Full launch: Triple trait soybeans garner final approval

ST. LOUIS — XtendFlex soybeans are now available for a full 2021 commercial launch in the United States and Canada following import approval from the European Union Sept. 28.

Bayer’s multi-biotech traited soybeans tolerate over-the-top applications of glyphosate, glufosinate and dicamba, and the company said it is ready to supply 20 million acres of the product for the upcoming growing season.

XtendFlex soybeans, Bayer’s newest soybean technology, are built upon the Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybean technology with the additional tolerance to glufosinate herbicides. XtendFlex soybeans provide growers with additional flexibility to manage tough-to-control and resistant weeds.

XtendFlex is Bayer’s second major product launch in soybeans in the last five years.

“The upcoming launch in 2021 highlights the strength of the Bayer soybean pipeline, as well as the investment that Bayer continues to make in our soybean portfolio and the Roundup Ready Xtend Crop System. XtendFlex soybeans are the latest example of Bayer developing innovative products to help farmers meet challenges on their farm,” said Lisa Safarian, Crop Science North America president.

“We’ve seen great demand for XtendFlex soybeans from our customers. Based on that demand, we’ve developed a supply plan to meet the market demand in 2021, across all maturities, Bayer brands and licensees,” said Lisa Streck, Bayer soybean launch lead.

“We expect the launch of XtendFlex to match the launch scale of Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans, which were planted on 20 million acres in their first year of commercial availability. This technology offers outstanding yield potential and weed control flexibility that will benefit soybean farmers across the U.S.”

Agronomist’s Insight

Yield performance and disease and weed management are the planks that make up the new XtendFlex platform.

“XtendFlex soybeans are built on the Roundup Ready Xtend technology and moving those genetics into the XtendFlex platform. Farmers know what that technology does, they know how it yields, and these XtendFlex varieties are something they can be confident in from a yield perspective,” said Daniel Lundeen, Channel technical agronomist.

“On the disease side, XtendFlex has some good tolerances to the normal diseases we deal with in Illinois like frogeye leaf spot, sudden death syndrome and phytophthora root rot.”

Weed management is becoming more and more challenging as resistance to one or multiple herbicides has become the norm. Adding glufosinate to the soybean’s tolerance menu provides another option for farmers.

“This gives farmers another option for in-season control if their residual program for whatever reason, whether it’s weather or timing of application, doesn’t quite hold back the weeds,” Lundeen noted.

“Because that’s kind of what we’re talking about this year is to not only start clean like we’ve always talked about, but get farmers thinking about spring clean, not waiting until weeds emerge, go ahead and lay the residuals down when the field is clean. That way you stay clean. Start clean, spray clean and stay clean.”

XtendFlex soybeans also carry the dicamba trait, adding a third option if the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approves the label for 2021.

Lundeen has seen first-hand the new product’s performance during field trials across multiple environments and years.

“This year we planted some market development trials that are actually the varieties that farmers will be planting in 2021. Throughout the state we roughly had about 30 locations in the Channel brand that we were able to look at varieties on. They ranged from a 2.0 maturity group up to 4.1 in my area and in the south I believe they had some that were up to a 4.6,” the agronomist explained.

“We have quite a bit of germplasm available, and it seems to me in each maturity group that there’re products that a lot of farmers can benefit from for disease management or yield potential.”

Lundeen added the company invested substantial time and research into the new product.

“There’re some competing technologies in the market that don’t necessarily have all of that research on varieties to go with it. We made significant investments with these trials that were stewarded actually and we didn’t even know if we could harvest the grain yet until we got approval. Not only that, but we’ve had farmers do ground-breaking trials in fields and we’re really utilizing some of our production growers, as well, that are growing these to capture data and performance on varieties,” he said.

In choosing the right seed for a particular field and farm, Lundeen said farmers can rely on the local Channel Seedsman to help.

“Whether it’s going through the data that they have access to and that we share with them or figure out which field and which farm is right for that variety. There are differences in varieties and you want to make sure you place them right, so contacting you Channel Seedsman would be the best thing to do to go over variety specific information,” Lundeen said.