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 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 6842 I EUROPEAN SEED I EUROPEAN-SEED.COM KLAUS K. NIELSEN Chief Scientific Officer DLF You probably know the sad feeling of watching your beautiful green lawn turn yellow and dry as summer progresses. Perhaps local restrictions on water use or water prices stop you from irrigating, but what really worries you is the constant feeling that the situation is getting worse every year. Science says you have reason for concern; the number and duration of drought periods is increasing. But what is unpleasant for you and your lawn is already critical for many farmers and their crops. Some areas will experience drought and flooding during the same season, and even increasing CO2 levels will not be able to compensate for drought-induced crop losses. Drought will be a major determinant of crop success or failure in the future, also in areas where this was never an issue in the past. Fortunately, the race for increased drought stress tolerance has already begun. It is a race between breeding companies, but it is even more a race against time. The current development time for forage and turf grasses is 10 to 11 years, followed by three to five years of official testing. However, new breeding tools such as genomic selection allows breeders to shave three to five years off the process. This technology has been developed in grass breeding over the past six years and constitutes a major breakthrough in our effort to bring new traits to the market faster. The next question is how to select for drought tolerance most efficiently. Drought tests in grasses have been performed mainly in turf trials. As an example, DLF continuously conducts drought tests at its research station in Philomath, Oregon. The situation is quite different in forage, where trialing is expensive and where increased drought tolerance is most often not being giving full credit, as it is not a standard trait being measured in official forage trials. Awarding drought tolerance in forages may also turn out to be quite difficult (if not impossible) due to many variables in the field (soil type, soil compactness, evaporation, et cetera). The alternative is to move testing and selection to much more controlled conditions, where genetic differences are more easily recognized. Scientists try this in many crops today using fully automated growth chambers or greenhouses. Still waiting for the outcome, many breeders are skeptical that the systems are too simplified and do not mirror the competitive conditions in the field. TURF AND FORAGE Let’s Keep the World Green a Little Longer For a long time, our entire Bayer SeedGrowth equipment section used to be U.S.-focused. However, the demand for innovative seed- applied solutions has been increasing all around the globe. Currently, Latin America is an important market, but Asia is a target too, since rice treatment is becoming more and more mainstream. To cover the expansion of the business we needed a new facility – one where we have enough space to demonstrate our machinery to customers. We decided to build our new SeedGrowth Equipment Innovation Center in Shakopee, Minnesota (USA). Being an integrated company with the unique fourfold competence brand such as Bayer SeedGrowth, we want to stay cutting- edge when it comes to our offer. Our equip- ment portfolio allows us to meet users’ needs in all product segments. We provide state- of-the-art machinery for seed-applied tech- nologies, including large on-farm equipment and small mobile systems such as back-of-the- truck solutions consisting of basic application equipment plus a power generator, which are driven from farm to farm. In Shakopee, we produce 40 different treating machines so that our customers can select tailored solu- tions for their unique seeds. To ensure high-quality seed treatment, hands-on training is an integral part of everything we do at Bayer SeedGrowth. That’s why we demonstrate both new and existing technologies in our new Equipment Innovation Center. In fact, training and demonstrations are key components of this site. Therefore, we enlarged our facilities and included an advanced R&D part and training center where we can train up to 120 people, both external customers such as certified treaters, farmers or seed companies — but also internal staff such as support personnel and sales represent- atives from all over the world. The main challenge is developing the ser- vice capacity of the machinery as we expand all over the world. Supplying the machines is one thing, keeping them running is something else. The main objective of seed treatment is making sure that the applications fully cover the seed all the time. If we can manage our own equipment to do that, it benefits our cus- tomers because they are assured that what they supply their farmers is accurately treated. In the future, we want to identify how we can build even better seed treaters to further support our customers in treating seeds accu- rately every single time. Thus, innovation is basically what the R&D center is designed for. PETER HEROLD Global Head, SeedGrowth Equipment Bayer Crop Science SEED TREATMENT EQUIPMENT Innovative Seed-Applied Solutions are in Demand Around the World