pollinator News
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Powerpollen Announces Commercial License Agreement With Bayer for Innovative Corn Seed Pollination Technology Designed to Increase Yield
PowerPollen® announced a commercial license agreement with Bayer designed to help corn seed production growers increase their yields. PowerPollen’s Pollination-on-Demand technology gives farmers greater flexibility by allowing them to optimize the timing of pollinations. By accessing the Iowa-based ag tech company’s first scalable pollination technology for corn seed, Bayer will ...
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Quad County Corn Processors Seeds Monarch Fueling Station
Following the harvest of a small corn field near Quad Country Corn Processors, the ethanol plant recently seeded it once more, only not with corn but with milkweed. Board member Alan Bennett conducted a dormant seeding of native grasses, milkweed, and other plants that attract pollinators on this one-acre plot as part of the ethanol producer’s plan to establish a Monarch Fueling Station. ...
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Creating Better Soybeans
In rows of petri dishes, soybean roots bathe in fluorescent light, an unremarkable site unless you work in the laboratory where they grow. The simplicity of the setup belies the complexity of the research that went into creating the roots. For decades, the genes of the seeds that produced these roots have been tinkered with to create a plant that resists a common and highly destructive soybean ...
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Ontario Releases Draft Pollinator Protection Health Action Plan
On January 22, 2016, Ontario released for consultation a draft Health Action Plan (Plan) to reduce losses of honeybees and other pollinators caused by several “stressors” stated in the Plan to include: (1) reduced habitat and poor nutrition; (2) diseases, pests, and genetics; (3) exposure to pesticides; and (4) extreme weather and climate change. This action plan is part of a broader ...
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New Strategy to Limit Neonicotinoids and Other “High Risk” Pesticides in Québec
In a press release issued on November 22, 2015, the Canadian province of Québec (Quebec) announced its release of Québec Pesticide Strategy 2015-2018. Although the Strategy itself is available only in French, Québec has provided a summary of the Strategy in English, which is available here. Québec’s press release states that the Strategy “sets out the ...
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Ancient crops preserved for future generations in Arctic seed vault
Varieties of one of the world's most important staple crops will be stored for perpetuity deep in the Arctic ice today. José Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is joining scientific experts and delegations from Peru, Costa Rica and Norway to witness a ceremony here this afternoon that will help to preserve these vital ...
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EPA Plan to Save Bees Skirts the Issue, Ignores Most Problematic Form of Pesticide Use
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a proposed a new rule today restricting the use of pesticides on crops when honey bees are present for contracted pollination services. While the rule would apply to nearly all insecticides, including neonicotinoids that have been linked to bee population declines, it would not address the most widespread and most problematic use of ...
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Proactive stewardship is critical in sustainable agriculture
Bayer CropScience is committed to proactive stewardship to underline the company’s strong commitment to sustainable agriculture. “We help growers around the world produce high-quality and high-yielding crops,” said Matthias Haug, Head of SeedGrowth at Bayer CropScience. “We take product stewardship very seriously, as it is important to maximize the benefits of seed ...
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Bayer welcomes the U.S. National Pollinator Strategy as a concerted approach to improve pollinator health
Bayer welcomes the National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators published by the U.S. President’s Pollinator Task Force on Tuesday, May 19, 2015. “Bees are important pollinators in modern and sustainable agriculture. The U.S. strategy to improve pollinator health is a reasoned and multi-faceted approach,” said Annette Schuermann, Head of the Bayer ...
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Partnering is key to improve bee health
The “Bayer’s Perspective on Innovation 2014” international press forum held in Leverkusen, Germany, was the venue for the launch of the company’s first bee health magazine, “BEENOW”. The magazine presents Bayer’s efforts to unite partners from around the world, including research institutes and universities, beekeepers, farmers and industry partners, to ...
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EPA Finds Neonicotinoid Seed Treatments of Little or No Benefit to U.S. Soybean Production
Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released an analysis of the benefits of neonicotinoid seed treatments for insect control in soybeans. Neonicotinoid pesticides are a class of insecticides widely used on U.S. crops that EPA is reviewing with particular emphasis for their impact on pollinators. The analysis concluded that there is little or no increase in soybean yields using ...
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European bees are at their best health level in years as overwintering losses of colonies sink to record low
European bees are much healthier than many recent media publications appear to suggest. New field data from nearly 400,000 bee colonies from 21 countries in Europe and the Mediterranean show that overwintering losses of honey bee colonies – an important indicator of general bee health – were at their lowest level in years in 2013/2014. “It is great to see that our bees have ...
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Battle over genetically modified foods in Oregon
Unable to find a good solution to protecting their certified organic seed crops from potential contamination from genetically engineered crops, small organic farmers in this Oregon valley are appealing to a higher power: voters. They wanted to protect their crops from being cross-pollinated by genetically modified ones, and asked voters in two counties to ban the cultivation of GMOs - a move ...
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Ohio State Agronomists Offer Free Webinars for Corn, Soybean and Wheat Growers
Growers wanting to learn more about managing herbicides, fungicides and resistance, corn yield optimization, corn seed treatments and high-input soybean production can take advantage of a series of free webinars taught by agronomists from Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. The webinars offer participants insight into some of the ...
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Agronomists Offer Webinars for Corn, Soybean and Wheat Growers Feb. 11 and 25
Growers wanting to learn more about corn yield optimization, corn seed treatments and high-input soybean production can take advantage of a series of upcoming webinars taught by agronomists from Ohio State University’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences. The webinars offer participants insight into some of the key issues in grain production including ...
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Bayer CropScience Breaks Ground on North American Bee Care Center
As part of its continued commitment to honey bee health, today Bayer CropScience broke ground on its North American Bee Care Center, a recognition of the importance of these pollinators to agriculture. Senior company managers, bee health experts and representatives from the community were on hand to begin work on the new facility, approximately a 6,000-square-foot state-of-the-art building which ...
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Parasite-resistant maize developed by Kenyan scientist
Two new varieties of hybrid maize that are resistant to the deadly parasitic Striga weed have been developed by a Kenyan scientist. The weed affects cereal crops in many parts of Africa and is a major cause of crop failure in East Africa, where climate change has been driving its spread in recent years. Mathews Dida, a maize breeder in the school of agriculture and food security at Maseno ...
By SciDev.Net
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Burundi set to embrace hybrid maize seeds
Farmers in Burundi are set to benefit from new high-yielding, fast-maturing hybrid maize seeds that are also resistant to maize streak virus. The varieties are being tested by the Burundi Institute of Agronomic Sciences (ISABU) and should be available to farmers in September. Two seed companies, Pannar and Naseco, based in Kenya and Uganda respectively, have developed the seeds. "These ...
By SciDev.Net
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US–Nepal hybrid maize project runs into criticism
Uncertainty hangs over a proposed partnership between US and Nepalese scientists to promote hybrid maize in the Himalayan country, after the project sparked local concerns over the potential loss of traditional local varieties and weak biotechnology regulation. The pilot project of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Nepal's Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and US ...
By SciDev.Net
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