Arcadia and SESVanderHave agreement reaches milestone

Date:06-07-2012


Arcadia Biosciences, Inc., an agricultural technology company focused on developing technologies and products that benefit the environment and human health, and SESVanderHave, a leading sugar beet breeding and marketing company, announced the achievement of key field performance milestones for Nitrogen Use Efficient (NUE) sugar beets.

The companies conducted three years of field trials to assess yield performance of Arcadia’s NUE technology in SESVanderHave’s sugar beet varieties. Results from these trials show that experimental NUE sugar beets produce higher yields than controls under different fertilizer applications over multiple years.

"Results from the SESVanderHave field trials have been very encouraging,” said Eric Rey, president and CEO of Arcadia. “These results, along with results in other crops with Arcadia licensees, will enable us to focus on the next stage of development, namely the preparation of regulatory data that will become available to all of our NUE technology licensees.”

"The data we have produced with the experimental NUE sugar beets have shown a very significant potential for yield improvement under various nitrogen regimes and have indicated that in some conditions highly competitive yield could be achieved with less nitrogen input,” commented Klaas Van der Woude, Research & Development Director of SESVanderHave. “We are very enthusiastic to progress the development of the technology in sugar beets rapidly, and to bring NUE seed products to support the competitiveness and sustainability of the sugar beet industry.”

Yield in sugar beets is nitrogen-dependent as in many other crops, and nitrogen fertilizers constitute a significant cost to the grower. Sugar beets typically absorb only around one half of the fertilizer applied; the rest can enter ground or surface water systems, or volatize as nitrous oxide. Successful commercialization of NUE sugar beets can help growers lower nitrogen fertilizer use while contributing to a sustainable agriculture and reducing their environmental impact, rendering both growers and the sugar industry more competitive in all regions where beets are grown.