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Innovating for the Future: How MAS Seeds Designed its New Maize and Sunflower Seed Portfolio
Seed companies face a myriad of challenges and opportunities. From adapting to climate change to meeting market demands, their journey is one of constant innovation and dedication to sustainable solutions.
For MAS Seeds, understanding the needs of the market is paramount. With a diverse range of challenges, including adapting to climate change and disease resistance, the company’s business units work tirelessly to ensure that their portfolio remains competitive and aligned with market demands.
Florence Delattre, Head of the MAS Seeds Maize Portfolio, emphasises the importance of consistency in the MAS Seeds 2024 offerings.
‘We are consistent in maintaining our portfolio to adapt to the latest challenges faced by farmers,’ she explains. ‘Our goal is to provide reliable maize hybrids with the best quality seeds, ensuring consistent yields regardless of environmental factors.’
Gabriel Magaddino, the Sunflower Portfolio Manager for MAS Seeds, highlights the importance of market specifications in their selection process for sunflower hybrids. By conducting agronomic and clinical trials tailored to specific market segments, MAS Seeds ensures that their products meet the diverse needs of farmers across Europe.
‘It’s imperative that our portfolio aligns with market needs. This involves a thorough understanding of existing products and their efficacy, as well as identifying areas for improvement. We strive to enhance our portfolio by introducing new, market-relevant products, and developing new innovations,’ Magaddino says.
Upcoming sunflower products
Gabriel Magaddino shares one of MAS Seeds’ recent breakthroughs: the introduction of sunflower hybrids with new traits to combat diseases (including black rust and broomrape). These innovations mark a significant step forward in addressing challenges faced by sunflower growers, offering them greater resilience and reducing reliance on chemical solutions.
‘One of the major hurdles in the sunflower market is combating various diseases while simultaneously striving to boost farm yields. Currently, there’s a substantial disparity between the genetic potential of sunflower hybrids and the actual yields achieved on farms. In Europe, for instance, the average yield stands at 2.5 tons per hectare, whereas we know it’s feasible to surpass five tons per hectare. Bridging this gap is crucial, and we’ve been actively seeking solutions,’ he says.
One such solution involves enhancing resistance to disease, particularly against prevalent threats like sclerotinia and downy mildew.
Gabriel Magaddino is the Sunflower Portfolio Manager at MAS Seeds
‘We’ve embarked on a journey to improve the genetic potential of our sunflower hybrids while fortifying their resistance to these key diseases. This initiative led to the development of the HelioSMART portfolio, which integrates two essential elements: maximising genetic potential under varying conditions and bolstering resistance to diseases.’
By implementing genetic solutions, MAS Seeds aims to minimise reliance on chemical treatments for disease control. This not only reduces costs for farmers, but also enhances overall profitability while promoting environmentally sustainable farming practices, he adds.
‘At the same time, we’re constantly exploring new avenues for innovation through our recently established R&D department. This department focuses on diversification and innovation, seeking novel cultivation methods to optimise sunflower yields. We’re experimenting with crop associations, alternative sowing dates and innovative weed-control methods to adapt to changing climate conditions and maximise crop productivity.’
Upcoming corn products
MAS Seeds employs a rigorous selection process for introducing new products into their portfolio. Florence Delattre discusses how their maize advancements are based on extensive data collection, including climate data, plant morphology and genotype analyses. This data-driven approach allows them to identify the best candidates for their portfolio, ensuring resilience to stress factors like drought.
In the corn portfolio, Delattre discusses the launch of MDM 3313, a double-use hybrid with exceptional yields for both grain and silage. This innovation provides farmers with flexibility in harvesting based on weather conditions, ultimately enhancing their profitability and resilience to climate variability.
Firstly, this hybrid is what they call a ‘double-use’ hybrid. It serves two purposes – it can be used both as silage and as grain.
Florence Delattre is Head of the MAS Seeds Maize Portfolio
‘What I find particularly appealing about this hybrid is the flexibility it offers to farmers. Imagine this: when the summer weather is on our side, we can decide to harvest the crop as grain, and that can fetch us a good price on the market,’ she says. ‘However, if the weather turns against us, and it looks like we might face a shortage of feed for our cattle during winter, we can quickly switch gears and harvest it as silage. It’s like having a backup plan ready in case things don’t go as expected.’
This flexibility not only provides a sense of security, but also opens new business opportunities. Depending on the needs of farmers and market conditions, they can choose to sell surplus grain or silage, thus maximising their profits.
‘And let’s not forget about the adaptability of this hybrid to extreme weather conditions. With climate change bringing about unpredictable weather patterns, having a crop that can handle both extreme heat and dryness or optimal conditions is a real asset.’
Moreover, building a competitive portfolio involves considering hybrid reproducibility to ensure consistent seed availability year after year, thus avoiding shortages, Delattre adds. ‘We also assess the potential risks and opportunities that we see coming down the road, like adapting to evolving market conditions and climate change.’
Contributing to sustainable agriculture
Both Delattre and Magaddino emphasise MAS Seeds’ commitment to sustainable agriculture. By developing hybrids with tolerance to stress factors like drought and disease, the company is playing a crucial role in helping farmers to adapt to changing environmental conditions.
Furthermore, MAS Seeds’ focus on innovation extends to cover crops and diversification strategies. Delattre explains how their portfolio includes maize hybrids that are optimised for early planting, allowing farmers to maximise soil fertility and improve overall crop resilience.
As MAS Seeds continues to innovate, they remain focused on anticipating future challenges and opportunities. Delattre emphasises the importance of addressing climate change and evolving pressures from disease through ongoing research and collaboration with partners.
‘In 2019, we introduced WATERLOCK hybrids to highlight maize products with the best resilience to water stress. We realised the importance of focusing on drought stress tolerance due to the frequent limitation of water supplies in real-world agricultural settings,’ she says.
The second trait is GREEN+, to highlight silage maize varieties that provide farmers with a wider window for harvesting at the optimal time. For farmers raising cattle, timing is crucial for maximising potential yields and the quality of forage.
‘Upon identifying these resilient varieties, we developed corresponding hybrids for silage and suitable options for grain production. These hybrids showcased resilience not only to water stress, but also to heat.’ MAS Seeds’ success in identifying such resilient hybrids can be attributed to the establishment of breeding stations in eastern and southern Europe over the past 15 years.
This early focus allowed them to address stress tolerance criteria promptly, leading to the innovations you’ll find in the MAS Seed 2024 portfolio. ‘We’ve been consistently focused on refining our portfolio to cater to the needs of our clients, particularly cattle and corn farmers. Our aim is to provide reliable hybrids with the highest-quality seeds, offering consistency and stability in yields, regardless of changing environmental conditions. This long-term commitment to portfolio refinement has been ongoing for several years,’ Delattre says. ‘When selecting new candidates for the portfolio, we rely on a robust data-collection process, analysing various factors such as environmental conditions, plant phenotypes and genotypes. Collaborating with our R&D teams and utilising our extensive trial network allows us to identify the most promising products that meet market specifications and align with our strategic vision,’ adds Magaddino, highlighting MAS Seeds’ efforts to expand its genetic pool and develop hybrids tailored to future climate scenarios.
By staying ahead of the curve, MAS Seeds aims to empower farmers with the tools and knowledge they need to thrive in an ever-changing agricultural landscape. ‘We’re actively preparing for future challenges, including climate change, by expanding our research efforts and collaborating with partners to develop resilient hybrid solutions,’ Delattre adds.
To view the new MAS Seeds 2024 portfolio, download it here.
The introduction of sunflower hybrids with new traits to combat disease (including black rust and broomrape) is a recent MAS Seeds breakthrough.
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