Produce to launch Pythium-tolerant corn hybrid in Brazil

Among Brazil’s most important diseases that attack corn crops is stem rot, causing significant reductions in the production and quality of grains and forages. 

Its occurrence in Brazil has increased significantly in recent harvests in all planting regions, as identified by researchers from Embrapa Milho e Sorgo.

Farmers are constantly searching for technologies and new cultivars to combat this pathogen and achieve good levels of crop productivity. With this challenge in mind, Produce, a pioneering Brazilian company in direct sales in agriculture, developed Nobre VIP3, which combines characteristics that make the cultivar highly versatile, enabling use in different growing environments throughout Brazil.

The new corn hybrid is now available for the 2024/25 harvest after being tested in the field, where it demonstrated a great ability to adapt to different levels of environments and management practices, explained professor and researcher at Produce, Waldemar D'Arcádia Júnior.

″This hybrid, which will have good adaptability to different planting conditions, is a more technical hybrid, with high tolerance to Pythium aphanidermatum, excellent stem and root quality, high production potential, precocity and better nutrient absorption,″ highlighted the researcher.

For high grain yield, the new hybrid features VIP3 technology, which offers protection against the main caterpillars that attack corn crops. The technology, present in several market hybrids, also presents glyphosate tolerance.

″Nobre VIP3 is a hybrid with high productive potential. In field tests, it has demonstrated good adaptability both in the harvest and in the off-season. Due to its size, it is a product focused on grain,″ added agronomist and Intelligence Coordinator of Produce Market, Caroline Afonso Marçal.

According to researcher Waldemar D'Arcádia Júnior, characteristics such as early cycle, adaptation to different levels of environments, greater tolerance to breakage and lodging, and accentuated stay-green (a characteristic that keeps the leaves green for an extended period), allow recommending the hybrid for grain production in the first and second harvests throughout Brazil.

″All these characteristics help farmers who want to grow two crops yearly. Through long genetic improvement work, we arrived at this new hybrid, making corn cultivation consciously and responsibly possible,″ the researcher highlighted.

Developed and launched by Produce, the Nobre VIP3 corn hybrid is sold directly from the industry where it is produced to the farmer, which guarantees a more attractive price, as highlighted by the co-founder of Produce, Guilherme Trotta.

″This is yet another exclusive solution from Produce, which adds to a portfolio with more than 600 products and a team of 10,000 consultants distributed throughout the main producing states in the country, all fully trained to assist farmers and deliver high-tech products with differentiated conditions to the farm gate.″

The executive also highlights the consolidation of a new business model. ″Our essence is to provide farmers with the main technologies and producers, regardless of where they are. To do this, we shortened part of the agricultural chain. Our inspiration comes from collaborative selling, a business model that is a reference in the country and has been growing and multiplying. In the last 12 months, we registered an increase of more than 300% in the sale of agricultural inputs″, reveals Trotta.