TRADE ASSOCIATE MEMBER UPDATE
Monsanto Company (Seminis and De Ruiter Seed brands)
Taking technology in new directions
By Barbara Wunder, FFVA communications manager
Since it acquired Seminis Vegetable Seeds in 2005, the Monsanto
Company has been moving in new directions.
The company offers more than 3,000 seed varieties in 25 fruit and
vegetable crops to commercial growers in more than 150 countries. Its
fundamental commitment has been to provide good vegetable seeds today
and even better ones tomorrow. And the company is moving faster than
ever in that direction today.
Using traditional and advanced plant-breeding techniques, the company
develops innovative types of vegetables and fruits that offer greater
nutrition, convenience and have better flavor. It also leads in the
development of hybrids that provide farmers natural alternatives to
chemical pest controls and other yield-enhancing traits.
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Spinach that is resistant to downy mildew is one example of
Monsanto's successes with traditional and advanced plant-breeding
techniques.
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Since acquiring Seminis, Monsanto has applied to vegetable seeds its
vast arsenal of technology and innovation gathered over years of
improving quality and yield of crops such as corn, soybeans and cotton.
“About four years ago, we were looking for another type of crop
where we could apply that same sort of innovation,” said Mica
Veihman, communications director for Monsanto’s vegetable
business. “We tried wheat. We looked at rice. Then we discovered
that we could effectively apply our technology to vegetables. We found
there was a real opportunity to bring new developments and new
characteristics for those farmers, utilizing the knowledge that we had
applied to our large-acre crops,” Veihman said.
So Monsanto brought innovative technology to Seminis branded seed.
“Seminis had an enormous pool of germplasm – the largest
source of different kinds of seed for use all over the world,”
Veihman said, adding that Seminis’ seed library at the time
covered 63 crops. “Within a year and a half, we narrowed our focus
to 25 crops. Monsanto is known for its expertise in certain areas. We
don’t spread our resources and our research and development
thin.”
In addition to purchasing Seminis, Monsanto also recently acquired De
Ruiter Seeds, a Dutch company that offers seeds used in protected
culture greenhouses.
ADVANCED BREEDING VS. BIOTECHNOLOGY
Monsanto is known as a leader in biotechnology. Its focus on the key
crops of field corn, soybeans and cotton has resulted in increased
yield, herbicide tolerance, insect resistance and more. The company is
able to go beyond conventional plant breeding and develop plants with
desirable traits more quickly and efficiently. With conventional
breeding, plants may be bred over years to produce the desired outcome.
Monsanto’s technology puts plant breeding in the fast lane for
those large-acre crops.
Producing seeds for fruits and vegetables requires a subtle approach.
“It’s called advanced or marker-assisted breeding,”
said Veihman. “We are able to breed at a molecular level –
at the basic DNA level. We can see from the very beginning, by analyzing
the DNA of both the male and the female lines of a plant, what the
beneficial characteristics are that we want. Then we’re able to
breed those plants together and identify, before we even plant them out
in the field, whether their offspring will be desirable.”
Advanced breeding differs from biotechnology in that with
biotechnology, desirable characteristics in large-acre crops are
produced by introducing an isolated gene into the plant that comes from
a micro-organism like a bacterium.
IT ALL STARTS WITH THE GROWER
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Monsanto uses advanced or marker-assisted breeding to create seeds
with desirable traits.
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Vegetables and fruit differ from field corn, soybeans and cotton in that
not only are yield and heartiness important, so are taste, texture,
color, shelf life and nutrient content. And sometimes it’s
difficult to provide everything for everyone. “We’re working
with retail people, culinary representatives, chefs and more to educate
them as to what we can do at the seed level,” said Veihman.
“But we also tell them that if a variety doesn’t have the
basic production traits, then it doesn’t matter what we do to
improve flavor. It’s got to yield for the grower.”
Monsanto focuses on helping the grower be more productive while
reducing input costs. “So the larger goal is to incorporate
characteristics that are important to the consumer, like a seedless
tomato or one with high lycopene content or improved flavor, while
retaining all the important production traits,” said Veihman,
further emphasizing that variables such as storage and shipping will
also affect the quality of the commodity.
“We are working on products with all the desired consumer
traits,” Veihman said. “But we also have a responsibility to
figure out how the farmer is going to get a fair price for
it.”