Dow Jettisons Monsanto’s Roundup Ready Gene With Latest Soybeans
Dow Chemical Co. (DOW), the biggest U.S. chemical maker, plans to stop using a widely licensed technology from Monsanto Co. (MON) in the next generation of its Enlist genetically modified soybeans.
The soybeans will substitute Monsanto’s Roundup Ready brand of glyphosate weedkiller resistance for genetics developed with M.S. Technologies LLC, Kendra Resler Friend, a spokeswoman for Midland, Michigan-based Dow, said today in a phone interview. The second generation of Enlist was recently submitted for U.S. Department of Agriculture approval and will be available by “mid-decade,” Dow said in a statement.
Dow is targeting customers who use St. Louis-based Monsanto’s Roundup Ready seeds and Roundup weedkiller. Dow forecasts its Enlist system may generate as much as $1.5 billion of profit from herbicide and seed sales by helping farmers combat weeds that are no longer killed by Roundup herbicide. U.S. farmers planted Roundup Ready crops on 94 percent of soybean acres this year, USDA data show.
The latest generation of Enlist brand beans also have been engineered to tolerate 2,4-D and glufosinate weedkillers, Dow said in the statement. Dow and West Point, Iowa-based M.S. Technologies are stacking the genetic changes at a single site on the plant’s genome, speeding up breeding compared with the first-generation Enlist soybeans in which the genes were added at three separate locations, Friend said.
Dow has said it plans to begin selling the first generation of Enlist herbicide tolerance by 2013 in corn, 2015 in soybeans and 2016 in cotton, pending regulatory approvals.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jack Kaskey in Houston at jkaskey@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Simon Casey at scasey4@bloomberg.net.
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