Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 5244 I EUROPEAN SEED I EUROPEAN-SEED.COM INDUSTRY NEWS Gari, directors and founders of Estero, own the remaining 40 per cent. The company will oper- ate as DLF Estero. ‘This investment, which is our first in South America of this kind, represents a cornerstone in our strategic ambitions for South America’, says CEO of DLF, Truels Damsgaard. ‘We have known Estero for more than 10 years as a well-managed and highly esteemed seed company. Our investment in Estero secures a platform from which we can develop our seed activities in Uruguay as well as throughout South America. Estero offers an excellent opportunity to leverage our ongoing investments in research and plant breeding even further. Our varieties developed from our global research activities are well adapted and well performing in many parts of South America’, adds Damsgaard. Alltech has agreed to acquire Keenan, a leading farming solutions company in Ireland. Keenan, now part of the Alltech family of com- panies, is the 14th acquisition for Alltech globally since 2011. ‘The Keenan group has long been a friend of Alltech. This is a story about two great Irish, globally-minded companies coming together. As an Irishman, I am delighted to wel- come Keenan to our family, because together we can deliver greater value to our global farming customers with a wider variety of technological solutions’, said Pearse Lyons, founder and pres- ident of Alltech. ‘Between Alltech’s primacy in science and Keenan’s manufacturing strength and technological know-how, we have a win- ning combination for delivering greater farm efficiency and profitability direct to our farming customers’. Alltech and Keenan have identified possible growth opportunities together, which may include nutritional technologies and feeding programs focused on feed efficiency and herd health as well as advanced ration formulation. Keenan will continue to be headquartered in Borris, County Carlow, Ireland. Together, Alltech and Keenan employ nearly 300 people in Ireland and close to 5,000 globally. INDUSTRY NEWS Scientists at the John Innes Centre (JIC) and The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) have pioneered a new gene-detecting technology which, if deployed correctly, could help create a new elite variety of wheat with durable resist- ance to disease. Brande Wulff from JIC and col- leagues from TSL developed the new technology called ‘MutRenSeq’, which accurately identifies the location of disease resistance genes in large plant genomes, and which has reduced the time it takes to clone these genes in wheat from five to 10 years, down to just two. This technology will allow scientists to quickly locate resistance genes from crops, clone them, and stack multiple resistance genes into one elite variety. In the first test run of MutRenSeq, Wulff’s team success- fully isolated a well-known resistance gene, Sr33, in a fraction of the time it had previously taken to do this by conventional breeding techniques. After which, the team then cloned two important stem rust resistance genes, Sr22 and Sr45, which scientists have, until now, been unable to isolate successfully. The first dedicated laboratory at the Centre of Excellence for Plant and Microbial Sciences (CEPAMS) has opened for business in Beijing with the arrival of its first group leader, Yang Bai. This is a major milestone in the develop- ment of CEPAMS, established between the John Innes Centre (JIC) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Bai, who joins CEPAMS from the world-renowned Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne, Germany, has ambitious plans for his new laboratory and for its future impact. The Bai laboratory, housed within the CAS Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, will study the microbes associated with healthy plant growth. Bai believes a better understanding of these microbes will be essential to the development of global sustainable agriculture. He sees a bright future in which the need for artificial fertiliser is dramatically reduced and global food security is strengthened. ‘It is a great honour to be the very first CEPAMS group leader. I am looking forward to exploiting my unique position as a joint CAS- JIC faculty member to do some ground breaking science, and to further strengthen the UK-China scientific partnership. I want my new lab to meet the global challenge of food security’, Bai said. The agricultural inoculants market is pro- jected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 9.6 per cent from 2015 to reach a projected value of USD 437.1 million by 2020, according to a recent study released by Research and Markets. The growth of this market is driven by the increase in demand of organic fertilisers in the agricultural sector. The market is further driven by factors such as an increase in organic and environment friendly farming practices, promotion by government agencies, and an increase in demand of agricultural inoculants in emerging markets, such as Asia-Pacific. Based on types of inoculants, the agricultural inoculant market is projected to be led by the plant growth promoting microorganisms segment, followed by biocontrol agents. DuPont Pioneer is continuing its collabora- tion with the Global Crop Diversity Trust to conserve and make available some of the world’s most important food crops. Citing the critical need for crop diversity at a time when populations are soaring and climate change is threatening staple crops such as maize, DuPont Pioneer has committed $250,000 to the trust, in a renewable agreement for up to four years. The funds committed to the trust will be channelled through the Crop Diversity Endowment Fund. Each year, a portion of the fund’s value is paid out to ensure conservation and maintenance of crop diversity held in seed banks around the world. The trust manages a comprehensive program of long- and short-term support for gen- ebanks, such as the current collaboration with Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Centers, including the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center and International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. ‘Seed banks ultimately help safe- guard a global food supply, as wars and natural disasters can decimate an area’s crops’, said Jerry Flint, vice-president of industry affairs and reg- ulatory, DuPont Pioneer. ‘DuPont Pioneer is col- laborating with the crop trust to secure millions of diverse seed samples, which will be essential for breeding plants that contribute to farmers’ long-term success and feed a growing population’. A new study by 16 researchers from a half- dozen countries, uses newly available crop models and data from ongoing large-scale field experiments has been published in the journal Nature Climate Change. ‘Most of the discus- sion around climate impacts focuses only on changes in temperature and precipitation’, said lead author, Delphine Deryng, an environmen- tal scientist at Columbia University’s Center for Climate Systems Research, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the University of Chicago’s Computation Institute. The new study looks at how rising temperatures and carbon dioxide, along with changes in rainfall and cloud cover, might combine to affect how efficiently maize, soybeans, wheat, and rice can use water and grow. It confirms that heat and water stress alone will damage yields, however, when carbon dioxide is accounted for, all four crops will use water more efficiently by 2080. Based on the cur- rent biomass of these crops, water-use efficiency would rise an average of 27 per cent in wheat, 18 per cent in soybeans, 13 per cent in maize and 10 per cent in rice. All things considered, the study projects average yields of current rainfed wheat areas (mostly located in higher latitudes including the United States, Canada and Europe), might go up by almost 10 per cent, while con- sumption of water would go down a correspond- ing amount. On the other hand, average yields of irrigated wheat, which account for much of India and China’s production, could decline by 4 per cent. Maize, according to the new projections, would still be a loser most everywhere, even with higher water efficiency—yields would go down about 8.5 per cent. The study is less conclusive on the overall effects on rice and soybean yields; half of the projections show an increase in yield and half a net decline. PRODUCT NEWS Getting rid of grey discolouring in foods, such as fresh noodles, breads and refrigerated biscuits, is now possible, thanks to a new white hard wheat breeding line developed by United States Department of Agriculture scientists. Plant geneticist Bob Graybosch, at the Agricultural Research Service’s Grain, Forage, and Bioenergy Research Unit in Lincoln, Nebraska, developed a wheat that has no polyphenol oxidase—an