Canada approved Monsanto’s Genuity Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans

Monsanto has received full regulatory approval in Canada for Genuity® Roundup Ready® 2 Xtend soybeans, the industry's first biotech product with herbicide tolerance to both glyphosate and dicamba.

This new soybean product will be a component of the new Roundup Ready® Xtend Crop System which will combine Genuity® Roundup Ready® 2 Xtend with glyphosate and dicamba herbicide products, providing soybean growers with greater flexibility in weed control to help maximize yield potential.

"The Roundup Ready® Xtend Crop System is designed to offer future solutions and choice within the Roundup Ready® WMS Weed Management Solutions Platform," said Bill Lester, corn and soybean trait marketing lead for Monsanto Canada. "It will offer our soybean customers enhanced overall weed control, expanded weed resistance management strategies, and increased yield potential. In addition, field research data has shown that dicamba can provide residual value under certain conditions, helping to "xtend" the weed control window and protect yield."

Dicamba is a group 4 chemistry, something previously not available to soybean growers. Dicamba is known to provide effective control of over 95 annual and biennial weed species and suppression of over 100 perennial broadleaf and woody species worldwide.

"Our existing recommendations around sustainable weed management solutions in soybeans support the use of additional chemistries and modes of action as part of an integrated weed management strategy," said Derek Freitag, Monsanto Canada's technology development lead in Eastern Canada. "Incorporating the use of dicamba and glyphosate with Genuity® Roundup Ready® 2 Xtend soybeans will build upon this strategy and also provide farmers with a much-needed tool to help control and manage against the development of herbicide resistance weeds."

Field testing of Genuity® Roundup Ready® 2 Xtend soybeans conducted by Monsanto Canada and academics at the University of Guelph over the past two years indicates the application of dicamba prior to planting soybeans, or applying dicamba in-crop, has proven effective on glyphosate-resistant giant ragweed and Canada fleabane populations. This new dicamba option in soybeans will also offer improved control of other populations of herbicide-resistant weeds, such as those that are resistant to group 2 or group 5 chemistry, that are also known to exist in Canada.

The dicamba-tolerant trait within Genuity® Roundup Ready® 2 Xtend soybeans is stacked with the proven yield performance from Monsanto's Genuity® Roundup Ready 2 Yield® soybean technology and pending key global import and regulatory approvals, is anticipated for commercial release for the 2014 growing season.