Agricultural News
Monsanto Pledges Support To National Wheat Yield Contest
Tue, 06 Oct 2015 16:05:36 CDT
Monsanto, along with other industry leaders, is sponsoring the National Wheat Yield Contest (NWYC), giving U.S. wheat farmers a new way to share knowledge and showcase their skills.
The National Wheat Foundation organized this year's NWYC, modeling its format after the success of the 50-year-old National Corn Yield Contest. In addition to recognizing some of the nation's most successful wheat producers and encouraging knowledge transfer between growers, organizers hope the contest will help boost innovation in the world's most widely grown crop.
"In 2014, we witnessed an all-time corn yield record at 503 bushels per acre," said Dr. Jeff Koscelny, Wheat Commercial Lead at Monsanto. "Improved farm management practices and technology in agriculture are helping farmers make the most out of their land and bring more grain to harvest per acre, and contests like this one provide an excellent environment for that innovation to take place."
Monsanto has continued to showcase its commitment to the wheat industry over recent months. In July, the company celebrated the grand opening of its Wheat Technology Center in southern Idaho, which has become its core research and development facility for wheat breeding. Monsanto's wheat program breeds and commercializes varieties in the major classes of wheat and has a network of hundreds of seed suppliers. In addition to a broad presence with its licensed WestBred Wheat brand in the West, Monsanto also licenses varieties to seed companies in the eastern United States.
"It's an exciting time to be involved with wheat, and it's an exciting time to be involved with wheat at Monsanto," said Koscelny. "We're talking about a crop that accounts for more than 20 percent of the world's calories. A national yield contest is a unique and fun way to showcase the innovation that will help America's farmers meet the needs of a growing population."
Early registration deadlines are April 1 for winter wheat and June 15 for spring wheat. Rules, verification procedures, entry and reporting forms are available online at www.wheatfoundation.org.
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