Bayer CropScience announced its new bio-control seed treatment in cotton, corn, and soybeans for the 2011 season during the 2010 Beltwide Cotton Conferences in New Orleans.
Select growers and seed companies will be able to test VOTiVO biological seed treatment on their farms in 2010 to see its protective properties on their crops. Then, with EPA approval, the seed treatment will be widely available in 2011.
"It will be unlike anything else on the market right now," says product manager Paul Hewitt. "It makes use of a beneficial bacterium that renders nematodes irrelevant through biological controls."
Simply put, Hewitt says the product creates a living barrier around plant roots so nematodes have limited access to feed.
Nematodes annually do billions of dollars of damage to U.S. crops, including cotton.
For cotton, the new VOTiVO product will be paired with Aeris.
The product provides enough protection to prevent early-season nematode feeding by blocking major plant-parasitic nematodes including lance, lesion, needle, root-knot, reniform and soybean cyst nematodes.
The resulting protection helps seedling vigor and protects yield potential.
With corn, VOTiVO will be paired with Poncho, and with soybeans, it will be used with Trilex 6000 for soybeans.