AgroPages-Bayer showcases agricultural advancement with new greenhouse in the US-Agricultural news

Bayer recently marked the grand opening of its West Sacramento greenhouse site to support the Crop Science division’s growing Biologics and Vegetable Seeds businesses. The $12 million complex, situated on 5 acres, represents Bayer’s continuing commitment to innovative agricultural solutions to provide growers with more options and help crops adapt to seasonal and regional growing conditions.

“Innovation requires sustained and ongoing investments,” said Jim Blome, President and CEO of Bayer CropScience LP. “These state-of-the-art facilities illustrate our continued commitment to developing new innovative products for growers to help them on their farms by improving the overall sustainability and productivity of modern agriculture. ”

The West Sacramento greenhouse site will feature two new high-tech greenhouses located near Bayer’s existing research facility. Bayer’s local Vegetable Seeds research team will utilize one 14,000-square-foot greenhouse and an 11,000-square-foot screen house to work toward improvements in vegetable seeds trait attributes such as flavor and shelf life. The Biologics Research and Development team will utilize a separate 11,000-square-foot greenhouse to provide plants for research in crop efficiency and disease/insect management, including an attached 4,000-square-foot headhouse containing a fully equipped laboratory area. On average, the Biologics greenhouse team will provide up to 3,400 high-quality plants to researchers each week. Individually controlled greenhouse chambers will allow Bayer researchers to grow a diverse range of agricultural and horticultural crops under different temperature and light settings.

The completion of the West Sacramento greenhouse site follows the grand opening of Bayer’s integrated R&D site for Biologics and Vegetable Seeds in September 2014. Bayer’s West Sacramento location also serves as the global Biologics headquarters of Bayer’s Crop Science division. In addition to the new greenhouse complex, the approximately $80 million facility consists of a nearby 10 acre site containing 170,000-square-feet of research and development space, including laboratories and offices and a 2,000-square-foot existing greenhouse.

“We are excited to build on our capacity for innovation here in West Sacramento, where agricultural technology and world-class universities are all within reach,” said Jon Margolis, vice president of Biologics Research for Bayer’s Crop Science division and West Sacramento site leader. “The products emerging from Biologics and Vegetable Seeds research in West Sacramento will ultimately help farmers around the world grow more productive crops. These advancements will allow us to significantly and positively affect farming on a global scale and help feed a growing world population.”

The grand opening of the West Sacramento Greenhouse site is part of Bayer plans to invest close to $1 billion (EUR 897 million) in Capital Expenditures (CAPEX) in the United States between 2013 and 2016 and is one component of an overall global CAPEX commitment of $3.3 billion (EUR 3 billion) during that same time period. This investment represents significant efforts to ramp up research and development and to expand a world-class product supply of Bayer’s top crop protection brands in the coming years.