A good first day crowd for the sold out Indiana/Illinois Farm Equipment Show at the state fairgrounds. With harvest finally completed and good yields across the state, growers came ready to buy from the 350 exhibitors set up in the West Pavilion.
Technology was the focus of the HAT seminar at the show on Tuesday. Dawn Bratton, from Verizon Wireless, presented a program on the latest developments in wireless technology and how it is impacting agriculture. Keven Harner, from Pioneer, presented a program on the new developments in corn and soybean production technology.
He explained several of the new tools that Pioneer will be bringing to the marketplace in the next few years. He said Pioneer’s Optimum GAT technology, which will makes crops safe for use with Glyphosate and ALS herbicides, is ready to go for soybeans, “The thing that has slowed down the rollout of the soybean technology is a slowdown in the export markets.” He said China has delayed the approval process for the technology and that Pioneer does not want to bring it to the marketplace until it have approval from key customers for US soybeans like china and Japan.
But for corn, the technology has encountered some problems; and Pioneer just recently announced they were pulling the program launch back to do more research, “We were just not seeing the kind of yield performance when we put this trait into our elite hybrids,” said Harner. “We want to make sure that when we roll this out onto the market it will meet the growers’ expectations for yield and agronomics.”
Drought tolerance and nitrogen utilization are also traits Pioneer hopes to bring to the market in the next few years.
Harner also discussed some Pioneer technology that may be in the market in 2010. The Optimum Acre Max is awaiting final EPA approval and may see a limited rollout in 2010 will full roll out by 2011. The “refuge in a bag” concept lets growers plant a BT hybrid with a reduced refuge requirement. The EPA has not yet determined what that reduced refuge requirement is, but it could be as low as 5% according to Harner.
Wednesday’s seminar will feature Dr. Chris Hurt from Purdue with his market outlook. The seminars begin each day at 11 AM, and door prizes will be awarded.
Source :Hoosier Ag Today