USA
October 10, 2018

Advanta Seeds launched igrowth™, the first in the world commercial weed control technology for grain sorghum. Igrowth™ is Advanta Seeds proprietary non-GMO imidazoline tolerance trait in sorghum which allows to spray imidazolinone herbicides for weed control without causing damage to the crop and promoting a high yield and healthy crop.
 

The igrowth™ commercial launch was held in Argentina where growers, agronomists and distributors had the opportunity to share their experience after testing the igrowth™ hybrids in the past season. At the launch, feedback was shared with Advanta management including Advanta global and regional directors as well as the R&D technology developers.

“We were very pleased with the feedback we received from growers, although the weather conditions last season were not favorable to demonstrate the full yield potential, all the growers were satisfied with the excellent weed control of igrowth™” shared Pablo De La Fuente, Business Lead South America, Advanta Seeds. “The technology works well and by good weed control the crop has more water and nutrients available for its development. The growers benefit from higher yield and healthier crop.”

At the igrowth™ launch Advanta Seeds expressed its appreciation to the early adopters and recognized 35 farmers who planted igrowth™ sorghum to test it and shared their field experience. The launch included a workshop in which the Advanta Seeds R&D Team shared their technology knowledge and the early adopters crop performance in different environmental conditions.

“The benefit of the new technology was seen from the start. Conventional sorghums should be treated with an antidote to apply herbicide that controls summer grasses. In contrast, with igrowth™, we avoid that step because the seed is already resistant to herbicides. In addition, imidazolines’ are much more effective than usual residual herbicides, “said Leandro Abdelhadi D.V.M, M.S, one of the early adopters from Ranchos, Buenos Aires province.

“In fact, “continued Abhelhadi, “In the plot with traditional sorghums, applying herbicide at a maximum rate, we had to deal with grass scapes with no chance of rescue treatments, which finally affected the yield of the crop, something that is prevented with igrowth™ technology where weed control is total, and we would have been able to spray over the top if necessary.”

Igrowth™ technology and the sorghum traits were discovered in 2007 by the Advanta R&D Team in Argentina. Since then it has been developed and tested in various environments for performance and yield. It is a non-GMO technology developed by Mutagenesis, which means that no DNA from other species or plants were introduced to the Sorghum Genome. It controls susceptible weeds to different IMI Active ingredients, while allowing the sorghum crop to express its full yield potential.

“We launched igrowth™ technology first in Argentina because Argentinian farmers are very progressive and open to new ideas and technology” commented Bhupen, CEO Advanta Seeds. “There was clearly a lack of herbicide tolerance technology in sorghum which prevented many farmers from growing it. I believe thanks to igrowth and other Advanta new sorghum technology many farmers will start to grow sorghum.”

Igrowth™ is the first in the world commercial weed control technology for sorghum, successfully launched by Advanta Seeds in Argentina and Australia. The technology is currently being introduced to many big sorghum regions such as the US, Mexico, Brazil, and South American countries as well as some of the Eastern European regions to help boost their environmental opportunities.