Bayer CropScience's strategic crops: Wheat—man's main staple crop

Wheat is the oldest and most widespread food crop in the world. With about 25% of the global arable land under wheat cultivation, wheat is the largest cereal crop in terms of acreage and one of the world’s most important staple foods. Wheat is the second most-produced cereal crop after corn with more than 650 million tons produced every year. Global demand for wheat is outpacing the growth in productivity, thus widening the global production and demand gap. Main wheat producing regions/countries are the European Union, China, India, North America, Russia, Australia and Pakistan.

Bayer CropScience - committed to innovations to drive sustainable cereals production

Bayer CropScience is committed to heavily investing in innovation to drive productivity increases in cereals that are more environmentally compatible, thus contributing to world food security.

As a global market leader for solutions enhancing the cereals business, Bayer CropScience strives to offer farmers integrated solutions tailored to the local agriculture environment.

The company today has a leading position in crop protection solutions for cereals with a strong presence in all relevant markets/countries and a continuous flow of innovative products that help to safeguard harvests, grain quality and increase yields in a sustainable manner.

Bayer CropScience offers the most sophisticated cereals fungicide portfolio in the industry, helping to control a wide range of cereals pathogens with different modes of action. The newest addition is the Xpro® family of fungicides introduced in 2011.

The company also holds a global number 1 market position in cereals herbicides and is a leader in seed treatment and insecticidal solutions.

Bayer CropScience also provides solutions to protect grains from post-harvest losses. The company is a leader in the stored product segment with residual insecticides that provide both preventive and curative protection against stored product insects.

In addition to the expertise in crop protection solutions for cereals, Bayer CropScience also invests significantly in wheat seeds & traits: the goal is to develop a leading global wheat seed business building on a broad germplasm base with local variety development and a valueadding trait portfolio with the focus on agronomic performance.

Building up the leading research and development platform for enhanced wheat varieties

Recognizing the need to close the widening production and demand gap in wheat through higher crop productivity, Bayer CropScience has set its primary research and breeding targets for new high-performance wheat varieties and the development of hybrid technology in the following areas:

•Increasing yield
•Addressing challenges such as nutrient use efficiency (nitrogen uptake), water use
efficiency and abiotic stress tolerance (drought, heat)
•Enhancing grain quality (fulfillment of parameters like protein content, falling numbers)
•Improving resistance to wheat fungal diseases

Bayer CropScience is building up a broad germplasm pool and develops a unique platform to offer farmers tailor-made varieties with improved yield and other sought-after characteristics.

While doing so, it employs the entire range of technologies in research, breeding and trait development, from non-GM marker-assisted breeding methods to genetic modification.

The main research center is based in Ghent, Belgium. It is supplemented by a growing network of wheat-breeding stations situated at the heart of key markets: North America (USA, Canada), Europe (Germany, France, Ukraine) and Australia. Expansion to further regions such as Latin America and Asia Pacific is planned in the medium term.

The launch of initial wheat varieties is planned for 2015.

Partnering to develop solutions adapted to local needs

To accelerate the ability to develop new varieties by applying the latest advancements in research and breeding, Bayer CropScience has set up a broad global network of alliances with leading international institutions. Cooperations and partnerships include amongst others:

•Collaborations with companies: Evogene (Israel), RAGT Semences (France), Biotrigo (Brazil) and KeyGene (Netherlands).
•Acquisition of breeding programs from SORT and EUROSORT (Ukraine).
•Public-private partnerships with NARDI Fundulea (Romania), University of Nebraska- Lincoln (USA), South Dakota State University (USA), Texas A&M University System (USA), CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia.

In its food chain partnership initiatives, Bayer CropScience unites its efforts with stakeholders from the food value chain to sustainably increase yields of wheat and deliver high-quality grains. In the various projects, the company provides customized seed treatment and crop protection programs, and supplies technical know-how and expertise, e.g. in monitoring and sampling.