Dow AgroSciences acquires a Pacific Northwest wheat breeding company
Farm and Ranch August 1, 2011 Another major crop protection chemical and biotech company has entered the wheat breeding business in the Pacific Northwest. Amy Gwinn is Global Business Leader for Cereals for Dow AgroSciences. Gwinn: “We acquired the assets from Northwest Plant Breeding. It was a local company started in the Pullman, Washington area by Dr. Carl Konzak and in later years also included Tim Loughney as part of the company, the infrastructure.” The Northwest Plant Breeding assets provide a research station, germplasm, several active patents and plant variety protections. Two years ago Dow purchased a major Canadian private wheat breeding company Hyland Seeds. What can Dow provide northwest wheat growers? Gwinn: “We are one of the leading trait providing companies in the industry. I realize corn and other monocots may not have near as much presence in your area, a lot of the traits and the technology we are developing to work within those crops are also very applicable to wheat and we hope to take those and leverage into wheat and other cereals.” Dow AgroSciences will open a cereal breeding station in Pullman and will be fully operational by March of 2012. About two years ago Monsanto purchased Western Plant Breeders in Montana and Sygenta has a wheat breeding program with AgriPro. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo Net. ? ? ?
