USA TODAY

Aug 31, 2012, p. B.3

Copyright Aug 31, 2012 USA Today Information Network. All rights reserved.
Reprinted with permission.
Drought-Tolerant Seeds on Way Goal is to increase corn yield per acre during dry times
By Dan Piller

Skyrocketing Food Prices

(Credit: MCT/Pat Carr) (Image Selected by ProQuest Staff)
The holy grail for seed companies -- drought-tolerant corn -- could reach farmers in the
next few months, offering hope if record hot, dry summers return.
The new seed lines were popular attractions at the DuPont Pioneer, Monsanto and
Syngenta exhibits this week during the Farm Progress Show here. The show displays the
latest technology in agriculture.
Drought tolerance will be the latest gee-whiz addition to seed offerings, going beyond
the pest and weed resistance made commonplace by the genetic biotech revolution.
Iowa yields have increased 35% to 40% since the late 1980s, helping satisfy a greater
demand for corn for food, feed and fuel.
The new seeds won't completely erase the impact of drought. The companies limit their
claim to yield increases of 5% to 15% above what non-drought-tolerant corn would yield
in the kind of blast-furnace heat Iowa endured this summer.
Industry group the Professional Farmers of America predicts that Iowa's 2012 yield will
be 139 bushels per acre. The drought-tolerant corn would have pushed up average
yields from 145 bushels per acre to as much as 159 bushels.
The extra bushels would have been welcome, especially at corn prices higher than $8
per bushel, but would still leave Iowa below its 173 bushels per acre yield average for
2009-11.
Seed companies have long been developing drought-tolerant corn.
"Drought tolerance is more complicated. You can't just find a gene that will defeat
drought like a bug or weed," said Brent Wilson, technical services manager for DuPont
Pioneer.

Doubt has also existed about the marketability of drought-tolerant corn in Iowa, where
most years produce sufficient rainfall without mechanical irrigation. Agronomists and
meteorologists consider the drought this summer the first major one in 24 years.
Still, farmers who have hopes of escaping the worst effects of the 2012 drought said
they'd give the seeds a shot. "I'll be interested in buying some for the next season," said
Vern Smith, who farms near West Liberty.
"This is exciting technology," Monsanto Vice President Robert Fraley said as he
examined a stand of the company's DroughtGard corn planted in May on the Farm
Progress Show grounds. "The drought this year has reminded farmers in Iowa that it can
happen here, too," he said.
Drought Tendency Outlook in U.S.A.
(Credit: Reuters Graphics) (Image Selected by ProQuest Staff)
Wilson said Pioneer expects its Aquamax seed to be a major product for the company in
future years. "It's nice to have a product to roll out after the epic drought we've been
through."
Fraley said Monsanto is delaying its roll-out until next year, until results of field tests of
DroughtGard are completed on about 10,000 dryland acres in western Texas, Oklahoma
and Kansas.
"We're not making a specific claim on yields yet for DroughtGard, but we've seen
increases of 5% to 10% above normal in dry areas where its been planted," said Fraley,
whose company will sell DroughtGard next year through its DeKalb, Kruger, Fontanelle
and other subsidiaries.
Troy Griess, agronomy service representative for Syngenta, said the Swiss-based
company is saying that its Artesian can raise yields as much as 15% above non-droughttolerant seeds. But it also tells farmers to be cautious.
"We tell farmers to not overreact," said Griess. Syngenta owns the Garst, NK and Golden
Harvest seed lines.
The Midwest drought caught the seed companies off guard. The product has been
designed primarily for the western, and driest, part of the corn belt -- the Texas
Panhandle and the western halves of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas.
"We will need to adjust the genetics as we move the product east into Iowa," said
Monsanto's Fraley.
Monsanto, which led the move by seed companies into biotech beginning in the mid1990s, is modifying genetic material to create DroughtGard.

By contrast, DuPont Pioneer and Syngenta are bypassing biotechnology and relaying on
old-school germplasm breeding in Aquamax and Artesian, respectively. That's made the
regulatory approvals needed for biotech unnecessary and let them get to the market
this year. Monsanto has federal approval for DroughtGard.