INSIDERS ADVICE FROM INDUSTRY EXPERTS INSIDERS — Here, experts from across the industry will discuss issues that are top-of-mind, share technical advancements, talk about tips for success and provide perspective on policy. Readers can hone in on areas that are of particular interest and get a snapshot of what’s happening and how it impacts the seed industry. During the past ten years we have expe- rienced a steadily increasing demand for high quality grass varieties, which are salt tolerant. In the beginning, the demand came primarily from greenkeepers and groundsmen, who maintain lawns in dry or coastal areas, where evaporation is high or where frequent penetration of seawater into the waterbed creates problems with saline irrigation. Today we get requests from a greater array of users. In north- ern areas for example, de-icing roads and walking paths has resulted in high salt levels along roadsides and in parks, leav- ing municipalities with a similar request for robust, salt tolerant turf mixtures. Most salinity issues are related to scarcity of water resources. With increas- ing summer droughts, professionals, as well as private households are already today left with few other options than to irrigate with recycled water or to com- pletely skip irrigation. Unfortunately, TURF AND FORAGE Your next grass: The challenge of increased salinity KLAUS K. NIELSEN CSO • DLF irrigation with recycled water during peri- ods with little precipitation often causes a slow and detrimental accumulation of salts in the top soil. Symptoms are easily observed: Leaf tip burns, discoloration and incontrollable pest attacks. That is why our company started seven years ago to screen its entire forage- and turf grass portfolio for salt stress tol- erance. In writing these lines, we have passed one thousand varieties, which have gone through the screening program, - a program, which today is standard proce- dure in launching a new variety. The test is simple but very efficient and its validity has been approved under real-life conditions at an independ- ent Dutch research institute. Briefly, well established grasses are subject to increasing salt concentrations every two weeks until almost everything is dead. Symptoms are scored on a daily basis throughout the test, and tolerance level is calculated as a combination of salt concen- tration and duration at which each variety can maintain up to 50% survival. These screenings have revealed great genetic potential within exist- ing varieties, which means that DLF for several years now have been able to offer its customers turf mixtures where every component is salt tolerant. These mixtures are marketed under the name 4Salt®, and you will find them along roads, in golf clubs, recreational areas where salinity is a recurrent issue. For future breeding, we have taken advantage of the strong selection pressure during the test, which leaves behind only few survivors at the end. These outstand- ing plants have been rescued and entered into our breeding pipeline where they are combined to form the basis of the next gen- eration highly tolerant grasses. So, spare your precious tears, there is hope for even the toughest conditions. 22 I EUROPEAN SEED I EUROPEAN-SEED.COM Euralis operates on three production areas: France, with more than 6,000 ha of mul- ti-species production, Seville with 3,500 ha of production of sunflower, and Cherkassy with 5,000 ha of multi-species production. On each of these three zones we also have an efficient and versatile factory. Whether production is internalized or outsourced, we are committed to pro- viding our customers with an equivalent level of service and quality. We formalize requirements as strongly with our partners as with our own productions. We are com- CORN, SORGHUM AND OILSEEDS Customer Service is Key to Operations DENIS GONTHIER Director of Operations • Euralis mitted to ensure that they are respected. We have the passion of continuous improvement. Whether related to safety, quality or economic performance, the slope of the experience curve depends first on our ability to learn from the good and the bad experiences. The advantage of multi-site management is the experi- ence accelerator effect since each site can benefit and feed the others. It is a princi- ple that we also have for technical inno- vations that abound at the moment in the agricultural sector. This requires coordination, maximum anticipation but the great benefits also comes from the exchanges that we can have locally with each team. For over 60 years, Euralis has been growing. With 11 subsidiaries all over Europe – and 75% of our turnover made at the international level – Euralis contin- ues to show our customers what we value; trust, attention, and creative solutions to what comes our way. We innovate not for us, but to ensure our customers find the success they work so hard for.