While attending Crop Progress, our own Maci Carter met with Bryan Perry, U.S. Head of Seeds and Traits for BASF Agricultural Solutions. Perry’s realm includes cotton, canola, and soybeans. Perry and BASF are launching a new soybean breeding program to benefit growers across the country.
Perry explained that roughly 98% of the soybean germplasm sold in the U.S. is produced in one of four soybean breeding programs and for the past decade, BASF has been investing and acquiring different sets of diverse germplasm, breeding, in egressing that with current traits and looking at how to innovate traits for the future. Next year, he and the BASF team, will be excited to bring new varieties to market to help growers get the highest yields possible.
Having been involved in agriculture for 26 years, Perry knows that producers are always facing new challenges and has the benefit of learning from three different crop systems. He pointed out that cotton country is different from soybean ground, which is different from canola, but most of the challenges their producers deal with are very similar.
“The producer’s return on investment has become our core focus,” he said. “Ag is a relationship business. There is a lot of trust that goes into it, but we really need to hear what the challenges are from our customers, so we know where to innovate. BASF spends about 11 percent of every dollar that a farmer invests back into research and development.”
BASF is looking ahead to the next growing season to evaluate regulatory legislation and new and evolving pests, to work ahead on new active ingredients, and chemistries, and to replace solutions lost to regulatory actions. From a seed standpoint, they are looking at ways to innovate new traits, such as the AxantFlex trait technology released in cotton last year. An upcoming chemical called Liberty ULTRA will be a new and improved version of Liberty to help with weed control.
“Many Oklahomans would recognize the FiberMax brand of cotton,” Perry said. “It is known for its high-fiber quality, high length and strength, and we are proud to be bringing that brand back with new varieties, and adding our diverse germplasm, new native traits that control pests – all of our new varieties will have native trait resistance to nematodes.
BASF is the largest canola producer in North America and has developed a “sister” of canola that can handle hotter, dryer conditions. Traditional canola is known as brassica napus, and the new variety is called brassica juncea. The new variety has performed well in trials in Kansas and will next be planted in Oklahoma where the hope is that it will be a viable alternative in a wheat-fallow rotation to increase revenue for the grower, bring in a new oil crop that is in demand for renewable biofuels, and help break up the ground because it is very deep-rooted.
“Provided that we can get the yields needed, and we probably need to be in the twenty-to-thirty-bushel range to make producers see it as a new revenue source,” Perry admitted. “Right now, we are targeting a 2027 launch of the crop, but this would be a whole new crop grown in a different part of the country than it is traditionally seen in.
“We are looking at a lot of other areas outside the box,” Perry said. “We’ve got seed and spray technologies. All different ways of helping growers across the entire U.S. that Oklahoma growers should be excited about as well.”
Perry added that BASF checks a lot of boxes related to improving carbon credits and carbon score, and the best way is by growing better crops with higher yields. Producers still have to consider their inputs, and that is an area where BASF excels. Whether it be a fungicide in wheat, or a herbicide that reduces Palmer pigweed, or adding cotton or canola to boost yields.
“By focusing on what we love doing, it is helping growers grow the best crops possible, which has a positive impact on carbon scores, which helps on the sustainability front,” Perry said. “We are also looking at places like the Xarvio FIELD MANAGER, a digital resource to help collect the information necessary to see the benefits that growers could get.”
Perry encouraged producers interested in BASF products to contact their local BASF retailer. He also offered the web address as another option. It is basfagsolutions.com.
