Agriscience Explained

Corteva Agriscience

This is Agriscience Explained: from science to solutions. A podcast brought to you by Corteva Agriscience. Host Tim Hammerich visits with both scientists and farmers about how agricultural innovations are discovered, developed and deployed on the farm.

Farming is a business, profit is never guaranteed. To manage risk and give the crop the best possible chance of success, farmers rely on the latest in management practices, and some really cutting edge science. We call it agriscience. This study brings together biology, chemistry, agronomy, ecology, physics, genetics, data science and numerous other fields to find the best possible solutions for farmers.

It’s complex, and it’s changing fast. The stakes have never been higher to equip farmers with the best possible tools for a productive, profitable and sustainable crop.

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#32
Yesterday · 33 min
Innovating for Farmers: Building on Legacy at Vylor
Please send us your feedback on the podcast: agriscience-explained@vylor.com In this episode, we look back on the past 100 years, and highlight what will carry over into this next chapter in the company’s history. Corteva Agriscience chief technology and digital officer Sam Eathington and some really special guests discuss the past, present and future of agriscience innovation. And here we are today with I think arguably the most amazing sort of agriculture feats and what's happened with hybrid corn production around the world….It's cool to kind of look back. The team's done, done a lot to review the history and put it together and it's a good time to hear stories from people that were there and really made stuff happen. But it's also a great time for us to look forward and think about what could agriculture become and where are we going.” - Sam Eathington Dr. Stan Jensen is a plant breeder who was hired by Raymond Baker himself in the 1950s.. During his 44-year career with Pioneer, he contributed to the development of 39 successful single-cross hybrids for commercial release totaling more than 23 million units. Now in his 90s, Jensen got to witness firsthand the transformation that hybrid corn made possible. “ Corn is a very innovative plant. And to learn about it and keep studying and work on the changes, it's an amazing plant. I really have a got a lot of respect for the corn plant.” - Dr. Stan Jensen Also joining the conversation is one more connection to Raymond Baker. Raymond’s grandson, Joe Baker, attended the Pioneer 100 event. He remembers that his grandfather was quick to credit Iowa State for their role in the history of hybridization. Grandpa always used to say if it wasn't for Iowa State, he wouldn't have met Henry Wallace, and there wouldn't be any Pioneer… He felt Iowa State was responsible for a lot of his success because he got to meet everybody. - Joe Baker This collaborative approach, not only with Iowa State, but with other companies and partners is shining through in the latest focus for agriscience innovation: genome editing. You’ve heard in previous episodes about the Genlytix platform Corteva has built. Eathington shares that that platform is something that will be carried forward and expanded as part of Vylor. Genlytix for us was a way we sort of brought everything together, not only the gene editing piece, but what are you doing on social responsibility? What are you doing on regulatory and policy? How are you collaborating around the world with not only universities, but startups or small companies in the space, and really bring the whole community forward around gene editing where we can. It's obviously much bigger than just Corteva, but where's our part, and how do we bring that forward? So that will continue in Vylor.” - Sam Eathington To continue this journey with genetic advancements you’ll want to listen to Episode 30 of this podcast where we shared the recent progress with global regulatory approval. The EU has put policy in place to differentiate gene editing from GMO technology and paved the way for a regulatory framework that could allow for gene edited crops to be grown in Europe in the not-so-distant future. Another example is our episode 26 on Plenish Soybeans for how genetics can shift value from processing back to the farm. The idea that this could be a lot more common is an exciting one, because farmers can grow specialty products in a productive commodity system. Please send your feedback on the podcast to agriscience-explained@vylor.com A few takeaways from this episode: The meaning behind the name Vylor is very fitting for this episode. It combines the “valor” of the past with “vying” for the future. The promise of genome editing and the potential impact this will have on farmers. Everything from disease resistance to value added commodities, this technology is at the very beginning of what seems like will be an incredible impact on this industry. The Long Look. There are some things that are just timeless, and despite all of the many changes in agriscience innovation, a focus on performance, ethics, transparency, and long-term farmer success remains a core philosophy, and one that is not likely to change. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich helps to edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#31
September 8 · 25 min
Persistence and Creativity: Unique insights behind herbicide development
Dr. Carla Yerkes joins us to help us tell the story of Rinskor and explain the process of herbicide innovation and the persistence and creativity it takes to develop new solutions for farmers. Yerkes is a research biologist at Corteva Agriscience and has a Ph.D. in herbicide physiology. She has spent about half of her 30 year career in herbicide discovery research and the other half in herbicide trait discovery. I think what keeps me excited is the fact that we continuously need new herbicides. Weeds find a way to battle back, and weeds continually need to be controlled…We, meaning industry people that produce the herbicides and discover them, had better be looking for what the farmers need next. And so you have to be way ahead of the curve, looking for what is needed. - Dr. Carla Yerkes Scott Foth also joins the show. As a pest control advisor with over his 50 year career advising farmers, Foth has worked with just about every crop grown in the region. He shares how Rinskor (under the product name Hulk) is making a difference in California orchards in the battle against weed resistance. So the thing that I've seen with Hulk is you can take a mature fleabane or marestail that's already gone, got seedheads on it, and you can spray it and it will kill it all the way down. You don't have to respray it, where with other herbicides you've got to spray them, burn it back, and then in a month, six weeks, you're probably back in there spraying them again. And so with Hulk it has eliminated them completely, takes them clear out to the root. - Scott Foth Rinskor has won both the EPA Green Chemistry award and the American Chemical Society Heroes of Chemistry Award. It is a great example of an agriscience innovation that has made a significant impact. I have to say it's the most significant accomplishment in my career, and it is because it required a fair amount of creativity as well as persistence in order to make it happen. So I was proud of that, and I was proud of the fact that it worked, it worked well, and it's been great for rice farmers. It's very satisfying to see its utility expand into aquatics and into different crops because you could see the utility when you were working with it early on. - Dr. Carla Yerkes A few takeaways from this episode: The value in the persistence to keep asking the question of “why” or in some cases “why not”? The importance of really understanding the use cases for technology.. Agriscience innovation is a two-way street between scientists and farmers and this is another great example of why that’s important. The future involves mining nature for more natural products or at least products inspired by nature. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich helps to edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#30
August 12 · 42 min
Precision Unlocks Future Potential: The History and Science of Genome Editing
What is happening in agriscience today that we will be talking about 100 years from now? While it’s impossible to answer that question with certainty, there is a technology that has the potential to impact our industry in the next century as much or even more than hybridization changed the game over the past century. That technology is genome editing. The promise of this technology is very real and today you’re going to hear firsthand accounts of what changed in 2012 and 2013 to make all of this possible, what did it look like to test the technology in plant breeding, and what does the strategy look like to turn this science into better solutions. “In 2012, we had the seminal paper from Jennifer Doudna, and the entire scientific community was getting very excited with how we could use a technology like CRISPR gene editing to precisely rewrite DNA to get to the end outcome that we want much faster than before… The question we were asking in Pioneer was, yes, we have the technology, and every week you see new improvements in efficiencies of the technology, but where do you apply it?” - Nandini Krishnamurthy, Ph.D. In this episode, we go behind the scenes to peek into how genome editing arrived on the scene in agriculture, where it stands currently, and why many scientists are calling it a revolutionary technology. Joining us are two people that have been a part of the emergence of CRISPR, the powerful tool that enables scientists to edit the DNA of living organisms. Dr. Nandini Krishnamurthy is the director of external technologies and gene editing ecosystem development at Corteva Agriscience. She has a background in genetics and cell biology and after finishing her PhD at Texas A&M, she focused on computational biology. Also joining us is Dr. Neal Gutterson. Gutterson has a background in executive leadership with biotechnology companies and joined Pioneer in 2014 as the vice president of research and development. He was instrumental in laying the groundwork for genome editing in plant breeding. “ To be able to fashion the strategy around how we would use and deploy genome editing in, you know, biotech/breeding, but then also how we position it in terms of the marketplace and farmers and other companies seemed like an incredible opportunity. ” - Neal Gutterson, Ph.D. By proving the concept, communicating with the public and allowing access to the technology, a lot of the groundwork for gene editing in agriculture was already starting to be formed. However, the big question many of you still may be wondering is: what do the farmers think of this? For this we’ll turn back to the farmer we featured on episode 28 of this podcast: Corey Loesson. And while he doesn’t speak for all farmers, it’s safe to assume it echoes the perspective of many if not most out there. “ We're really talking about accelerated plant breeding, which plant breeding has been going on since agriculture started really, you know, centuries. And we're just getting better at it. And that better part enables us to produce food more efficiently ultimately. ” - Corey Loesson A few takeaways from this episode: This technology is revolutionary and it’s here. There is a strong case to be made that with the right regulatory framework, this could be every bit as game-changing in the next century as hybridization was in the past century. This is not GMO 2.0 - it’s advanced breeding. These are two distinctly different approaches, but we also have some lessons learned from transgenics with regards to communication and engagement that I think will be important for the emergence of this biotechnology in crops. While farmers are not growing gene edited crops today, there has already been tremendous progress made toward utilizing this technology for their benefit. The difference between cooking a meal and serving it as Nandini said. We truly are at the end of the beginning and ready to enter this next chapter of commercially available gene edited crops. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich helps to edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#29
June 4 · 26 min
Making Molecules to Meet Farmer Needs: The Story of Inatreq™ Active
In today’s episode, we’re following a molecule around the world, from being discovered in Japan to being developed in the United States to becoming a solution for farmers in the United Kingdom. Joining us is one of those farmers in the UK, Julian Gibbons. Julian has seen a variety of fungicide solutions come and go for important wheat diseases like Septoria tritici, or speckled leaf blotch. He’s really excited about the potential for a relatively newly registered product derived from a natural compound called Inatreq Active™. And the story of the need for Inatreq and the road to getting this product to farmers is the focus of today’s episode. Kevin Meyer, Ph.D., a discovery chemist for 26 years at Corteva, will give us the behind-the-scenes look at how Inatreq was initially discovered and developed, then shelved, only to be brought back from the archives with a new approach to turning some fascinating science into a solution farmers like Julian can use. “ With this new product concept in hand, we were like, "’Okay, if we can make a fungicide with this, you know, to control Septoria tritici in wheat, it probably is gonna end up controlling other things, but we can make a product out of that.’ …And the first time I ever heard that, I turned to a coworker of mine down the biology department and I said, ‘I know a molecule that does that. We should look at that again.’ And that was UK-2A …and we found one of those pro drug molecules that worked really, really well. We brought it out to the field, controlled Septoria really well.” - Kevin Meyer, Ph.D. “ It does what it says. It's good control. We've never had as a product to actually use, we've never had an issue with it or anything like that. And it diversifies our control.” - Julian Gibbons Takeaways from today’s episode: You never know where the next mode of action is going to come from. It’s so important that companies like Corteva Agriscience are constantly investing in the discovery process to try to find molecules like UK-2A that will help farmers diversify their approaches. It’s not as simple as just finding a molecule. The story of UK-2A shows how tedious and burdensome and in some cases frustrating the process can be. It’s no wonder why it takes so much time and investment to come up these novel solutions The importance of formulation. The active ingredients get a lot of the spotlight because they are what gives us the outcomes we want, but Kevin is exactly right: it’s the formulation that will make or break a product. I wonder how many promising active ingredients don’t make it to commercialization because the formulation wasn’t quite right. Seems like a lot of opportunity here as well. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#28
April 28 · 46 min
Hybrids Outperform: The History and Science of Hybridization
We celebrate the 100th year anniversary of Pioneer Seeds, and take a look back at the history of hybridization. The process may seem simple: to take two varieties or even species and cross them together to create more desirable offspring. But the concept of controlled hybridization, intentionally transferring pollen from a chosen male parent to a chosen female parent, is relatively new in the history of agriculture. But it has been nothing short of revolutionary. This episode explores some of this history and poses questions like: what happened in the early 1900s with hybridization that opened the door for the formation of Pioneer and eventually the tremendous growth in yields over the past 100 years? What did adoption of hybrid corn look like in the early days and what can it teach us about adoption of new farm technologies today? Why has corn been the model for hybridization and what might still be possible for crops? “Since 1926 our population has gone up by four times, from about two billion to eight billion (people). But the productivity of corn has gone up almost twelve times…Also, we've taken this technology, as Marc Albertsen has talked about, and we've used it for other crops and made them much more productive.” - Lance Gibson We’re asking these questions and many others of three experts on today’s episode: Corteva Agriscience Agronomy Training Manager Dr. Lance Gibson, Saskatchewan farmer Corey Loessin and retired Pioneer employee Dr. Marc Albertsen, who was the first person hired in the newly formed biotechnology department at Pioneer in 1981, and went on to lead the agronomic traits group at the company. A few takeaways from this episode: How much genetics generally and hybridization specifically has contributed to the incredible productivity increases from farmers in the past 100 years How the learnings from hybrid corn have translated into developing hybrids in other crops, and that we’re still in the very early days of realizing the benefits of hybrids in crops like wheat and canola. We still don’t fully understand heterosis. There are likely abundant opportunities to be discovered once scientists better understand this process. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#27
March 12 · 31 min
Farming the Details: Resilience in Soybean Performance
What does it take to break the world soybean yield record? Today we talk to soybean yield record-holder Alex Harrell and soybean breeder Don Kyle. Alex farms in southwest Georgia with his dad where they primarily grow soybeans, corn, wheat and watermelon. In 2023, he became the first farmer to record a soybean yield of over 200 bushels per acre. The next year he beat his own record coming in at 218.2856 bushels per acre. It’s an incredible achievement for anyone, but it’s even more impressive when you consider that Alex farms in an area that doesn’t generally grow a lot of soybeans. “ We did a lot of studying, a lot of class, made a lot of mistakes, and watched a lot of beans rot in our humidity. You know when the things do line up, we have a lot of yield potential there as well. ” - Alex Harrell Farmers like Alex have had to learn these lessons and refine their system over years while experimenting with and matching up the right genetics for their fields. Don Kyle became interested in soybean breeding in the early 90s and has since dedicated his career in plant breeding to the crop. Today he’s a soybean breeder and Evaluation Zone Lead for the Eastern US at Corteva Agriscience based in Princeton, Illinois. He says even though he’s focused on soybeans for over 30 years, he’s more passionate than ever about the crop. Don thinks we might see more hybrid soybeans in the future, similar to what we’re currently seeing with wheat. But for now, farmers aren’t using hybrid soybeans so it’s even more impressive what farmers like Alex Harrell have been able to achieve in terms of yield growth over the years. “ It's very easy to produce soybean seed because they self-pollinate themselves. The problem is to produce hybrid seed is really difficult. So making a cross between two different soybean varieties today still requires using tweezers and sometimes magnifying glasses so you could see the flower parts the best. It's a very tedious job.” - Don Kyle A few takeaways from this episode: Incredible yield growth is possible without hybrids in soybeans The significance of detailed management allows for more precise practices that create the best yields Successful genetics is more about varieties with resilience rather than yield magic to account for the many factors that can’t be controlled Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#26
February 24 · 26 min
Plenish in the Ration: Feeding Cows and Communities
In today's episode, we explore how agriscience has created a more valuable soybean. A soybean that gets the farmer more money, a dairy farm who buys it more profit, and has the added benefit of supporting a local agricultural economy. This is the story of Plenish soybeans. We are joined by Dairy scientist Dr. Bill Mahanna who works for Corteva Agriscience and manages Pioneer’s Global Nutrition Sciences Team. His team works with any product that might ultimately be fed to livestock, like corn, silage, and soybeans. Also joining us is Craig Phelps, who owns Edgewood Farms, Edgewood Grain, and Linwood Commodities based in Western New York. Craig buys, stores and roasts Plenish soybeans and sells them to dairy farmers in his area. Together we discuss components of dairy science, nutrition, agronomy, genetics, supply chain economics and more. It’s a great demonstration of how agriscience innovation can lead to better economic outcomes. To understand the Plenish story, it’s important to first understand the dairy science behind why they’re so desirable for dairy cows relative to commodity soybeans or other competing ingredients. Thirty nine years ago, Bill Mahanna became the first dairy-focused person hired by Pioneer. He grew up on a dairy farm in upstate New York and was a college professor of dairy science before joining the company. He says these high oleic soybeans, now known as Plenish soybeans, were developed about 14 years ago but initially the target market was food ingredients. Then they started to realize the potential this innovation could have in dairy rations. “ It's a dense form of energy, it's a safe oil, it brings in the amino acid we need and can potentially, depending on how the ration is balanced, actually increase the butter fat content of milk.…It's a potentially homegrown feed that we process on the farm that's really relatively inexpensive for us compared to some of the other things that we might put in the diet like blood meal or palm fat or things like that.” - Dr. Bill Mahanna So these high oleic soybeans found a very important place in a dairy cow’s ration. Dairy farmers want to feed certain fats to not only provide complete nutrition but to also boost the butterfat percentage of the milk that they sell to achieve a premium price. But the type of fat that they feed is really important, and that’s why Plenish soybeans have really taken off. Craig Phelps has worked as both a dairyman and crop producer. Through these experiences he has seen the dairy industry from multiple perspectives and today roasting Plenish soybeans for local dairies is a big part of his business. The biggest problem he has found is there not being enough Plenish soybeans for the demand. “ That's what I recognized in the Plenish is if we could create a differentiated product, cut down the transportation, basically buy that product locally, process it locally, and sell it locally. We're cutting a lot out of the middle there, and hopefully everybody wins be it the grower, us as a processor in the middle and the dairyman getting a high quality product.” - Craig Phelps A few takeaways from this episode: The opportunity we have to create new differentiated products that are innovative and unlock new value, but also work within the established system. Secondly is the fact that through agriscience, we can find ways to allow producers to capture and keep more of the value from what they’re producing. Rather than taking commodity beans and trying to convert them into better feed through extensive processing, genetics are sort of “baking” those solutions into the crop. The impact this is having on local communities: farmers receiving more per bushel, soybeans being consumed domestically that might have gone export, and a local company like Edgewood Grain connecting the supply chain. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#25
February 3 · 36 min
United Against Corn Rootworm
On today’s episode we uncover some critical details about one of the most destructive and adaptable insect pests in corn: corn rootworm. It has been referred to as the billion dollar pest for several years, and the reality is it’s probably closer to the two billion dollar pest now in terms of damages. To explore the impact and management of corn rootworm we are joined by Clint Pilcher, Ph.D., who leads the Technical Knowledge Solutions Team at Corteva Agriscience. We’ll also be hearing from North Central Iowan farmer Randy Madden. Randy offers a unique perspective not only as a producer but also from his experience working with Monsanto as part of their global production team after earning his PhD in seed physiology. He shares that despite high local demand for corn, the journey of continuous corn has certainly come with its own challenges. “ Journey is a very good word. I mean, it's obviously a trial and error and over the years we've added our own bulk anhydrous facility...Our high pH soils have proven to be real challenging in corn production as well and managing the insects like corn rootworm….The traits have made that much more achievable and sort of added tremendous value to continuous corn production system like we have now.” - Randy Madden Scientists have been working on the corn rootworm problem for decades, but with every new solution, the insect continues to adapt. To drastically reduce populations, two steps will be critical including stewardship of the products that today have some efficacy against corn rootworm and getting everyone on the same page to be vigilant against this pest. “ The most recent tool is RNAI…It is very effective in controlling the adult population, it will eventually kill the insect, but it's much more slow acting than the BTs in controlling that insect. And so you know that, in addition to adult beetle management, is still an effective way of controlling them.” - Clint Pilcher A few takeaways from this episode: There is great significance in the concept of area wide management and how it can bring everyone together to control corn rootworm. It would be nice if all agronomic problems could be reduced to just a single product that solved them for good, but as we all know, that’s not how it works. Complex problems require more dynamic solutions. How impactful the RNAI technology is. Even though it’s not THE singular answer to corn rootworm, having a tool like this can be incredibly powerful if used properly and stewarded properly so that it remains viable for years to come. The importance of stewardship. It’s not just a buzzword, and Randy’s words really stuck with me: the industry needs to be doing more to make sure we are stewarding the products we have available to us today. Because as you just heard Clint say, any potential new solutions are going to take a LONG time to make their way onto the farm, and it’s going to take all of us in the industry doing our part to preserve what we have that still has some efficacy today. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#24
Dec 30, 2025 · 27 min
Ag Innovation Begins on the Farm
On today’s episode, we celebrate the end of our first full year of the podcast by taking a look back at some previous episodes in order to take a look forward into the future of agriscience. In the spirit of Agriscience Explained and the fact that we believe true ag innovation has to be farmer-led, we’ve invited an innovative farmer to join the show for this episode. Tim Nuss of Nuss Farms operates in Lodi, California. In addition to his day job on the farm, Tim also started a podcast called The Modern Acre with his brother Tyler about eight years ago. This weekly show that focuses on entrepreneurs in the ag industry also led them to launching something called AgList about a year ago. Tim is a great example of a farmer thinking differently about agricultural innovation. Our conversation connected very closely with several of our episodes we’ve done for this podcast this season. “ A lot of farmers are in really challenging situations right now and they're exhausted with financials of the business and just getting through the year of really keeping yourself open to new ideas and having those conversations takes a lot of work and takes a mindset…You just have to keep that positive growth mindset and know that if you have a limited budget, like don't put innovation on the back burner. It still needs to be a part of the budget.” - Tim Nuss Agriscience Explained hopes to not only emphasize innovation but to highlight that innovation doesn’t matter unless it can be applied. And in order to go from science to solution, effective communication has to happen. As any good entrepreneur does, beyond farming and beyond podcasting, Tim noticed an additional problem that needed a solution. Seeing this chaotic landscape of the ag biologicals market, Tim and his brother Tyler decided to launch a website called AgList. AgList helps farmers and agronomists filter through various biological products and find out what real users have to say about them. Companies pay to list their products on the platform so that they can be endorsed by customers who have firsthand experience with them. “ It's very hard for individual farmers to talk to a hundred different companies to see if their product works…. We just saw this as an opportunity where there's a lot of challenge to understand as a farmer what works for you. The landscape map is cool to look at, but it's really challenging….So kind of leveling the playing field, putting it on an independent platform to kind of be able to click through and understand what products are actually relevant for you.” - Tim Nuss Previous Episodes Referenced: Agriscience Explained with Sam Eathington Crucial Conversations About Biologicals in Agriculture Unlocking Agriscience Innovation Gene Editing: Pathway to Progress Permanent Cover Crops Take Root Science, Sustainability and the Art of Farming Discovering Tomorrow’s Biotech Traits Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#23
Dec 10, 2025 · 30 min
Southern Rust Surprises the North
On today's episode: Why did we see so much southern rust in the 2025 corn crop? We talk about this foliar disease, where it comes from, the impact it had on the crop and what farmers can do to better manage it going forward. We'll also explore some fascinating agriscience happening that will give farmers better protection against crop diseases like southern rust in the future. To guide us through all of this, we're talking to Mark Jeschke, agronomy manager supporting the Pioneer brand at Corteva Agriscience. Mark has been with the company for 18 years and is currently based in Johnston, Iowa. He also farms with his family in Northern Illinois. Also joining the show is Pioneer field agronomist Carl Joern. Carl saw a lot of southern rust this past growing season in his area of northwest Indiana and northeast Illinois. He works directly with farmers in his role as a field agronomist and focuses on making sure they can make the most profit from Pioneer products. “ Southern rust can be scary, especially if you don't have experience with it and when you have environmental conditions that stack the deck in its favor. There are fields across the Midwest this year that got sprayed with a fungicide and in three weeks that corn crop looked dead. And folks are trying to consider how to manage for a disease and how you invest in a crop that doesn't look like it's invested back in your operation…Like anything in farming, how you manage your operation has an impact on how pathogens proliferate and how different weed species grow or don't grow on your farm.” - Carl Joern And while this year was bad and was a learning experience for many people, it’s not a new disease. Mark Jeschke remembers starting to see it in 2016 and says it has shown up earlier and earlier in the last couple of years, creating a bigger management concern. This threat can become a huge issue, taking away yield and potential revenue at a time when margins are thin. But could some of the modern gene editing tools that we’ve talked about in previous episodes of this podcast potentially help reduce this risk? Jeschke definitely sees this as a possibility. “ What our scientists have done is take multiple disease resistance genes and stack those all together. So you're delivering multiple genes for resistance to different diseases all at once…It's a concept that can be expanded going forward that can add more resistance genes to it…So it can be iterated and improved upon over the years. So that's very exciting.” - Mark Jeschke A few takeaways from today's episode: A better understanding of southern rust: where it comes from, what causes it to spread and some management tips For as sophisticated as modern farming is, there are curveballs every year. Sometimes the timing doesn’t work out to address them reactively. That’s why the work of agriscience innovation is never finished to create better solutions Multi-disease resistance or the disease super locus is really an exciting development. This is a very real and timely example of where gene editing technology could address a problem that farmers have no way of knowing in advance if they need to prioritize. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#22
Nov 25, 2025 · 28 min
Stewarding the Future
Today’s episode dives deep into creating a comprehensive and integrated approach to weed management. Agriscience has proven that we can make effective products, but can we make those effective products last? This process of preserving our latest and greatest tools is called stewardship. In this episode we take a deep dive into what it looks like to create solutions with stewardship in mind from the outset by taking a look at the Enlist program. Bill Belzer joins us as the lead of the Stewardship Team for Corteva Agriscience based in Johnston, Iowa. Belzer and his team work across seed, crop protection and seed applied technologies to make sure stewardship is at the forefront. We are also joined by John Davis, a farmer in Delaware, Ohio. Davis shares his experiences as both a multigenerational farmer in the area, and a Pioneer Rep on the front lines of serving other farms in the area. Davis says when it comes to challenges they have to face in farming, weed control is certainly toward the top of the list. “ One of the things that listeners can appreciate and farmers especially know is that they're in a race against biology. We think about managing land is managing the sun and then the biological ecosystem that goes with that. And within that ecosystem you've got weeds, you've got insects, you have fungal organisms, and they're always on the move and they're always shifting…. So growers are faced with staying ahead of biology.” - Bill Belzer The team at Corteva Agriscience took an industry-leading approach to stewardship with the Enlist program. Think of the Enlist Weed Control System and Enlist Ahead as a means of preserving a program that provides long-term weed control. But for this to happen, it’s going to take a multitude of decisions from everyone involved. Not just researchers, but agronomists, farmers, and other trusted partners that all contribute to agronomic and economic decisions on the farm. “ Probably the most difficult thing is when you're sitting across the table from a grower, you've got your sales rep hat on and you're trying to encourage them to do the stewardship program and use the right product. It comes down to dollars and everyone believes they can do something less expensive, but you try to work through that and explain to them.” - John Davis A few takeaways from this episode: There’s a whole lot more to stewardship than I’d ever considered. And it starts much earlier than I had considered. Stewardship goes way beyond reducing weed resistance to Enlist herbicides. Long-term efficacious weed control is the goal here. This really does take a commitment from all involved. Everyone needs to understand what’s at stake here and what role we all need to play in stewarding these products and programs. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#21
Oct 31, 2025 · 29 min
From Rum to Revolution: How Spinosyns Changed Pest Control
One scientist's vacation 30 years ago is a big reason why you don’t end up with caterpillars in your lettuce today. The class of chemistry derived from this remarkable bacteria is called Spinsoyns based on the scientific name for the bacteria, Saccaropolyspora spinosa. To tell this incredible story of a bacteria discovered in an unlikely location, we’re joined by Jesse Richardson, a field scientist at Corteva Agriscience based in Mesa, Arizona. Jesse has been with the company for about 39 years, where his job is to characterize new active ingredients and to provide technical education and technical service to growers and pest control advisors. Joining Jesse is Pest Control Advisor (PCA), Bill Fox. Bill has been a PCA since 1978, and is based in Yuma, Arizona serving farmers on both sides of the Arizona California border. He’s going to give us a field-level perspective on what impact spinosyns have had for farmers in his area. “ So it's a naturally derived product, but what was most exciting about it was it had the ecotox attributes of a biological, but the performance attributes of a synthetic…So when I saw its efficacy and this combination of safety on these natural enemies, I knew that we had something that was going to just blow the doors off the industry.” - Jesse Richardson Jesse and his colleagues were convinced about the efficacy of this natural bacteria-derived insecticide. But as we’ve heard in other episodes, there’s still a process to taking the science and turning it into a solution. It was a commercial success for Corteva Agriscience because it was embraced almost immediately by growers and PCA’s like Bill Fox. “ It's just a fun time to be a PCA and to see what we accepted back when I was a kid, and now to see how effective these new products are on the same pests that I couldn't kill 20 years ago or so...Its been pretty fun.” - Bill Fox A few takeaways from this episode: There is great opportunity that exists with biologicals. Not every product is going to work, but there’s some pretty incredible stuff out there when we combine discovery with modern tools to advance natural compounds and make them more effective solutions. Stewardship and longevity is a choice, or rather a series of choices to protect these tools, and it’s a shared responsibility. Spinosyns are a great example of needing efficacy. Nobody wants a worm in their lettuce and all want to make sure we are protecting non-target species. Spinosyns are incredible products for threading this needle. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#20
Oct 15, 2025 · 32 min
Using Biology To Protect Your Most Valuable Asset
Termites are not typically considered an agricultural pest, but they are a great example of how science, in particular biology, can be used to create better pest management solutions that have real economic impacts. Termites cost U.S. homeowners at least $5 billion per year. The landmark innovation in termite pest control happened about 30 years ago, with a partnership between Corteva Agriscience and the University of Florida to develop Sentricon. It’s a story of not only a new tool to use against termites but a new way to think about pest management. Stephen Gates joins us from Cooks Pest Control. Gates has a degree in entomology and has been helping Cooks offer Sentricon to their clients for nearly 27 years. We’ll also be hearing from Garima Kakkar and Neil Spomer, Corteva experts who work behind-the-scenes to improve Sentricon every year. Garima is the Global Biology Lead for urban pests and Neil works as a field trial modernization lead. “ This time of year and in the spring it was running wild. Just trying to take care of current customers who were having swarms, dealing with damaged claims, dealing with new customers, working with them because they were having swarms.... Homeowners are scared. They hear about these things and now all of a sudden they see them. And now my biggest investment's being chewed on by a bug, right?” - Stephen Gates Before Sentricon was created, liquid chemicals were the only option for homeowners to protect themselves from termite damage. With Sentricon, pest control technicians set up bait stations. These bait stations use the natural behavior and biology of the termites against them. But the genius behind Sentricon is not just getting the termites to eat bait, it’s capitalizing on something called trophylaxis which means that termites rely on their hunters and foragers to not just collect food, but to regurgitate it to the rest of the colony. “ For termite baiting to work, you need it to be both non repellent, you don't want the termites to know that they're eating anything that is bad for them, and it has to be really slow acting so that they have time to go back to the colony and through trophylaxis, share it with the rest of their nest mates.” - Neil Spomer A few takeaways from this episode: Termites are fascinating. From how they establish colonies, to trophylaxis, to their ability to avoid dangerous environments, they are a very interesting species. Understanding biology at a deeper level can lead to innovations in management. Rather than trying to find more and more effective ways to inject chemicals, Sentricon rethinks the process from first principles. Adoption of innovation takes time. Sentricon has been effective from the beginning and improved over 30 years, but some customers are still just uncomfortable with trying a new approach. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#19
Sep 30, 2025 · 30 min
The Recipe for Protecting Seed Potential
On today’s episode we explore the incredible power of seed applied technology. Seed treatments are incredible tools that help protect the seed and seedling plant in the first 10-30 days of development. The fact that the technology is delivered on the seed itself without having to spray or make any sort of extra pass with equipment makes this area of agriscience sometimes overlooked or even underappreciated. To dive into this technology further we are joined by Mark Howieson, who serves as the global technical services team leader for the Seed Applied Technology Segment of Corteva Agriscience. We also hear from Iowa farmer Scott Van Veldhuizen who farms corn and soybeans. Scott shares the impact progressive seed technology has had on his operation especially in regard to cutworm infestations. “You know, when I was a kid it was work all sun up to sun down….we're definitely more efficient, you know, 20 to 30 years ago you couldn't do this job by yourself.” - Scott Van Veldhuizen Scott doesn’t consider himself a first adopter of new ideas, but maybe more like a fast follower. Through his farming career he has collaborated with companies like Corteva Agriscience on a variety of trials, and he’s always looking for what might help him get more efficient and continue to boost his yields. And obviously that requires a lot of trust in the technology. That trust comes from the fact that there’s a whole lot that goes into creating the right recipe that fits Scott’s genetics and his situation. Howieson shares that what makes seed applied technology dynamic are the different needs of farmers. So not every seed treatment is the same. Mark likes to look at it like a recipe where each ingredient is important, but they also have to compliment each other in a way that leads to better outcomes for farmers. “ There's a chemistry element of it where you're working with formulations and then there's a biological element where we’re putting microbes and biologicals on the seed…And the interactions with the people and the people in the industry, it's pretty incredible. I mean, seed treatment is a relatively small network, and it's where you really have to put yourself out there and understand a lot of different disciplines to truly be successful.” - Mark Howieson A few takeaways from this episode: There is a significant impact seed applied technology can have and the unique position it sits in ties together the genetics, crop protection and management practices The PASSER (Plantability, application, seed safety, stewardship, efficacy and regulatory) acronym. We tend to think efficacy is all that matters but agriscience leaders like Mark have to take into consideration a number of factors to actually bring a viable recipe to the market Details matter. Seed applied technology is such a great example of how one detail can really make a massive difference. If that crop can be protected and supported through the early days of development it really can make a big difference in yield and profitability. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#18
Sep 16, 2025 · 28 min
Discovering Tomorrow’s Biotech Traits
On today’s episode, what goes into the traits farmers can purchase with their seed? How are these traits found, developed and ultimately packaged into crop genetics? Julian Chaky who leads the trait characterization and development team at Corteva Agriscience joins us to explain how the genetic traits are found, developed and packaged into usable crops. Joining Chaky is a sixth generation farmer in Iowa, Mark Knupp, who shares how this technology impacts his production. The process of arriving on a trait and getting it to the point that it can be grown in the fields of farmers like Mark is extensive. That’s where the trait characterization and development team come in. “ It's shepherding a trait from discovery. So you have to discover a trait first, and then you need to ensure that it actually works in the plant as designed. And so what we do is we do a rigorous greenhouse and field testing to ensure that we understand how the trait actually behaves… And then the other portion that's really critical for us is to make sure…there's no yield drag, that there's no secondary effects.” - Julian Chaky Trait packages are created by companies like Corteva Agriscience to offer farmers a wide range of benefits like herbicide resistance, pest management and water utilization. The evolution and development of trait “mining” all begins with identifying the farmers' needs. Before any trait identification, characterization, and development happens there has to be a clear business case for how this technology will bring value to farmers. “ The weather patterns that are changing, we don't seem to get the normal rains anymore…We've gone through droughts the last two or three years, but we've had excellent crops. I'll put a lot of that onto the genetics.” - Mark Knupp Some takeaways from this episode: Crops are complex systems and any change is likely to have an impact on some other part of the system. Finding a trait that might help farmers is just the beginning. Developers must balance both efficacy and agronomics with each product. Developing these traits takes an incredible effort from a lot of people. Advancements in agriscience and technologies like the soybean growth chamber certainly help, but there are still many hurdles that need to be overcome to bring a novel trait to market. Collaboration is essential. Mark and Julian both provide insight into how much of a collaborative process agriscience innovation is. From identifying farmer problems, trials on Marks’ fields, or collaborating with agronomists and plant breeders, agriscience innovation is certainly a team sport. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#17
Sep 2, 2025 · 32 min
Unlocking Agriscience Innovation
In today’s episode, we sat down with farmer and podcaster Corey Hillebo and Corteva Agriscience chief technology and digital officer Sam Eathington. Hillebo and Eathington help us to better understand how to unlock agriscience innovation, both at the farm level and at the corporate level. “Can we use the science to find another crop or crops for Iowa? Like there's no doubt with Brazil coming on and being a major competitor of ours and we are just doing an amazing job as farmers and Corteva is doing an amazing job with science… It would be awesome if we could find something else that is of value. We could do really well to take some pressure off.” - Corey Hillebo Science and technology are changing fast. It’s entirely plausible that the products that are returning value to farmers and shareholders today might be entirely different in the future. As Corteva Agriscience chief technology and digital officer, Sam Eathington shares that his pursuits in research and development are focused on current farmer issues, future farmer issues and what return on investment they can develop for both producers and shareholders. “At the end of the day, it's really about capital allocation and what should we prioritize and why…Part of my job is to help take the science and turn it into why we care from the business. And that is a really important part…We can do incredible science, but if we don't figure out how to link it and make it into a business value, it never goes anywhere… And so my role is a lot about how to help communicate that and explain that and then help make choices about where we invest and where we don't invest.” - Sam Eathington Some takeaways from this episode: The three overlapping circles of where to invest into future innovation are starting with the farmer needs, then the state of the science and finally the return on investment for shareholders. The pursuit of alternative crops is necessary and now possible as technology continues to make that more attainable We are definitely living in a time of disruptive innovation, and adapting to these changes is critical for all of us in agriculture. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#16
Aug 14, 2025 · 35 min
Science, Sustainability and the Art of Farming
In today’s episode: agriscience versus nature. The ability to farm land productively and profitably requires that farmers bend nature to their will on some level. But that doesn’t mean that farmers and scientists can’t find ways to work with nature, minimize off-target effects and conserve biodiversity. A great model species to think about these concepts related to farming and nature is the honeybee. Jonathan Nixon is an entomologist at Corteva Agriscience who works within the insect management biology group in the crop health division. Not only are bees his full time job, beekeeping is also his hobby, his side business, and his PhD that he is completing in honeybee genomics. “ What we want to do, first and foremost, is provide some better tools for our growers. Some better solutions for them. And a lot of that is focused on really reducing pest numbers out in the field. And you know, within our group, insect management, those target pests are insects. Honeybees are also insects, and it's a very fine line to walk between balancing that target potency on the pests so that your growers are able to protect their fields while also mitigating the off-target effects on our pollinators.” - Jonathan Nixon These are the complex realities being faced by farmers like Maryland producer Trey Hill. Over the last twenty years, Hill and his team at Harborview Farms have made several intentional decisions to make their large scale farm a more sustainable operation. After Trey found out there were some environmental groups in the area willing to pay for the costs of planting cover crops he decided to give it a try. “ My life's a process. My life's a learning living thing… I always thought there was all this anti-farmer sentiment within the environmental community, and what I found is most people like us. You know, once you start getting in there and you take on a leadership role…people want to hear what you have to say.” - Trey Hill Some myths busted in this episode: The myth that companies are only interested in the efficacy of their products and not at all investing in the impacts of these products. In the Bee Friendly Initiative you can see the care that is going into making sure pollinators and other beneficials are considered in the research and development process The myth that more sustainable farmers need to abandon modern tools altogether. Trey Hill is drastically reducing his environmental impact and moving in this more regenerative and biodiverse direction without taking chemistries or other technologies completely off the table. The myth that we can somehow just reach some sort of ecological balance in which we can let nature do whatever it wants and still farm sustainably. Farmers are stewards of the land, but they’re also running businesses - in some cases large businesses. It’s just not ecologically natural to produce the amount of food needed to feed eight billion people. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#15
Jul 25, 2025 · 34 min
Revolutionary Plant Breeding: Breakthrough Unlocks Hybrid Wheat
In today's episode, the challenge and opportunity of hybrid wheat. We've discussed previously how much hybrid corn has increased corn yields over the past century. Wheat is an important crop around the world; but why haven't hybrids been commercialized in the same way? Today we take a look at how agriscience is changing the game for hybrid wheat. Corteva Agriscience is on the cusp of making hybrid wheat a commercial reality. Global Wheat Lead for Corteva Agriscience Jessie Alt works with a team of field breeders to produce new varietal wheat that is suited for local conditions. Originally from a farm in southern Minnesota, Jessie spent the first part of her career as a soybean breeder. She joined the wheat team six years ago and says the challenge of bringing hybrid wheat to the market was a big part of what excited her about the opportunity. “ I think hybrid wheat is the most exciting plant innovation that I have been involved with in my career…It's a hard problem to crack. I think it will really change farmer profitability with wheat. And it brings that next level of tech and innovation that I believe the wheat crop has been missing.” - Jessie Alt, Ph.D. Brad Erker is the CEO of Colorado Wheat, which is an umbrella term used to describe three different wheat organizations that he manages in Colorado. The Colorado Wheat Administrative Committee, the Colorado Association of Wheat Growers, and the Colorado Wheat Research Foundation. Brad grew up on a wheat farm in eastern Colorado, but spent part of his early career in the Midwest as a corn breeder. He has been back focused on wheat full-time for the past 21 years. “ If the technology does provide a value to the farmer, they will adopt it…But it definitely is a different scenario than in corn and soy. For one, it's grown in more marginal land. It's grown more out west, where the rainfall is much lower, the inputs are much lower. The mentality of the farmer, I think, is quite different when it comes to input costs in general, whether it be cost of seed or seed treatment or fertilizer rates or cost of equipment. All of those things I think are different in that wheat space than in the corn and soy space.” - Brad Erker Some takeaways from this episode include: A completely novel approach to the wheat sterility problem of using color sorting technology to separate parent seed Any new commercial innovation is going to begin with return on investment (ROI), but it doesn’t end there. Risk mitigation is also very important, among other considerations Innovations like hybrid wheat are the result of convergence of years of research and development with large discoveries both inside and outside of agriculture. The wheat genome plus the ability to color sort at scale makes this process possible Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#14
Jul 10, 2025 · 29 min
Crucial Conversations About Biologicals in Agriculture
In today’s episode, we start to unpack the category of biologicals. Are biological products ready for prime time on the farm, or still struggling to prove their return on investment? Where are biologicals finding traction and what are the barriers and opportunities for this category going forward? To begin to peel back some of the layers of this nuanced topic, we’ll speak with Corteva researcher Josh Armstrong, who leads Corteva’s integrated discovery and bioprocess department. ”What I see is sort of this confluence of opportunities with new formulation technologies, production technologies, genetic engineering technologies that are setting us up to have a next generation of biological products that are going to truly deliver the kind of efficacy and performance that growers have come to expect from crop protection chemistry.” - Josh Armstrong We’ll also visit with California grower, Joe Coelho, a 4th generational farmer who grows a number of specialty crops, including citrus, pistachios, and almonds. Joe also has a day job where he serves as the director of sustainability and member outreach for American Pistachio Growers. Joe brings a deep understanding of the need for any new product to show its value, and has a long history of understanding the importance of enhancing biology on the farm. “You have to consider these things almost like investments that are - if you think about it operationally - capex versus opex. It’s going to take you some time. It's an investment into your soil. And it’s not a bandaid approach, and you're getting more out of everything when you make that investment.” - Joe Coelho Some takeaways from this episode include: Biologicals are a lot more than just the “bugs in a jug”. This is a vast, complex, and dynamic part of agriculture. With agriscience and technology, new and novel solutions are emerging all the time. Effective and economical uses for biological products are going to require new systems, new mindsets, and new approaches. It's unlikely that farmers will simply apply a biological product instead of a chemical product in the exact same way, at least not in the short run. This is just the beginning. Biologicals have already come a long way over the years, but there is so much yet to come, which makes this an exciting topic to explore but also one that leaves us with a lot of questions yet to be answered. Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.
#13
Jun 26, 2025 · 28 min
Fueling Growth in Winter Canola
In this episode, what would a truly renewable biofuel look like? Well, the feedstock would have to come from a crop that is productive, profitable, and resilient to grow. And one that has a low carbon intensity score that’s going to displace minimal amounts of acres of other cash crops. Could winter canola be that crop? It’s sure looking that way, in the mid-south at least. Today we hear from Chad Berghoerfer, global product director for biofuels for Corteva Agriscience. He shares about the partnership between Corteva, Bunge, and Chevron Ag Renewables to put the technology and infrastructure in place to work with farmers and expand winter canola acreage in the mid-south. Chad has been with Corteva Agriscience for over 23 years and has regularly worked in new ventures from corn breeding to precision agriculture to drones and a lot in between. He has been focused on growing winter canola for renewable biofuels for the past three years. “ There hasn't been a new cropping system in the United States in quite some time to this size and degree..” - Chad Berghoerfer You’ll also hear from Jamison Turner today, a farmer in Western Tennessee who has been growing winter canola over the past two years. Jamison provides a really clear picture of what winter canola looks like from a farmer’s perspective. “ Canola had a bad rap in our area. That was the biggest thing that came up in conversation first is: are you worried about producing this and not getting paid? And I told them ‘no’. No more than I would be any other crop that we've grown. So that's been the first thing.” - Jamison Turner Some takeaways from this episode include: What it takes to bring a new cropping system to market. Winter canola is not new in the mid-south. But it took a coordinated effort throughout the value chain with Corteva Agriscience, Bunge, and Chevron Ag renewables to make this a viable option for farmers like Jamison Turner. Soil health requires incentives. If we want to keep living roots in that soil, it has to “pencil out” for farmers, especially in tough economic times. This winter canola crop is an interesting way to do that. The importance of resilience in the system. Crops like winter canola can be not only productive and profitable, but also resilient to the tough conditions that Mother Nature can throw at them. \ Agriscience Explained is brought to you by Corteva Agriscience and hosted by Tim Hammerich. This show is produced by Clint Pilcher, Rayda Krell and Ann Leonard. Jaime Hammerich and Grant Bolton edit these podcasts, and the music was composed by Dmitri Volkov. Subscribe for more Agriscience Explained: From Science to Solutions.

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