Deltapine’s New Product Evaluator Program for cotton is unique because it hands real product evaluation to real growers, using their field-based results and insights to shape commercial variety decisions. Now that model is in the early stages of being tested for other crops as well.
Brian Naber serves as Head of North America Region for Bayer Crop Science and says the Deltapine NPE program proves its worth year after year.
“We’re going to put products on their farm under their management, and then they’re going to evaluate and really try to scrutinize them on every dimension, so that we’re absolutely confident that based off of their feedback, if we collectively decide to commercialize it, then it’s going to be good for the cotton industry. So it’s a very special co-development relationship that, you know, from my point of view, it’s the gold standard in cotton.”
Naber says that has led to a similar evaluation and development initiative in corn.
“This is year number 18 in cotton. We’re in year number three in corn. We have a program up there that we call Groundbreakers. We’re essentially bringing what we refer to as Preceon, which is short-statured corn. And the corn seed, in and of itself, is just one of the components. How we seed, it will be different than tall corn. How we feed it will be much different than tall corn and the access, because the corn is now only five to seven feet tall, how a farmer can protect it by essentially getting out there with their ground rigs, will be completely different.”
He says the protocols which have been used in cotton are proving to be successful with the new corn varieties as well.
“This is a good example of, yes, it is corn, but agronomically it is completely different than tall corn. And really the inspiration of NPE has what inspired us to do Groundbreakers in corn so that we can build and co-create a new agronomic system for corn.”
Naber says the resulting seed from the Groundbreakers program should be available commercially in about two years.