American Ag Today- 12/26/24

And welcome into a new episode of American Ag. Today produced by the American Ag Radio Network, empowered by farm and ranch media. I'm your host Jesse Allen. On today's episode, I was able to talk with Jay Mahaffey from the Bayer Scott Learning Center in Mississippi during the Delta Pine NPE Summit. Just a few weeks ago in Nashville, Tennessee, learned about the history of the Delta Pine brand and much more. Let's listen to that conversation right now on American Ag today.

There is a lot of rich history in the Delta Pine family and a lot of work that has been done over the years to get us to where we're at now 110 years later, right? That's exactly right. I view this NPE program and process to be the culmination of a set of learnings over time. And by that, I mean, you go back 100 years, the Delta Pine brand was started in Scott, Mississippi by a group of investors.

and basically a self-preservation sort of a mode, they started a seed company, trying to generate a seed for their own use. Through that process, they wound up with a private cotton breeder that worked for the company independently. They wound up generating genetics that contributed something that cotton farmers wanted to buy, so the seed company began at that point. Things like delta pine smoothly for DSL, delta pine 16, those were novel,

genetics that, you know, were introduced in the marketplace in a far different place than time. Then you move on to things like Delphine 20 and 50, which were influential in the cotton seed and cotton production environment. You know, 50 was the biggest cotton variety in the U.S. for a while, a considerable amount of time. Well, then you move into the stages where biotech came along and helped us manage insects.

And then that was integrated with even better genetic packages and varieties and all of that. Well, the NPE program is actually sort of the culmination of that experience. And the way I view it is the NPE puts these genetics and these packages in front of growers and their system on an intermediate scale, I would say. Big enough quantities, they can generate their gin, they can get fiber quality back. They can make decisions and provide us input directly back.

to the decisions that are made about commercialization of new things. And all of that contributes to making better decisions. That's what we're trying to do. And it's easy to say, make a better decision on behalf of the company. But the ultimate goal is help the farmer. That's what we're trying to do. And by taking that input seriously and integrating it into the whole process, we're able to provide genetics that feel needs that actual farmers have.

That's what's unique about it. And I think that what that will enable us to do moving forward is understand our products better. It certainly helps us understand the need and desire of growers to have those products. And if you look at examples of that, you've seen several of them in the last few years. 23-33 is a new novel set of genetics that requires a different sort of a management that needs an aggressive follow through in the end of the season.

Some of these varieties we've introduced today are kind of different in the way that they grow, different in the way they need to be managed. And prior to their introduction, we need as much experience with them as we can get. And this is one of the ways we get it.

You made a comment earlier, we were having a media roundtable and I thought it was interesting looking at past research and looking at books and knocking the dust off books and when we look forward and some of the new varieties you guys have announced today and just the evolution of the cotton industry and seed genetics and agronomy.

In your opinion, can we look at the past to help inform the future here as we continue to evolve and try to find these new varieties? I would hope so, but it's always going to be a gradient of improvement. I hope I think you can do that, but I think if you don't understand the history,

you don't prepare yourself fully for the future. And by that I mean we have gone from late varieties relatively indeterminate later season varieties to early varieties and it cycles back and forth. Well now we're on a path where it appears that we've got kind of mid to late products. We've got a full range but they're sort of mid and late.

They require a somewhat more aggressive management, but each variety is different. And I think what we learn from that past experience is exactly that. We're always going to have to do specific experiments to identify and learn how to use individual products. And the places like the Learning Center where we do that testing some of that initial testing and save growers having to experiment and learn the hard way, quote unquote, is really what we're after. So yeah, I think the past is informative.

but it doesn't necessarily fully illuminate the future either. We've still got to maintain our ability to do tests and interpret data and all those things. We've had a lot of great advancement in your mind with all the research you're doing and looking at, is there water to challenges ahead that concern you? Is it resistance? I know there's concerns about, you know, dicamba usage and more. So I mean, looking ahead,

for our cotton growers, is there something that we need to be really working on to try and figure out now before it's too late? I mean, what are some of those challenges you think that lie ahead? Well, I think we certainly need to maintain stewardship and registration and get our products and all those different biotechnology tools so we keep them viable because we need as many of them as we can get.

You know, we have to outrun nature on some level, and we need as many tools and farmers hands as possible. The other thing I would, and this is almost a tactical thing, I would point out to growers, be aware that all these varieties are different. Be aware that PGR and growth management in these varieties is more critical today than it's ever been in history. We're more comfortable with how we do it. The varieties are somewhat more aggressive growing. Even the ones that we view as more determinate,

pre-aggressive and the need for that in the day-to-day management of a crop, the need for appropriate growth control is more important today than it's ever been. But you have to have the information and I think to the third sort of point of that is the sharing of all this information is probably the most important piece.

Whether it's supporting the labels and registrations of new tools, or the testing of new varieties, or sharing information when it's all over, I would say that information point and the acting of the phone and that information, the way we need to is pretty important. Jay, appreciate the time. Thanks for joining us at the NPE Summit. You're welcome and I look forward to seeing you all.

Once again, Jay Mahaffey with Bayer Scott Learning Center in Mississippi, joining me for a conversation at the Delta Pine NPE Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, held earlier the month of December. A lot of insightful conversations, learning about just the cotton industry and the history of Delta Pine and much more. It was a lot of fun to attend that summit.

And with that, we are out of time on this episode of American Ag Today produced by the American Ag Network and powered by Farm and Ranch Media. I'm Jesse Allen. Have a great rest of your day.