8232

www.lmcarter.com

Key Personnel• Lewis M. Carter, Jr• L. Marcus Carter III• Myles Mosely• Buck Jones• Grant Brunner

Company Profile• Industrial separation machinery for

peanut, treenuts, seed and grain, beans, and other industries ranging from rubber to plastic recycling.

• Established 1940.• Fourth generation family-owned and

family-managed.• Established 1940.

of Carters to own and operate LMC. “In addition to the U.S. market, LMC equipment processes a large portion of the world’s tree nut (walnut, almond, pista-

chio, and pecan) crop.” At last count, Carter

says LMC equipment is being used to process over 80 commodities. Industrial applications include the recycling industry where rub-ber, metal, and other recycled products need to be separated.

All LMC equip-ment is manufactured in its 250,000 sq. ft. fa-cility in Donalsonville, GA. About 40% to 50% of LMC products are exported. Major export markets include

In 1940, Lewis Carter established his manufacturing business with a single fo-cus: build the best equipment to shell pea-nuts raised by local growers in southwest Georgia and then sepa-rate the peanuts from the chaff and hulls so efficiently that cleaned nuts become “candy bar ready” with no further cleaning needed.

The resulting LMC line of shellers, cleaners, gravity separators, con-veyors, and associated equipment processes virtually all of the U.S. peanut crop, says Carter family member L. Mar-cus Carter III, part of the fourth generation

LMC Seed Handling Equipment

L. Marcus Carter III

Marcus Carter with a visitor to LMC, Inc. head-quarters (right) and a LMC gravity separator in-stalled as part of a complete LMC system.

Custom designed seed handling components and systems

34-35_Hows It Made - LMC.indd 2 8/6/2012 3:55:30 PM


figuring out changes to make a better machine. We are not just making the same piece of equipment over and over.”

Another advantage to having indi-vidual plans for each machine is that LMC can make a new replacement part that is an exact replica of the original.

If a customer’s employee accidentally runs a forklift into a LMC machine, for example, engineers can call up the origi-nal plans for that machine and provide a new part without having to maintain an extensive parts inventory.”

Peanut ExperienceLMC’s nearly 75 years of designing sys-tems for the peanut industry is not lost on the seed and grain industry.

“The flow chart for a peanut shelling and cleaning facility is 10 times larger than for a seed facility,” says Design En-gineer Myles Mosely. “Peanuts are a food item with zero-tolerance for impurities.

“Allowing one tiny pebble to remain in a warehouse of peanuts destined for candy could result in a devastating product liability lawsuit. We apply the same high standards to a seed or grain system as we use for peanuts,” Mosely says.

Joe Funk, editor

Australia, South and Latin America, South Africa, and Canada.

“The market for LMC equipment has been strong. In the past year, we have added more than 40 craftsmen and support staff to our payroll. Busi-ness has grown, stretching our present manufacturing capacity. This is a good problem to have,” he says.

Equipment for the SituationLMC’s manufacturing floor is much like any other metal fabrication shop – brake presses, lasers, CNC machinery, robotic welders, plasma cutters, grinders, and welders along with an inventory of vari-ous sized steel plates and tubes.

Missing is an inventory of ready-made equipment waiting to be sold and shipped.

“The difference with LMC is what goes into the individualized design of each piece of equipment,” Carter says. “Our focus is to customize an entire processing line to meet the customer’s individual situation. Understanding how to apply our equipment to each customer’s situation is the magic here.”

Each piece of equipment begins as a basic design that is then individually finished to meet customer specifications.

“Our team of engineers and repre-sentatives make it a point to research each client’s unique manufacturing and processing situation to offer custom de-signed recommendations and solutions,”

he says. “We provide the whole package designed together as a system,.”

The challenge for the production staff is that no two pieces are exactly alike al-though they come off the same produc-tion line. Each piece of equipment has an individual set of plans on file in the company’s library of customer orders.

Carter says LMC’s approach is to provide equipment designed to enhance a customer’s ability to make the best product that meets its specific standards in the most efficient manner possible.

A result of having a flexible approach to equipment design means LMC is continually making changes.

“My father (Lewis Carter, Jr.) says LMC means Lots of Major Change,” Marcus says. “Our engineers are always

LMC peanut processing and grading equipment being prepared for export.

A s s emb l ing a mach ine’s s t r u c tu ra l framework. “These are more than weld-ers – they are craftsmen,” says President Marcus Carter.

34-35_Hows It Made - LMC.indd 3 8/6/2012 3:55:43 PM


Response No. 361

nology and DuPont’s own Optimum® GAT® herbicide-tolerant technology.

The jury awarded Monsanto a $1bil-lion settlement, one of the largest jury awards in U.S. patent trial history. Du-Pont cites “fundamental errors” in the case and has vowed to appeal the verdict at the earliest opportunity.

This verdict represents the third time court proceedings have determined that DuPont or DuPont Pioneer has violated a trait licensing agreement with Monsanto.

Patent Misuse Trial PendingMonsanto originally filed suit against DuPont and DuPont Pioneer in May 2009. Monsanto argued that DuPont had no right to make hundreds of lines of soybeans stacking the Roundup Ready trait with its GAT technology.

DuPont countered that Monsanto deceived the government to obtain the patent, rendering it unenforceable.

U.S. District Judge Richard Webber previously ruled that DuPont’s adding a second glyphosate-tolerance gene to Roundup Ready crops is prohibited by its licensing agreement with Monsanto.

At trial, DuPont claimed Monsanto sued only after it was shown data that the two genes work better than either GAT or Roundup Ready alone.

Following the verdict, DuPont re-leased a statement saying, “DuPont believes that the evidence presented during the trial demonstrated clearly that Monsanto’s Roundup Ready® soybean patent (RE 39,247) is invalid and unenforceable and that Monsanto intentionally deceived the United States Patent and Trademark Office on several occasions as it sought patent protection.”

Several aspects of Monsanto’s mis-conduct involving the contended patent will be presented to a different jury as part of DuPont’s antitrust and patent misuse case against Monsanto in Sep-tember 2013.

finding DuPont and DuPont Pioneer “willfully infringed” Monsanto’s patents when it stacked Roundup Ready® tech-

After a four-week trial, a U.S. Dis-trict Court jury in St. Louis on August 1 deliberated less than one hour before

Jury: Green Owes Red $1BFederal court finds DuPont willfully infringed Monsanto’s RR patents

36_Monsanto-DuPont Verdict.indd 2 8/3/2012 11:46:01 AM

Response No. 371

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Response No. 381

A look into Bayer CropScience 30,000 sq.ft. BioScience greenhouse space in its new Research Triangle Park, NC, facility.

tory space plus seed handling and stor-age areas and more than 3,500 square foot of office and meeting space.

The facility was built with sustain-bility in mind: 84% of the construc-tion material is derived from recycled sources. A 70,000 gallon underground water storage tank will collect rainwater for plant irrigation and is expected to reduce consumption of potable water by approximately 700,000 gallons annually.

High 20-foot ceilings allow corn to grow unhindered to its full height. Plant growth is maximized by 754 lamps that are 1,000 watts each emitting 1,000 moles of light and 21 air handlers to circulate air with carbon dioxide sup-pliment if needed.

Triangle Park, NC in July. “This invest-ment in research and people will help drive our developments in producing crops even more efficiently and sustainably,” says Bayer AG Board of Management member Dr. Wolfgang Plischke.

“The greenhouse marks our com-mitment to cultivating new ideas and answers, and also reflects our continued expansion of our BioScience activities,” Plischke says.

Research activities in the greenhouse will include corn and soybeans trait studies, molecular breeding, and the development of data packages for trait deregulation.

The BioScience center includes 30,000 sq. ft. greenhouse space, nine walk-in growth chambers, and labora-

Bayer GreenhouseRTP facility supports development of data packages for trait deregulation

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Response No. 391

39_ICIA_FullPage.indd 3 8/2/2012 1:21:03 PM

Response No. 401

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Response No. 411

their relative abundance in the mRNA with important traits, and then produce markers for these traits.

With bioinformatics techniques, it is possible to associate variation in both the sequences of expressed genes and

A new technique allowing plant breed-ers to introduce valuable crop traits into varieties even without access to the crop’s

full genome sequence is described in Nature Biotechnology. (July

22, 2012 doi:10.1038/nbt.2302).

The technique links important agronomic

traits in crop plants with ac-tive regions of the genome.

Instead of requiring knowledge of the crop’s complete genome, it identifies only expressed genes.

“For many crop plants, markers are still lacking because of the complexity of some plants’ genomes and the very high costs involved,” says Professor Ian Bancroft, who led the study at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, England.

“We have succeeded in developing markers based on the sequences of ex-pressed genes, widening the possibilities for accelerated breeding through marker assisted selection,” he says.

Reading mRNAExpressed genes are converted from ge-nomic DNA to mRNA. Working with mRNA means that there is no need to generate a complete genome sequence from DNA, making the techniques ap-plicable to a wide range of crops, even those with complex genomes such as oilseed rape and wheat.

It also enables the development of ad-vanced marker resources for less studied crops that are important for developing countries or have specific medicinal or industrial properties.

In an example of such an application, the researchers are now working with plant breeding company Limagrain to produce reliable markers for hybrid performance in oilseed rape (canola).

Marker-assisted breeding for this complex trait has previously been unsuc-cessful due to a lack of available markers and appropriate technology.

Genome Not NeededExpressed genes are converted from genomic DNA to mRNA

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Response No. 421

For more information:Taxonomic Name Resolution Service (TNRS) (www.iplantcollaborative.org/discover/taxonomic-name-resolution-service-tnrs)

TNRS resolves plant taxonomic names by passing them through a pro-cess of exact matching, parsing to break names into their component parts, and “fuzzy matching” for near matches.

Two of the analysts are Zhenyuan Lu and Sheldon McKay of Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory, Cold Springs Har-bor, NY. “TNRS is a critical tool to help plant scientists integrate data from diverse sources in virtually every field of plant research,” says Lu.

Internet to gather this diverse informa-tion into one centralized location.

The TNRS database is the work of the iPlant Collaborative, a project funded by the National Science Foundation in conjunction with the Missouri Botanical Gardens and Botanical Information and Ecology Networks.

Resolving High Error RateIt turns out that up to 30% of the names in major biological databases are incor-rect in some way, according to TNRS scientists. Error rates that high greatly reduce confidence in the accuracy of science and limit the ability of the pub-lic and business to discover and utilize information about plants.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, according to Shakespeare. But any other name might confound sci-entists interested in understanding the chemical components of its fragrance or discovering where its ancestors grew in the wild because in biology, an or-ganism’s taxonomic name is the key to finding information about it.

Taxonomic data on the genetic, eco-logical, and agricultural particulars of every known plant is held in repositories scattered all over the globe in university labs, museums, private-sector corpora-tions, and personal computers.

In June, the most complete version of the Taxonomic Name Resolution Service (TNRS) was launched on the

A Rose By Any Other Name...Updated database synchronizes global plant taxonomic information

42_A Rose Name.indd 2 8/6/2012 1:38:58 PM

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Response No. 441

untangle their relationship with cold tolerance, a key agronomic trait to im-prove sorghum. The work is ongoing,” says sorghum breeder Tesso.

An earlier screening work found that a high proportion of cold tolerant sorghum lines contain tannins.

“Several other factors make tannins an important research subject,” says Scott Bean, USDA scientist and adjunct K-State professor.

Bean notes tannins’ antioxidant ca-pacity and relevant health benefits, their natural occurrence in some cereal crops, and their role in sorghum production.

“Knowledge of tannins in biosyn-thesis pathways can be used to generate lines that produce high-content tannins in sorghum and other cereals to promote health through their unique nutritional properties,” he says.

This study, like many studies in recent years, benefits from work done several years ago on Arabidopsis, according to Yuye Wu, the first author and K-State agronomy research associate.

“Many genes have been identified in Arabidopsis, through the mutational approach, but there is still much to be learned about the genetic control of tan-nins in cereal crops,” Wu says.

What the researchers learn about tan-nins in sorghum will be beneficial to the future study of tannins in other plants, including some fruits, vegetables and a few other grains such as barley.

“This kind of genetic research in crops, coupled with nutritional and medical research, could open the pos-sibility of producing different levels and combinations of phenolic compounds to promote human health,” Yu says.

The project was supported in part by the national Sorghum Checkoff program.

Kansas sorghum field (JWF photo)

For more information:Sorghum Checkoff program, Lubbock, TX. (806-687-8727/www.sorghumcheckoff.com)

properties, but also provide a bitter taste and decreased food and feed protein digestibility.

Tannins’ high antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and UV-protective functions promote human health, but tannins also reduce digestibility. In sorghum they provide a natural chemi-cal defense against bird predation and bacterial and fungal attack in the field.

A team of researchers led by agrono-mist Jianming Yu and sorghum breeder Tesfaye Tesso, Kansas State University, Manhattan, are looking to improve sorghum’s use as food and feed.

Cold Tolerance“One key reason to study tannins is to

Tannins in certain sorghums can be either a blessing or a curse. They contain health-promoting antioxidant

Unraveling Sorghum’s TanninUnderstand sorghum’s tannin may lead to improved cold tolerance

44_Sorghum.indd 2 8/3/2012 11:45:12 AM

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45_Sensient_fullpage.indd 3 8/2/2012 1:19:52 PM

Response No. 461

46_CompuWeigh_fullpage.indd 3 8/2/2012 1:15:59 PM


Response No. 471

The new line provides a source of root knot resistance but is not intended as a commercial cultivar.

ity, it resists the root-knot nematode, and it can grow all over the southeastern United States,” Davis says.

Plant breeders have struggled for years to develop resistant cotton lines

in part because cot-ton has a diverse and complicated ge-nome – some plants are diploid, some are tetraploid – making it difficult to cross resistant landraces with commercial cultivars.

Developing lines resistant to root-knot nematode has been particularly challenging because resistance is a multi-gene trait.

“Finding genetic markers is critical if we want cotton

breeders and private companies to get involved and begin developing commercial varieties with nematode resistance,” says Richard Davis, an USDA-ARS plant pathologist at the Coastal Plain Experiment Station, Tifton, GA.

His research has taken on a sense of urgency because the widely used nema-ticide Temik is scheduled to be discon-tinued due to health and environmental concerns.

Davis and colleagues have released a root-knot-nematode-resistant line for breeders to use to develop commercially acceptable materials. They have identi-fied and transferred resistance genes from wild germplasm from Mexico and Central America into cotton culti-vars and releasing the resulting lines as breeding tools.

They are now hunting for additional genetic markers that will open pathways toward development of commercially viable resistant lines.

“What makes this release significant is that it has extremely good fiber qual-

Cotton Nematode ResistanceWild tropical cultivars provide resistance for commercial varieties

Root-knot nem-a t ode (USDA photo).

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47_Cotton Nematodes.indd 3 8/3/2012 3:03:06 PM


Response No. 481

in June upheld a lower court’s ruling that Monsanto’s levy on farmers for using Round-up Ready technology is illegal, noting that the pat-ents relating to Roundup Ready soybeans have ex-pired in Brazil.

The Court ordered Monsanto to stop collecting royalties and return those col-lected since 2004 or refund a minimum of US$2 billion.

Monsanto Sues DuPont Pioneer Over the ‘Seed Chipper’

Monsanto filed a lawsuit in June accusing DuPont Pioneer of patent infringement on its “seed chipper” technology. Mon-santo holds 12 patents on the system.

The system uses a laser to chip a small piece off a kernel of corn for genetic

Bayer’s right to pursue its claims against Dow AgroSciences (DAS) based upon DAS’s unauthorized use of Bayer patents related to glufos-inate-tolerance technology was af-firmed by a federal court in July.

The U.S. District Court ordered Dow to enter into arbitration with Bayer within 30 days as per a broad arbitration clause included in the license agreement be-tween the parties.

Bayer’s actions are in defense of its glufosinate-tolerance, 2,4-D herbicide tolerance and glyphosate-tolerance tech-nology patents, traits DAS has stacked in its Enlist™ Weed Control System.

Monsanto to Refund Fees to Brazil’s Farmers

The Brazilian Supreme Court of Justice

Bayer-Dow Patent Lawsuit Continues

L e g a L n O t e S

analysis without destroying the seed. Monsanto wants Pioneer to stop using the machine and stop selling any prod-ucts developed using the chipper.

arkansas Sue Ricetec for Defective Seed

Fifty one farmers and farming opera-tions have joined an Arkansas rice farmer in a July lawsuit claiming RiceTec hybrid seed rice is defective and is hurting the U.S. rice industry’s reputation.

The lawsuit is in response to RiceTec suing an Arkansas farmer for not paying his bill after he claimed the Texas-based company didn’t reimburse him for his costs after selling him inferior seed.

The lawsuit claims RiceTec’s hybrid rice does not mill as well as non-hybrid long-grain rice and is hurting the indus-try’s reputation.

48_Legal Notes.indd 2 8/3/2012 1:06:01 PM

Response No. 491

49_Satake_fullpage.indd 3 8/2/2012 1:16:52 PM

in Gatersleben, Germany. Construction is underway for a nearby 15,000-square-foot greenhouse and laboratory facility.

• Dow AgroSciences LLC opened its new Olivia, MN research and develop-ment facility on July 27.

At the opening, a $15,000 dona-tion from The Dow Chemical Compa-ny Foundation was given to the local Habitat for Human-ity affiliate as a way of giving back to the community.

• DuPont Pio-neer has made a P1-billion (US$24 million) investment in a corn seed processing plant in Luisita, Tarlac. The plant began operation in March 2012.

• Gro Alliance, Cuba City, WI, has completed a 40% expansion of its seed corn drying capacity at its headquarters facility in Cuba City. This is Gro Alli-ance’s third major capacity expansion since last year.

The company also signed an agree-ment in June to acquire Bo Jac Seed Company’s Mt. Pulaski, IL seed corn production location.

• Monsanto announced in June it is planning a $329 million seed corn pro-duction facility in Cordoba, Argentina. When completed in 2013, the plant will produce seed to plant 8.6 million acres annually. With the new facility, Monsanto says Argentina will have the world’s two largest seed corn production facilities.

The company is also planning new experimental facilities in Cordoba and Tucuman province.

• In July, Monsanto Canada held the grand opening of its expanded DEKALB® canola seed processing plant in Lethbridge, Alberta. The facility has capacity to process over 10,000 acres of hybrid canola seed production.

Monsanto Canada’s next generation canola trait - TruFlex Roundup Ready™ canola - is expected to have its commer-


Response No. 502

announced plans for a new corn condi-tioning facility near Ogden, IA, 60 miles northwest of Des Moines. Completion is scheduled for summer, 2013.

• Bayer CropSciences has opened a new European Wheat Breeding Center

From equipment expansions to new world-class conditioning facilities, seed companies recently announced new construction worldwide valued collec-tively at several hundred million dollars.

• Agreliant Genetics, Westfield, IN,

Seed Industry Facility Expansions

c o r p o r at E n o t E S

Response No. 501

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Response No. 511

ness will be headquartered in Wabash.McKillip Seeds was established

in 1934 and Adler Seed Company launched in 1937.

• Monsanto and the Illinois Crop Improvement Association, Champaign, IL, in July added the stacked combina-tion of Genuity Roundup Ready 2 Yield® and Bt soybean technologies to their trait introgression services agreement.

Illinois Crop Improvement Associa-tion facilitates access of these traits to licensees authorized by Monsanto.

cial preview launch in 2014.• Syngenta is in the midst of ex-

panding its Phillips, NE, corn facility. Construction began in June and is an-ticipated to be completed in time for the 2013 harvest.

The expansion will provide a new green corn receiving facility, additional single pass reversing dryer capacity, a new conditioning tower, and additional bulk seed storage.

The added capacity will support con-tracting up to 5,500 additional acres of seed production.

Acquisitions, Mergers, and Collaborations

• Dow AgroSciences and The Royal Barenbrug Group in June announced a strategic relationship for the devel-opment and commercialization of

advanced germplasm in forage seeds.

Dow AgroSciences will be a minority share-holder in Barenbrug Holding B.V. and will provide Barenbrug access to select hybrid Brachi-aria germplasm.

Barenbrug will form a new entity in Brazil to build a clean-ing, coating, and packaging facility to process hybrid Brachiaria for Dow AgroSciences and other tropical grasses and legumes.

• GreenLeaf Genetics LLC, a Syn-genta subsidiary, Minnetonka, MN, has acquired JGL, Inc., Plymouth, IN, a soybean and wheat genetics licensing company.

The addition of JGL wheat licensing compliments Syngenta’s wheat portfolio that is distributed through AgriPro® associates.

• INCOTEC®, Salinas, CA, has taken over all the activities and operations of Landec Ag LLC, Oxford, IN, a devel-oper and producer of functionalized polymer coatings for the seed industry.

INCOTEC will obtain exclusive license rights to market Intellicoat® Polli-nator Plus® technology. Both companies will jointly research the development of new polymer technologies.

• McKillip Seeds, Wabash, IN, and AgVenture Adler Seeds, Lafayette, IN, announced in July plans to join together as AgVenture McKillip Seeds. The busi-

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Dale Walters reports that if parent plants are stimulated to protect themselves against fungal attack, their seeds can also be programmed with the same “self-defense” mechanism which will help protect the next generation.

“These results raise the possibility of producing seed already primed for re-sistance to a pathogen’s [disease-causing organisms] attack,” Walters says. “Given the vulnerability of plants to pathogens in the early stages of growth, this kind of natural, in-built protection could be a very useful addition to our battery of crop protection methods.”

Walters’ observations add credence to the idea of soft inheritance (epi-genetics) whereby heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype are caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA se-quence.

parent plants was published in June by a research team from the Scottish Agri-cultural College, Edinburgh. Professor

A technique by which barley pre-arms its seeds with resistance to the same fungal disease experienced by the

Epigenetic InheritanceRecent research revives the concept of soft inheritance

Response No. 522

Response No. 521 Lamarckian InheritanceTwo hundred years ago, French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829) published his theory that the main means by which organ-isms adapt and evolve is by adaptive changes in response to local environ-ments which are then passed on to offspring.

Support for Lamarckian inheri-tance fluctuated over the years. In 1942, an English geneticist intro-duced the term ‘epigenetic’ to identify heritable changes in gene expression or cellular phenotype caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence.

The molecular basis for epigenetics is complex, controversial, and the subject of ongoing research including DNA methylation studies.

Joe Funk, editor

52_Barley.indd 2 8/3/2012 11:50:37 AM

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Response No. 531

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54_55_Basf_fullpage.indd 2 8/6/2012 11:25:08 AM

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Response No. 551

54_55_Basf_fullpage.indd 3 8/6/2012 11:25:28 AM

Response No. 561

56_ASTA_Fullpage.indd 2 8/2/2012 2:06:59 PM


Response No. 571

regulation of crossovers could provide ac-cess to hitherto unknown combinations of beneficial traits.

opens promising perspectives in culti-vated plants where an increase in genetic recombination during reproduction via

Meiosis is a specific type of cell divi-sion that generates gametes (sexual cells) in all living beings which reproduce sexually. Meiosis consists of two suc-cessive cell divisions after which each of the four daughter cells – future gametes – only contain half of the chromosomes of the parent that produced them.

Just before the first division, chro-mosomes from each pair match up and some parts cross over. This is when fragments of genetic material can be exchanged between the chromosomes.

This natural crossing-over phenom-enon contributes to the recombination of genetic information and produces chromosomes that are unique from the parental chromosomes.

Crossing-over also plays a mechani-cal role because it is essential for the correct distribution of chromosomes to daughter cells.

“In cultivated plants, it may be inter-esting to exploit such genetic recombi-nation in order to group essential traits of agronomic interest in new varieties,” say Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), Paris, France researchers focused on the mechanisms that regulate crossovers in Arabidopsis thaliana.

The scientists searched for new muta-tions capable of restoring crossovers and fertility with the idea that this would enable them to identify the genes that limit the number of crossovers.

New Enzyme DiscoveredThey identified FANCM, an enzyme in the helicase family which limits de-velopment of crossovers during meiosis in A. thaliana. A mutation of the gene coding for FANCM was able to restore the crossovers in zmm protein mutants.

Until now, FANCM was known to intervene in DNA repair. Also in plants, only factors promoting the formation of crossovers had been discovered.

The researchers report this discovery

Mutations for Beneficial TraitsDiscovery may facilitate easier production of novel trait combinations

p l a N T s c i E N c E

57_Plant Science.indd 3 8/3/2012 1:05:13 PM


Scientists have debated the source of hybrid vigor since the early 1900s.

“We thought that maybe it’s the rest of the genome, the remaining 85% of the corn genome, that’s important,” says Steve Moose, an associate professor of maize functional genomics.

Researchers studying virus resistance originally observed in 1998 the way sRNAs’ function is very different from the functioning of protein-coding genes.

“Every time we have a breakthrough in our knowledge of genetics, people have looked to see if that breakthrough brings any insight into the mystery of the hybrid vigor,” says Moose. “That’s what we’ve done with the small RNAs.”

A ‘Deluge’ of DataMoose and his graduate student Wes Barber sampled small RNAs from the seedling shoot and the developing ear of maize hybrids – two tissues that grow rapidly and program growth.

They found that differences are due mainly to hybrids inheriting distinct small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), a subset of sRNAs, from each parent. The siRNAs interfere with gene expression.

They also found that hybridization does not create new siRNAs, but hybrids have a more complex siRNA population than their parents because they inherit distinct siRNAs from both parents.

Moreover, the differences in parental siRNAs originated primarily from re-peats, which are the result of retrotrans-poson activity. Retrotransposons are elements that move around and amplify themselves within a genome.

“We are not saying that genes are un-important,” says Moose. “But probably the way corn properties are altered in the hybrid situation is mediated by the small RNAs in addition to the genes.”

“When you think about what small RNAs do, they participate in regulating growth and they tell other genes what to do,” Moose concludes.

University of Illinois-Urbana researcher thinks his team has discovered a new source of heterosis in maize.

Looking at small RNAs (sRNAs), a class of double-stranded RNA molecules that are 20 to 25 nucleotides in length, a

Maize Heterosis IdentifiedSmall sRNAs are a previously overlooked source of genetic diversity

Response No. 581

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Response No. 591

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It has been only a few years ago that the cost and time needed to sequence a plant genome had fallen to hundreds of


Response No. 601

Illumina MiSeq bench-top sequencer.

for most of us, but far removed from the $2.7 billion and 13 years needed to sequence the three billion chemical base pairs that make up human DNA.

The cost and time for sequencing a

genome continues to fall. Research car-ried out by scientists at the University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom, have found that new ‘bench-top’ machines for sequencing DNA are capable of accurately identifying over 95% of a genome in a day or two at a cost measured in thousands – not mil-lions – of dollars.

“Over the last five years, there have been dramatic improvements in the speed, ease, and cost of determining DNA sequences, thanks to a range of new technologies that fall under the um-brella term ‘high-throughput sequenc-ing’ or ‘next-generation sequencing,’” says University of Birmingham School of Biosciences Professor Mark Pallen.

The Birmingham scientist compared the performance of three new bench-top instruments in genome-sequencing a strain of Escherichia coli bacteria.

While none of the bench-top se-quencing instruments generated a completely accurate, joined-up, finished genome, all three recovered more than 95% of the strain’s genome.

The researchers say the study shows that whole genome sequencing with bench top technology can now be used in the front line.

thousands of dollars for a run lasting no more than a week or two.

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Response No. 622 Response No. 623

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“ProFume can be used in all areas of seed processing facilities. Because it is non-corrosive, the fumigant can be used without removing electrical or sensitive computerized equipment,” says Ellen Thoms, Ph.D., Dow AgroSciences tech-nical expert for sulfuryl fluoride. “Faster fumigations are possible compared to us-ing phosphine. Chamber fumigations can be completed in 12 hours or less.”

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Response No. 631

lergens,” says FonsecaaTests were performed during three

stages of seed development of MON 810 (DKC6575) maize and its non-transgenic isoline at 10, 16, and 23 days after pollination (DAP).

Lateral flow test strips were used to evaluate the presence or absence of Bt CryIA(b)protein in all samples.

The scientists also used proteomics techniques to compare the immunologic response in two people to have allergenic reactions to non-GM maize.

Measuring Maize AllergensRelative expression of five known maize allergens – Zea m14, Zeam25, Zeam27kD, 50kD Zein, and tryp-

man health.“One of the main concerns about

genetically modified foods and their potential impacts on human health is that the introduction of a new or altered gene may putatively alter the expression of other genes, namely endogenous al-

This article is taken from “Characteriza-tion of maize allergens – MON810 vs. its non-transgenic counterpart” published in Journal of Proteomics volume 75: issue7, April 3, 2012 pp.2027-2037.

An international team led by Cátia Fonsecaa, National Institute of Health, Lisboa, Portugal used quantitative real time RT-PCR to evaluate the expression of five naturally occurring allergens in maize to determine if the presence of an inserted gene for insect resistance af-fected the expression of allergens.

In other words, would an indepen-dent analysis of Bt corn (MON810) determine whether or not transgenic grain presented an increased risk to hu-

No New Allergens in GM CornAn international team finds no evidence of altered allergenicity

“We found no statistically

significant differences.”Research team leaderCátia Fonsecaa,

National Institute of Health Lisboa, Portugal

63-65_Allergen report.indd 3 8/6/2012 11:30:30 AM


Response No. 642Response No. 641

Quantitative real time RT-PCR relative expression results for four allergens during seed development.10 d=10 days after pol-lination; 16 d=16 days after pollination; 23 d=23 days after pollination; C=non-GM control; GM=MON810.


sin inhibitor – was achieved using stan-dard, commercially available laboratory protocols.

ObservationsThe results of relative expressions ob-tained throughout seed development for the five allergens tested are presented here and on the previous page.

“One of the conclusions we can re-trieve from this data is that gene expres-sion varies between replicas,” Fonsecaa says. “The fact that at this developmental stage, starch reserves are reaching the maximum may have contributed to the observed variability.

“Additionally, the eventual presence of other non-nucleic acid compounds may have also interfered with RNA purification and qRT-PCR. These con-ditions together with the natural plant variability may have negatively impacted replicate reproducibility,” Fonsecaa reports.

As previously recommended, plant natural variability should be always con-sidered in any food safety assessment.

Another clear observation was that gene expression was not constant during seed development. Three of the tested genes – Zea m27, Zea m50, and trypsin inhibitor – were almost not expressed 10 DAP. Their expression increased throughout later seed development.

Zea m14, although slightly expressed 10 DAP, also increased during seed de-velopment. On the contrary, Zea m25 expression seemed to be relatively stable along all the analyzed time points.

For the five tested genes, no statistical difference (p<0.05 in t-test) was found in expression levels when comparing

GM vs. non-GM plants.

ConclusionThe published report concludes, “We found no statistically sig-nificant differences in the expression of the five tested maize al-lergens (Zeam14, Zea m25, Zeam27kD, 50kD Zein, and trypsin inhibitor) throughout seed development of MON 810 transgenic vs. its non-transgenic counterpart.”

Considering the small number of allergic subjects tested (two) and the impossibility to correlate the differences found in the immunoreactivity assays with spots in the corresponding gels, the team could not draw conclusions regarding the differential allergenicity of the two maize lines (transgenic vs. non-transgenic).


Response No. 651

Quantitative real time RT-PCR relative expression results. (continued)

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labor, pesticides, and especially the use of irrigation, are also found to have had significant effects.”

IFPRI cautions against the hidden fallout of Bt cotton, such as the loss of local cotton diversity and farming skills in growing traditional cotton varieties.

Moving ForwardThe Central Institute for Cotton Re-search (CICR) in Nagpur, India suggests the best way forward is a mix of strate-gies, ranging from use of Indian variet-ies – especially the neglected long-staple native varieties – to organically grown cotton, dwarf, and compact varieties, and GM cotton with genes to withstand droughts, water-logging and insects.

diversity and farming skills in growing traditional cotton varieties, as well the technology’s limitations in rain-fed areas with few fertilizer inputs.

Researchers from the University of Göttingen, Germany surveyed 533 smallholder farm households between 2002 and 2008. Their report published in July estimates a 24% increase in cotton yields and a 50% rise in profits for farmers who grew GM cotton. As a result, household living standards improved by 18%.

On the other hand, another 2012 report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI),Washington DC, accepted that GM cotton increased cotton yields, but adds that “human

Are India’s farmers better off for planting bollworm resistant Bt cotton? The answers depend on who is doing the counting and which standards are used to measure success.

Private firms involved in marketing GM cotton say farmers have reaped sub-stantial profits from the crop. In contrast, several nongovernmental organizations and farmers’ groups continue to de-nounce GM technology as an over-hyped and unsuitable practice that is ruthlessly promoted by multinational firms.

Caught between these two view-points are those who do not contest the reports of financial profit, but caution against the hidden fallout of this tech-nology, such as the loss of local cotton

Bt Cotton’s Disputed SuccessCompeting interests debate the success of Bt cotton in India


66_ India Bt Cotton.indd 2 8/3/2012 11:48:40 AM

Response No. 671

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in Hertfordshire, where GM wheat is being grown.

No GM crops are grown commer-cially in Britain.

by age, social class, or parts of the coun-try. Liberal Democrat ministers believe many of their party members might be hostile to a big push on GM foods. But there is little sign of widespread oppo-sition among party supporters, whose views are in line with Conservative and Labour voters.

The overall findings are a boost to sci-entists who hope a more “softly, softly” approach to the development of GM crops in Britain will gradually win over a sceptical public.

Anti-GM protestors have sabo-taged crop trials in Britain in recent years by digging up fields. A peaceful demonstration was held in May at the Rothamsted Research Institute

Public opinion within the United Kingdom appears to be shifting in fa-vor of the development of GM crops, according to a ComRes survey for The Independent published in late July.

Asked whether the government should encourage experiments on GM crops so that farmers can reduce the amount of pesticides they use, 64% of the public agreed and 27% disagreed. Nine percent replied “don’t know.”

There was a significant “gender gap”, with women more cautious about the trials than men. While 70% of men believe that such experiments should be encouraged, only 58% of women agree.

However, there were few differences

Lower UK Opposition to GMMen more favorable than women toward GM crop experiments

Rothamsted Research Institute aphid-resistant GM wheat trial.

69_U K Survey.indd 3 8/3/2012 11:47:28 AM



and an EU authorization request has been lodged for at least three months.

In the United States, 96% of the soybean crop is GM. Virtually all of the soybean crop in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay and approximately 90% of Brazil’s crop is GM. According to International Grains Council’s 2012/13 forecast, these countries supply 95% of global soybean exports.

Andrew Watts, commenting on be-half of Britain’s National Farmers Union, told Reuters in early July that he does not anticipate a change in the EU’s ap-proval process in the near future.

“Things aren’t difficult enough yet for there to be the political will to get a resolution,” he says.

have been seeking EU approval for about five years. These soybeans are now in their second U.S. growing season.

“We are possibly not going to be able to maintain our (waiting for EU approval before growing elsewhere),” Wellman says, adding that some private companies might not even seek EU ap-proval for specialized traits because the process is so slow.

Such a decision would raise the pos-sibility of export disruptions if the unap-proved varieties make their way into the soybean export channel.

The EU has agreed to allow traces of unapproved GM material in animal feed imports but only if the crops are ap-proved in a non-EU producing country

Slow European Union approval of GM soybeans poses a growing threat to international trade as the pace of new trait development accelerates, says American Soybean Association President Steve Wellman.

“The potential for market disruption is going to increase,” he says, adding that it takes around four years to get EU ap-proval compared with about two years in the United States and Brazil.

Wellman says U.S. growers have generally avoided planting GM soybean varieties not yet approved for import by the European Union.

One exception is soybeans that have been modified to have a high oleic con-tent, a trait for which seed companies

Export Impasse LoomsMore GM soybean traits on a collision course with slow EU approvals

70_Slow EU.indd 2 8/2/2012 2:12:42 PM



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displayed greater water loss and leaf evaporative cooling.

The researchers suggest that the increased spacing of leaves observed in high temperature-grown plants may promote the diffusion of water vapor from stomata, thereby enhancing the cooling process.

“Temperature and water availability are major factors affecting plant yield,” say Dr. Kerry Franklin and Professor Alistair Hetherington at Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences. “Understanding the relationship between temperature, plant architecture, and water use is therefore essential for maximizing future crop production and ensuring food secu-rity in a changing climate.”

Plants elongate their stems when grown at high temperature to facilitate the cooling of their leaves, according to new research from the University of Bristol in Bristol, England.

Although scientists have made sig-nificant advances in understanding how plants elongate at high temperature, little is known of the physiological consequences of this response.

To investigate these consequences, researchers studied thale cress (Arabi-dopsis thaliana). When grown at higher temperatures, plants have an elongated, spindly architecture and develop fewer leaf pores, known as stomata.

However, in spite of having a reduced number of stomata, the elongated plants

How Plants Cool ItPlants elongate stems to cool their leaves

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Response No. 721

G M C r o p s i n t h e e n v i r o n M e n t

Mirid bug(Trigonotylus caelestialium)

the next. This is important if you want to de-

fine an ecological base line, for instance if you want to develop a monitoring

system for approved Bt corn. Of course, differences be-

tween the years depend on the weather. We also show that different farming methods have an impact, e.g. field irrigation.

In the laboratory you fo-cused on a specific species – a mirid bug that you selected

as a model organism. What makes this particular mirid bug a good model organism?

Our “pet” mirid bug (Trigo-notylus caelestialium) is inter-esting because it ingests the Bt proteins from the plants. It is also very abundant in the field. The bugs are easy to catch,

simple to identify, and you can keep and breed them in the laboratory. What is particularly interesting is that this mirid bug is found almost all over the world.

You built up your own breeding pro-gram with this species of mirid bug

field over a period of around 10 weeks in each growing season from 2008 to 2010. To trap organisms in the herbaceous layer we took samples using the net on three occasions in the year.

The second technique in-volved sticky boards. The third technique involved shake samples. We shook the male inflorescences and caught the insects that were between the anthers and the pollen.

What did you discover?In conclusion, we can say

that we were unable to detect a Bt effect. In other words, we found no evidence that cultiva-tion of the Bt corn variety had an impact.

But we did discover a range of other effects. We identified a varietal effect. For many of the groups of organisms there was a difference, even at species level, in one of our conventional control varieties. That one was always a bit different – some-times the results were higher, sometimes lower than the others.

In addition, we demonstrated that there were differences from one year to

For three summers in a row, Eva Schul-theis and her team at RWTH Aachen Uni-versity, Aachen, Germany, caught insects in corn trial fields and then identified the insect species to determine whether insect communities found in Bt corn differ from those in conventional corn.

In a January, 2012 interview by Ger-many’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research and published on the agency’s GMO safety web site, Schultheis describes her team’s research.

GMO Safety: The Bt corn in question produces three Bt proteins which tar-get the European corn borer and the Western corn rootworm. In your re-search you concentrated on particular insects. Which ones were they?

Eva Schultheis: We concentrated on groups of organisms that come into contact with the Bt protein from the Bt corn, i.e. ones that feed on the plants or ones that prey on the organisms that feed on the plants and therefore ingest the proteins indirectly. We wanted to see whether these insects are adversely affected by Bt corn.

What field methods did you use ?We caught the organisms in the corn

insects Coexist with Bt CornInsect communities not influenced by Bt corn

72-73_Bt and Insects.indd 2 8/2/2012 2:22:23 PM



gated a number of different factors and we can say that there are differences between the different varieties. This is visible in the nymphal development time, for instance.

There is no clear effect caused by the Bt variety. Rather, the Bt variety always behaves in a very similar way to the near-isogenic variety, whereas there are differences between these and the control varieties.

You also investigated whether the Bt proteins remain active once they have been ingested by the insects.

We wanted to know whether the Bt proteins ingested by the insects play a role in the food web. This is why we took a bioassay that had been established here in the laboratory and adapted it to the target organism, the European corn borer. We then concentrated extracts from our mirid bugs and fed them to corn borer larvae. We were able to demonstrate that 17% of the corn borer larvae we used in the test died as a result. So we can say that the proteins are bioactive.

and conducted various laboratory tests. What were you investigating in these laboratory tests?

First of all we caught mirid bugs in the field and brought them into the laboratory. The first step then was to establish a method of breeding them on corn. We were successful and man-aged to breed up to four generations per year. In a second step we conducted a full-life-cycle test. We documented the development of the bugs from egg laying to hatching and nymphal development to adult insect and egg laying again, on the four corn varieties we were studying.

We also conducted various feeding trials. For instance, we observed whether there are differences in feeding behavior between varieties. To do this, we mea-sured the area eaten by a bug each day. Then we kept the bugs on Bt corn for a while and then transferred them to conventional corn to see whether the Bt proteins in the bug stay there and accumulate or whether they are excreted again. That would be important in the food chain, if the insects were accumu-lating large quantities of Bt proteins.

And did you notice any abnormali- ties?

We did not observe any differences in the feeding experiments that investi-gated feeding quantities. In the feeding trials where we started by keeping the bugs on Bt corn and then moved them to conventional corn we were able to see that the Bt proteins had completely disappeared from the bugs after six hours, so we can assume that there is no accumulation of Bt proteins in the bugs that could have impacts on the food web.

In the full-life-cycle test, we investi-

“We found no evidence

that cultivation of the Bt

corn variety had an impact.”Eva Schultheis,

RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

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to stop people starving would be to help them produce more food.

Now famous as the father of the Green Revo-lution, Borlaug has been credited with saving the lives of one billion people.

A Harder Task AwaitsWe must heed Borlaug’s plea to deploy the full range of cutting-edge techniques to produce higher yielding, higher quality, lower input, lower envi-ronmental impact crops.

Among the techniques that Borlaug highlighted are gene manipulation ap-proaches that promise to deliver results faster and more precisely than the clas-sical crop breeding techniques.

This article taken from the London Telegraph, May 23, 2012 by Professor Malcolm Elliott, founding director of the Norman Borlaug Institute for Global Food Security at Rothamsted Research, Harpenden, England.

Paul Ehrlich in 1969 wrote in his book Population Bomb that “mass star-vation” due to “burgeoning population growth” was inevitable. “It is now too late to take action” to avoid hundreds of mil-lions of deaths in developing countries, he declared, more than 40 years ago.

That Ehrlich was wrong, both mor-ally and factually, was largely due to the efforts of one man. Norman Borlaug was as concerned about population growth as Ehrlich, but instead of making doom-laden prophecies about mass death, he decided that the best course of action

The Cost of Anti-GM Zealotry

C o M M e n T A r y

During the period from 1996 to 2011, millions of farmers in 29 countries worldwide chose to plant and replant an accumulated acreage of 5.9 billion acres [of GM crops]– a testimony to the fact that such crops deliver sustainable and sub-stantial socioeconomic and environmental benefits.

Progress has not been smooth. Borlaug was forced

to spend his dying years campaigning to protect agricultural innovations like GM from being derailed by activists who opposed all genetic engineering for ideo-logical reasons, or were simply against modern biotechnology on principle.

As Borlaug warned in 2004, success for the anti-GM lobby could be cata-

Malcolm Elliott

Response No. 741

Scientists near London, England at Rothamsted Research – one of the world’s oldest plant research centers – turned public opinion against anti-GM activists and are continuing their open-air evaluation of aphid-resistant GM wheat.

Since the GM spring wheat was planted in 2012, Ro-thamsted has been the target of a sustained anti-GM media campaign, a protest, vandalism, and even a cyber attack.

During a protest in May, a group threatened to destroy the crop. It warned that if the trial was allowed to continue, the pollen from the GM wheat would fertilize conventional crops in the area making it impossible to keep GM wheat from entering the food chain.

In the days before a scheduled protest in May, Rothamsted researchers launched their own media campaign to counter what they saw as the myths perpetrated by anti-GM groups.

They called on the campaigners to refrain from destroying the GM crop, which they say represents a “paradigm shift” in GM technology.

“Most of the opinions I saw expressed from the general public were in favor of the scientists,” says Mark Lynas, an environmentalist-turned-GM-advocate. “The debate was framed not in the sense of are you pro or anti-GM, which might have had a different answer, but are you pro or anti destroying scientific research. And people are not in favor of destroying scientific experiments before the results can be yielded.”

Protest Thwarted

74-75_Zealotry.indd 2 8/2/2012 2:25:03 PM


Institute here in the United Kingdom. A group called “Take the Flour Back”

has pledged to destroy the entire trial site. The threatened “decontamination” by anti-GM zealots is supposedly in response to the danger of pollen from the wheat spreading to neighboring fields. The activists seem to be laboring under the misunderstanding that wheat is wind pollinated, whereas in fact it is self-pollinating, so little if any pollen ever leaves the plant. This sadly testifies to the extent of their understanding of agriculture.

It is important to understand what the scientists at Rothamsted are trying to do. Their experiments test the important ecological concept that natural behavior modifying pheromones – which repel sap-sucking aphids – can be used to protect crops in the same way as they protect wild plants. The project is publicly-funded and, if it is successful, the results will not be patented.

Indeed, if successful the trial runs counter to the interests of the agro-chemical industry because it may point the way to another type of plant protec-

strophic: “If the naysayers do manage to stop agricultural biotechnology, they might actually precipitate the famines and the crisis of global biodiversity they have been predicting for nearly 40 years.”

This warning seems particularly prescient right now, as anti-GM activ-ists threaten to destroy publicly-funded research on wheat at the Rothamsted

tion which reduces insecticide use and the effects on non-target insects, and thereby benefit both biodiversity and productivity at the same time.

However, the activists seem impervi-ous to scientific reasoning.

Ideologically Motivated MinorityStill, constant attacks by a tiny, ideologi-cally motivated minority on work which could benefit the whole of humanity raise serious questions. Can a small, thuggish “action group” take a unilateral decision to suppress the advance of knowledge which might benefit everyone?

If so, they will continue wilfully to deprive farmers of the benefits of a technology that is already cherished by millions of producers worldwide, and limit the response of distinguished sci-entists to the needs of the billion people who are already starving.

This attack on both scientists and the scientific method cannot go unop-posed. It is incumbent upon everyone who values science and reason to stand up to vandalism and the destruction of legitimate scientific experiments.

“Can a small, thuggish ‘action group’ take a uni-lateral decision to suppress the advance of knowledge which might benefit every-

one?”Professor Malcolm Elliott, found-

ing director of the Norman Borlaug Institute for Global Food Security


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The Chairman of Nigeria’s Senate Committee on Capital Market, Sena-tor Ayoade Ademola Adeseun, says that biotechnology presents Nigeria the op-portunity of attaining food security for the nation.

Adeseun spoke at a June 2012 South West Zonal Open Forum on Agricultur-al Biotechnology in Ibadan, Nigeria. He lamented the dearth of young and virile farmers who will employ biotechnology to boost agricultural production.

“It is only wise for us to take ad-vantage of the new development in science and technology that will make it possible for a man to produce more food. Nigeria can feed the rest of African countries with biotechnology, if we pool our resources together; if we accept this new technology, one farmer can feed 40 people instead of one farmer feeding his family alone.”

In the next five years, Adeseun an-ticipates Nigeria can be feeding the rest of the world, not only Africa. “It is only wise for us to take advantage of the new development in science and technology

that will make it possible for a man to produce more food. Nigeria can feed the rest of African countries with bio-technology.”

Professor Bamidele Solomon, Direc-

tor General of National Biotechnology Development Agency, says, “We need a biosafety law in place, because when we have a law, we will be able to deploy this new technology to our farmers; but at the stage which we are now, we can only do confined field trials.

“We cannot do even multi-locational trial, not to talk of commercialization. This is a sad aspect for those of us want-ing to develop biotechnology,” he says.

G l o b a l b i o t e c h n o l o G y n o t e s

nigeria needs biotech crops

israel

Pharma carrots

Worldwide, there are currently 21 weed species resistant to glyphosate compared to 69 weed species resistant to triazine herbicides such as atrazine.

Worldwide

ht Weeds

Zambia

orange MaizeThe HarvestPlus Campaign is hoping to develop orange maize varieties contain-ing provitamin A carotenoids to reduce childhood morbidity in Zambia. The orange maize not only provides vital nutrients, it is also tasty and especially appealing to children because of its distinctive color.

Two multinational companies have completed the field trials in Pakistan in compliance with government regula-tions, and have submitted applications seeking approval for GM corn varieties.

Zeeshan Mazhar reports in Palistan’s Business Recorder that Gm corn “has the capability to significantly reduce the losses caused by certain chewing insect pests and weeds which in turn result in higher production.”

“Pakistani farmers are eagerly look-ing forward to the commercialization of GM corn because they know that it can help them in increasing yields,” Mazhar says.

Pakistan

ht, bt cornOn May 1, 2012, the U.S. FDA granted approval for ELELYSO, an enzyme produced by GM carrots for long-term enzyme replacement thera-py to treat a form of Gaucher disease, a rare human genetic disorder.

This is the first USDA approval of a drug produced in GM plant cells. The new treatment is expected to be 25% less costly than existing enzymes produced in mammalian cell cultures.

Protalix BioTherapeutics Inc., Carmiel, Israel, developed the meth-od to create the human enzyme in carrots. ELELYSO is manufactured and distributed by Pfizer Inc., under license from Protalix.

Scientists at the Riken Nishina Centre for Accelerator-Based Science in Saitama, Japan, are using a particle accelerator to bombard rice with heavy ions in hopes of producing useful ge-netic mutations to create salt-tolerant plants.

Using carbon atoms stripped of their electrons produces between 10 and 100 times more mutations as traditional ir-radiation. Of 600 seeds that underwent irradiation, 250 thrived and produced healthy seeds.

Next, 50 grains from each of the successful plants will be planted and evaluated in salt-water fields. The best resulting plants will be selected for crossbreeding to concentrate desirable mutations into reproducible lines with new varieties.

About a third of the world’s rice paddies have salt problems where yields may be only half of fresh water yields.

Japan

nuclear Rice

76-77_Global Notes.indd 2 8/3/2012 2:58:37 PM


Ireland

GM PotatoesOver the past five years, research

into GM crops has become a pillar of China’s agricultural reform strategy. Government investment in the tech-nology has increased steadily, and more and more multinationals are investing in their own research facilities, rush-ing to establish a foothold in a huge potential market. “It’s important that we are an active participant in China,” says Andrew McConville, head of cor-porate affairs for the Asia Pacific region for Syngenta.

But while scientists and govern-ment leaders have advocated for the technology, the adoption of GM crops for commercial cultivation has been hindered by growing popular concern over their safety.

“There is a deal of public tension,”

China

Developing New GM Cropsnotes McConville. “I think the gov-ernment is making sure the safety and regulatory regimes are in place for adoption -- and they are trying to make sure that consumers are brought along on the journey.”

China is also using crop biotech-nology in a very significant way with very large resources compared to other countries.

“They are looking to develop their own home-grown technology,” says Clive James, founder of the Interna-tional Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA).

“They have a program to increase the baking quality of wheat; they’ve also got a program to look at a gene that will control the sprouting of grain,” James says.

Response No. 771

Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in late July gave the go-ahead for a GM late blight-resistant potato to be field tested. Opponents have a three month window to lodge a judicial review of the license.

Five acres will be planted over four years to assess how the GM potatoes cope with less fungicidal spray.

Blight-resistant GM potatoes have been tested in the Netherlands with no unforeseen effects. Tests are also being carried out in Belgium and the United Kingdom.

Some scientists consider late blight, a very common disease in Ireland, to be the most dangerous potato disease in the world because of how rapidly it can spread when conditions are warm and moist.

76-77_Global Notes.indd 3 8/3/2012 2:58:53 PM

Nigeria’s Sure Way


“In reviewing the past decade of apocalyptic predictions related to all foods genetically engineered, I can only conclude, what a massive waste of well-meaning time, energy and money that could have been instead devoted to fewer people sick from microbial foodborne illness.

“Whatever kinds of food production, pro-cessing and distribution system we humans come up with, what matters is not the tech-nology, but whether the results make people sick. There’s lots of food-related things that sicken 30% of all citizens in developed countries each and every year – genetically engineered food isn’t one of them.”

Dr. Doug Powell, Professor of Food SafetyKansas State University, Manhattan

What A Waste

Adeseun at the June 2012, South West Zonal Open Forum on Agricultural Biotechnology in

Ibadan, Nigeria.

“It is only wise for us to take advantage of the new development in science and technology that will make it possible for a man to produce more food.

“Nigeria can feed the rest of African coun-tries with biotechnology, if we pool our resourc-es together; if we accept this new technology, one farmer can feed 40 people instead of one farmer feeding his family alone.

“And in the next five years, Nigeria can be feeding the rest of the world, not only Africa. A country that is so endowed with land, water and people, but yet we don’t produce our own food.”

He concluded that the only way to open that door for our people is through biotechnology.

Chairman of Nigeria’s Senate Committee on Capital Market, Senator Ayoade Ademola

P E R S P E C T I V E S O N S E E D B I O T E C H N O L O G Y

“I think in this case the feeling among a group of people campaigning very strongly against GM is that they are so very right and the scientists so very wrong that the only explana-tion for the GM wheat research going ahead and finding support is that there is a powerful conspiracy.”

Tracey Brown, Sense About Science.org, on

the GM debate between Take the Flour Back and Rothamsted Re-

search (June 1, 2012)

“It’s fine to hope that groups traditionally op-posed to GMO crops will understand and ap-preciate the outputs generated by transcription activator-like (TAL) effectors, TAL-induced variations. [TALs remove a small stretch of DNA from a genome to achieve a desired phynotypic response.] However, 20 years of experience has shown that such hope is totally unjustified.

“The protest industry will never voluntarily go out of business. There’s far too much money to be made, and political power to be gained. Why indeed should crops with deletions not be considered GMOs? Call them ‘crippled crops’ or something and ask for donations.

“If the money flows, they’re GMOs.”

Eric BaumholerBioFortified.com (May 17, 2012)

Still Safe

“Twenty tons per hectare ought to be an aver-age wheat yield in England in 20 years. Under current conditions, with the germplasm that already exists, fields are getting 10 t/ha.

“Already, in New Zealand, trials have reached 15 t/ha, so we’re not far off.

“It may take some more changes, including improvement of genetics, plant protection, increased photosynthesis, plant architecture, root structure and therefore the improvement of nutritional capabilities.

“It will also be things you don’t see; the root mass and how it reacts with the soil to extract nutrients in an efficient manner, increasing the growing season by six to eight weeks. If you put these things together, 20 t/ha is not a ridiculous aspiration.”

Dr. Maurice Moloney, Director and Chief Executive, Rothamsted Research,

Harpenden, Hertfordshire, England

2032 Wheat

“..the Union of Con-cerned Scientists (USC) asserts that a hallmark of misrepresenting sci-ence is “emphasizing unknowns” while si-multaneously “ignoring what is known.

“Yet this seems to be precisely the strategy that the UCS pursues in its campaign against biotech crops.”

Ronald Bailey Reason.com

(blog June 14, 2012)

Italian Plea“Without research and innovation in agri-culture Italian farming is going to disappear. Italian farms must be able to compete in the global market.”

A letter by 200 scientists and farmers to Italian President Napolitano

and Prime Minister Monti

78_Perspectives.indd 2 8/3/2012 11:46:49 AM

Response No. 791

79_MaljohnPlastics_FullPage.indd 2 8/2/2012 1:26:43 PM

ing additional information is available at www.isb.vt.edu/search-release-data.aspx. Phenotype Category Key

AP - Agronomic properties BR - Bacterial resistanceFR - Fungal resistance GC - Genetic containmentHT - Herbicide tolerance IR - Insect resistance MG - Marker gene NR - Nematode resistanceOO - Other PQ - Product quality VR - Virus resistance

tions for each crop. Also presented is a summary of the traits included in all applications for each crop.

An institution must obtain an APHIS permit prior to releasing (plant-

ing) a regulated organism into the en-vironment. APHIS permits require the holder to follow a set of strict biosanitary procedures.

Having obtained a permit, however, does not obligate an institution to re-lease the specified organism.

A list of all permit applications for field release of regulated plants includ-

The U.S. agencies re-sponsible for regulating biotechnology are the U.S. Department of Agricul-ture (USDA), Environ-mental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Within USDA, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) regulations provide procedures for insti-tutions to obtain a permit or for provid-ing notification, prior to “introducing” a regulated article in the United States.

The following table summarizes the institutions making permit applica-

Field Test Permit ApplicationsSecond Quarter 2012 APHIS permit applications to field test regulated plants


U S D A / A P H I S

Summary of Field Testing Permit ApplicationsSubmitted to APHIS During Second Quarter 2012

Crop Participating Institution Phenotypes Being Evaluated

American Chestnut University of Georgia FR-Chestnut Blight Resistant FR-Phytophthora Resistant Arabidopsis Thaliana Brown University OO-Altered Flowering Time Barley Arcadia Biosciences AP-Nitrogen Utilization Efficiency Increased USDA-ARS FR-Fusarium Head Blight Resistance PQ-Amylopectin-Free Starch Corn Agrivida Inc AP-Altered Endosperm Development BASF Plant Science AP-Altered Kernel Development Bayer CropScience AP-Altered Lignin Biosynthesis Biogemma AP-Altered Maturity Biogemma AP-Altered Nitrogen Metabolism Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory AP-Altered Plant Development Dow AgroSciences LLC AP-Altered Plant Hormone Response DuPont Pioneer AP-Altered Stalk Attributes Florida State University AP-Cold Tolerant Forage Genetics International AP-Drought Tolerant Genective S.A. AP-Enhanced Beta Carotene Levels In Endosperm Iowa State University AP-Improved Stress Tolerance Monsanto AP-Increased Yield Montana State University AP-Increased Yield Stability Pennsylvania State University AP-Iron Biofortification In Endosperm

80-83_APHIS.indd 2 8/2/2012 2:13:49 PM


Corn (continued) Plant Gene Expression Center AP-Nitrogen Utilization Efficiency Increase Rutgers University AP-Photosynthesis Enhanced Southern Illinois University AP-Yield Enhancement Syngenta AP-Yield Increased University of Florida FR-Aspergillus Flavus Resistant University of Illinois HT-Als Inhibitor Tolerant University of Missouri HT-Glufosinate Tolerant University of Rhode Island HT-Glyphosate Tolerant University of Wisconsin HT-Imidazolinone Tolerant USDA-ARS HT-Phosphinothricin Tolerant IR-Coleopteran Resistant IR-Lepidopteran Resistant MG-Anthocyanin Produced In Seed MG-Bialophos Resistance MG-Colored Sectors In Seeds MG-Seed Color Altered OO-Altered Auxin Transport OO-Altered Inflorescence Architecture OO-Anthocyanin Levels Decreased OO-Anthocyanin Levels Increased OO-Delayed Shoot Maturation OO-Fusion Protein For DNA Tethering OO-Gene Expression Altered OO-Increased Transformation Frequency OO-Method Development OO-Protein Epitope Tagging OO-Silenced Chromatin Remodeling Complex OO-Silenced DNA Methyltransferase OO-Silenced DNA Repair Protein OO-Silenced Endonuclease Protein OO-Silenced Enhancer RNA Methyltransferase OO-Silenced Histone Deacetylase OO-Silenced Histone Methyltransferase Protein OO-Silenced Lignin Biosynthesis Protein OO-Silenced Nucleosome Assembly Factor OO-Silenced Polymerase Protein OO-Silenced Protein Involved In Flowering Time OO-Silenced Regulatory Protein OO-Silenced Transcription Factor Regulating Pigment PQ-Altered Amino Acid Composition PQ-Digestibility Improved PQ-Dry Matter Content Increased PQ-Fatty Acid Level Altered PQ-Improved Seed Composition PQ-Improved Seed Fiber Quality PQ-Normal Pollen Transmission PQ-Protein Quality Altered PQ-Seed Protein Content Increase PQ-Starch Metabolism Altered Cotton Bayer CropScience AP-Adventious Root Formation Increased Dow AgroSciences LLC AP-Branching Increased Monsanto AP-Cold Tolerance Increased Texas A&M University AP-Drought Tolerance Increased Texas Tech University AP-Flower And Fruit Set Increased USDA-ARS AP-Flowering Time Altered AP-Longer Stems AP-Photosynthesis Enhanced FR-Alternaria Alternata Resistant FR-Fusarium Resistant

Crop Participating Institutions Phenotypes Being Evaluated

Small-scall maize production in South Africa.

80-83_APHIS.indd 3 8/2/2012 2:14:04 PM

Cotton (continued) FR-Rhizoctonia Solani Resistant FR-Verticillium Dahliae Resistant HT-Dicamba Tolerant HT-Glufosinate Tolerant IR-Hemiptera Resistance PQ-Fiber Quality Altered PQ-Seed-Gossypol Reduced Eucalyptus Hybrid ArborGen AP-Cold Tolerance Increased Loblolly Pine ArborGen AP-Growth Rate Altered Mouse-Ear Thale Cress University of Wyoming BR-Kanamycin Resistant HT-Glufosinate Tolerant HT-Phosphinothricin Tolerant IR-General Insect Resistance MG-Basta Resistance MG-Gus Expression MG-Hygromycin Resistant MG-Luciferase OO-Kanamycin Resistance OO-Light Response Altered Nicotiana Sylvestris North Carolina State University MG-Kanamycin Resistant OO-Modified Leaf Surface Chemistry Canola Arcadia Biosciences AP-Drought Tolerance Increased BASF Plant Science AP-Yield Increased Monsanto HT-Dicamba Tolerant HT-Glyphosate Tolerant HT-Imidazole Tolerant HT-Imidazolinone Tolerant PQ-Improved Seed Composition Peanut Ngategen Inc AP-Drought Tolerance Increased USDA-ARS FR-Fungal Resistance Virginia Tech PQ-High Folate Petunia Thenell & Associates LLC AP-Drought Tolerance Poplar Oregon State University OO-Non-Isoprene Emitting University of Wisconsin OO-Reduced Stature Potato J. R. Simplot Company AP-Cold/Drought Tolerance Michigan State University AP-Increased Tuber Set USDA-ARS FR-Phytophthora Resistant IR-Colorado Potato Beetle Resistant IR-Potato Tuberworm Resistant MG-Kanamycin Resistant OO-Increased Yield OO-Vacuolar Invertase Gene Level Decreased PQ-Alkaloids Reduced PQ-Carbohydrate Metabolism Altered PQ-Carotenoid Content Altered PQ-Increased Tuber Set PQ-Processing Characteristics Altered PQ-Vitamin C Content Increased VR-Potato Y Potyvirus Resistant Rice Ceres Inc AP-Drought Tolerance Increased University of California/Davis AP-Nitrogen Utilization Efficiency Increased Arcadia Biosciences AP-Salt Tolerance Increased BR-Bacterial Leaf Blight Resistant MG-Hygromycin Resistant OO-Cell Wall Altered



80-83_APHIS.indd 4 8/2/2012 2:14:47 PM

Safflower Arcadia Biosciences MG-Phosphinothricin Tolerant PQ-Oil Profile Altered Soybean Arcadia Biosciences AP-Drought Tolerant BASF Plant Science AP-Increased Triacylglycerol Bayer CropScience AP-Increased Yield Danforth Plant Science Center AP-Iron Stress Tolerant Dow AgroSciences LLC FR-Fusarium Resistant DuPont Pioneer FR-Rust Resistant Iowa State University HT-Als Inhibitor Tolerant M.S. Technologies LLC HT-Dicamba Tolerant Monsanto HT-Glufonisate Tolerant Montana State University HT-Glyphosate Tolerant Ohio State University HT-Imidazolinone Tolerant Southern Illinois University HT-Isoxazole Tolerant Syngenta HT-Phosphinothricin Tolerant University of Georgia IR-Lepidopteran Resistant University of Illinois MG-Hygromycin Resistant University of Kentucky NR-Nematode Resistant University of Nebraska NR-Soybean Cyst Nematode Resistant USDA-ARS PQ-Altered Amino Acid Composition PQ-Altered Oil Composition PQ-Carotene Levels Increased/Omega-3 Fatty Acids Stac PQ-Carotenoid Content Altered PQ-Fatty Acid Level Increased PQ-Oil Quality Altered PQ-Omega-3 Fatty Acids Produced PQ-Seed Oil Content Increased PQ-Storage Protein Altered VR-Alfalfa Mosaic Virus Resistant Sugarbeet Betaseed Inc AP-Nitrogen Utilization Efficiency Increase Tobacco Altria Client Services Inc MG-Kanamycin Resistant LBD Coffee MG-Red Color North Carolina State University MG-Red Fluorescent Protein TytonBiosciences LLC OO-Anthocyanin Levels Increased University of Kentucky OO-Modified Leaf Nitrate University of Tennessee OO-Mofidied Alkaloid Content OO-Selective Male Sterility OO-Terpene Accumulation PQ-Altered Oil Profile PQ-Anthocyanins Increased PQ-Modified Alkaloid Profile Tomato Purdue University FR-Botrytis Cinerea Resistant University of California PQ-Fruit Color Altered PQ-Fruit Firmness Increased PQ-Fruit Pectin Esterase Level Decreased PQ-Fruit Pg Expressed PQ-Fruit Polygalacturonase Level Decreased PQ-Fruit Ripening Altered PQ-Fruit Softening Enhanced Wheat Arcadia Biosciences AP-Altered Kernel Development Biogemma AP-Drought Tolerance Increased Monsanto AP-Nitrogen Utilization Efficiency Increased University of Minnesota AP-Yield Increased University of North Texas FR-Fusarium Head Blight Resistant MG-Kanamycin Resistant OO-Salicylic Acid Level ReducedTechnical modifications including MG-Selectable Marker, MG-Visual Marker, and OO-Recombinase are not included.



80-83_APHIS.indd 5 8/2/2012 2:15:20 PM


BA

GS

/CO

NTA

INER

S

Lawgix InternationalBulk Bags, Multiwall Paper and Wov. Poly Bags • 866-289-5558

New and reconditioned bulk bags (single and multi-use). Plastic SlipTray pallets and Ex-Pallets (alternatives to wood). Thread, crepe tape, sewing machines, and heat sealers. Small woven poly bags 25 lbs. to 100 lbs. sizes, stock plain, and custom printing/graphic design available. BOPP and Paper On Poly laminated bags.

Response No. 842 • www.lawgixintl.com • See ad on p. 31

Buckhorn Inc.CenterFlowTM Seed Box • 800-543-4454

Buckhorn’s CenterFlow seed box is the most efficient bulk con-tainer available to safely handle, transport and dispense seed. It provides a safer work environment and eliminates the need for flexible bulk bags. CenterFlow’s unique design features a smooth, sloped interior and center discharge port that allows safe emptying of contents – up to 2,500 lbs. of seed in as quickly as 30 seconds.

Buckhorn is a leading provider of reusable plastic bulk boxes, hand-held containers and pallets ideally-suited for harvesting, processing packing, transporting and retailing all types of food.

Response No. 841 • www.buckhorninc.com/centerflow • See ad on p. 37

Oxbo International Corporation Oxbo 50 Series Corn Heads • 800-628-6196

Consistently deliver more seed, less trash, and higher productivity. Exclusive Soft TouchTM technology cuts ears off cleaner, and removes them gently. Reduces ear shelling, conveys more efficiently, and operates quieter.

Response No. 844 • www.oxbocorp.com • See ad on p. 27

Hagie Manufacturing Co.204SP Detasseler • 800-247- 4885

Customizable for varied row configurations. Hagie’s LS Tasseltrol automatically adjusts the height of the detasseling head to take a set amount of the corn plant’s top. Exceptional visibility from operator’s seat. Automatic steering option provides precision row alignment. Quick coupler allows for easy changeover from cutter to puller. 65 years of history behind our proven technology.

Response No. 843 • www.hagie.com • See ad on p. 11DET

AS

SEL

ERS

HA

RV

ESTE

RS

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PA

CK

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EQU

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ENT

Taylor ProductsAutomatic Bagging System • 888-882-9567

Designed for free flowing materials. Fully automatic operation. Packages 20-110 lbs (10-50 kg). Accommodates paper, poly woven (coated or laminated) of varying sizes. Capacity up to 1200 bags per hour. Total “Bag Top” control at all times.

Response No. 854 • www.taylorproducts.com • See ad on p. 25

Hamer, LLC Model RPM Low Cost Robot Bag Palletizing • 800-927-4674

Up to 20 bags per minute. Small foot print takes less plant space. Simple programming for multiple stacking patterns. Can be used with hand or automated bagging lines. Low cost, fast delivery, fast ROI. Wide variety of designs available.

Response No. 853 • www.hamerinc.com • See ad on p. 33

Chantland-MHSModel 4260 Bulk Bag Filler • 515-332-4045

Basic to automatic designs available. Modular components allow fitting to any system configuration. Base frame capacity of 4,000 lbs. Rates exceeding (45) 2,000 lb. bags per hour. Pallet dispenser, pallet squaring, and transfer conveyors. Experience—quality—performance—since 1943.

Response No. 851 • www.chantland.com • See ad on p. 36

Columbia/Okura LLCRobotic “Overlap” Bag Stacking • 360-735-1952

Requires less floor space than conventional palletizers. Stacks loose-filled bags in overlapping patterns enhancing load stability. No load crowning, can stack palletized loads three or four loads high for efficient use of warehouse space. Easy to program stacking patterns with Windows-based software. Can easily stack up to 50 kg./110 lb. bags. Capable of speeds up to 28 bags per minute.

Response No. 852 • www.columbiaokura.com • See ad on p. 69

84_86_NRs.indd 3 8/3/2012 1:07:58 PM


SEE

D T

END

ERS Meridian Manufacturing Group

Bulk Seed – Seed ExpressTM – Seed TitanTM • 800-437-2334 The most complete line of bulk seed tenders

available. Fill faster and protect your seed with Meridian’s

cleated belt. Various scales options available. The longest running seed tender in America.

Response No. 861 • www.meridianmfg.com • See ad on p. 43

Fullen Transportation Services, Inc.Domestic and Export Shipments • 800-826-2010

Since 1986, we have been developing relationships with our shippers and carriers to provide a high level of service.

Highly trained staff to cover all your customer service needs.

Extensive background checks of carriers to ensure prompt and professional service. Specializing in van, flatbed and hopper bottom freight.

Response No. 862 • www.fullentrans.com • See ad on p. 70TRA

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84_86_NRs.indd 4 8/3/2012 1:08:41 PM

Third Quarter 2012

Additional Photos

E D I T O R ’ S C H O I C E

How’s It Made p.34

Main assembly area LMC, Inc., Donalsonville, GA.

RiceTec, Inc. p.12

(right) Pneumatic conveyor tubes (with green anti-abrasion elbows) at the RiceTec hybrid rice seed produc-tion facility, Eagle Lake, TX.

Case Study p.16

(left) Platform scale used to check weight of seed boxes that supply refuge seed to the RIB packaging.

Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center,

National Harbor, MD. Site of the ASTA’s 129th

Annual Convention June 20 - 23, 2012.

Indiana corn shown sever drought stress in July 2012. (Purdue University photo)


Advanta U.S. Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51

AGRA Industries, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . .68

AGRI-associates Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . .52

Agrihouse Brands Ltd. . . . . . . . . . . .62

Agronomix Software Inc. . . . . . . . . .21

American Seed Trade Assn. . . . . . . .56

Anchor Paper Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Applewood Seed Co. . . . . . . . . . . . .30

ArrowCorp Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .108

Atlantic Seed Association . . . . . . . .63

BASF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .54, 55

Becker Underwood Inc. . . . . . . . . . 107

Bestprotek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

BioDiagnostics Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

Bratney Companies . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

Buckhorn Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

Buhler Sortex Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Central Software Solutions Inc. . . . .64

Chantland-MHS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Clipper Separation Technologies . . . .66

Columbia/Okura LLC . . . . . . . . . . . .69

CompuWeigh Corporation . . . . . . . . .46

Crippen Northland Superior Supply . .31

Crustbuster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Curtis & Curtis Seed Inc. . . . . . . . . .71

Dow AgroSciences LLC . . . . . . . . . .19

Ernst Conservation Seed . . . . . . . . .66

Eurofins STA Laboratories . . . . . . . .24

Oliver Manufacturing Co. . . . . . . . . .15

Oxbo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

Packing & Palletizing Co. . . . . . . . . .72

Paul’s Machine and Welding . . . . . .41

Prairie Engineering Inc. . . . . . . . . . .58

Process Vision LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . .38

Profile Industries Inc. . . . . . . . . . . .40

Q-Sage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60

Rapat Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77

RBH Mill & Elevator. . . . . . . . . . . . .67

Satake USA Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49

Sensient Colors Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . .45

SGS Brookings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Spear Envelope Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . .75

Summit Seed Coatings . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Taylor Products div. Magnum Sys. . .25

The Weitz Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61

Tom-Cin Metals Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . .74

USC LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59

Valent U.S.A. Corp. . . . . . . . . . . . . .47

Walinga Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69

Farm Chem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

Ferrell-Ross Roll Manufacturing Co. .71

Fullen Transportation . . . . . . . . . . . .70

Gamet Manufacturing, Inc. . . . . . . . .73

Gateway Building Systems . . . . . . .50

Hagie Manufacturing Co. . . . . . . . . . 11

Hamer, LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

Hutchinson/Mayrath . . . . . . . . . . . .70

ICIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39

IL Crop Improvement . . . . . . . . Insert

Illinois Foundation Seed . . . . . . . . . .42

Independent Professional Seed

Association . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .65

Iowa State Seed Laboratory . . . . . . .30

Jiuquan OK Seed Machinery Co., Ltd. .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75

K-F Seeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64

Krauter Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . .52

KSi Conveyors Inc.. . . . . . . . . . .48, 62

Lawgix International . . . . . . . . . . . .31

Lundell Plastics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73

Maljohn Co.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79

Meridian Manufacturing . . . . . . . . .43

O’Mara Ag Services Inc. . . . . . . . . .57

Ad Index

Advanced high-value genetics, seed-applied protection products and the pressure of increased marketplace competition require effective, innovative and individualized seed enhancement solutions to deliver superior seed performance.

Becker Underwood is the global leader in developing innovative and customized solutions to handling, colorant, appearance, dust control, plantability and performance challenges for seed companies worldwide. Our new all-in-one products lead the industry in the delivery of one-application colorants, polymers and biologicals. And our new Seed Technology Center lets us collaborate even closer with customers in the development of individualized solutions.

We’re inventing the future to meet the needs of an ever-changing global seed industry.

Call us about developing an innovative solution for your seed-enhancement needs.

1.800.892.2013 beckerunderwood.com

801 Dayton Avenue • P.O. Box 667 • Ames, IA 50010

The Becker Underwood logo is a registered trademark of Becker Underwood, Inc., Ames, IA. ©2011 Becker Underwood, Inc.

InnovatIve SolutIonS. SuPeRIoR PeRfoRmance.

Dust Control • Appearance • Flowability Plantability • Performance

Response No. 1071

107_Becker_Underwood_fullpage.indd 3 8/2/2012 10:51:24 AM

Response No. 1081

108_Arrow_fullpage.indd 3 8/2/2012 10:52:54 AM

Documents

Seed Today - 2012 3rd Quarter