KWS and Bayer CropScience's co-developed sugarbeet hybrids to enter official trials

After intensive and detailed breeding activities within the cooperation between KWS and Bayer CropScience the development of sugarbeet hybrids tolerant to herbicides of the ALS inhibitor group is now in its final stage. The first tolerant varieties will be entered into European official trials very soon. The joint technology will make sugarbeet cultivation easier, flexible in its timing and more sustainable.

Joint research between KWS and Bayer CropScience on developing tolerant sugarbeet hybrids already began in 2001. As a result of this cooperation, two patent applications were filed in 2010 and published in 2012. KWS and Bayer CropScience move forward in the implementation of this technology in an exclusive partnership.

“We have already been working in this project for 13 years and the first varieties are expected to be launched right after the end of the quota system in Europe. We see the development of these new hybrids as a motivation to continue our role as leader in technology and innovation in the sugarbeet breeding industry and to make this crop competitive for the coming decades," emphasized Dr. Peter Hofmann, Head of the Sugarbeet Division at KWS. “Our joint technology will be made available for other sugarbeet breeders who are interested to enter into a license agreement with KWS and Bayer Crop Science.”