As corn growers start planning for the 2025 season, they will have access to new product innovations from Corteva Agriscience and Pioneer for broad-acre use.
One of Pioneer’s newest innovations is its Vorceed Enlist corn, reports Brandon Walter, U.S. corn marketing lead for the company.
Vorceed Enlist corn combines three modes of action for above-ground insect protection and three modes of action for below-ground insect protection, including RNAi technology.
“This is part of our seed-innovation work to help our farmer customers, especially those with corn-on-corn acres,” Walter says. “Three modes of action for above-ground protection target pests like European corn borer, fall armyworm and southwestern corn borer.”
In addition, Vorceed Enlist corn features three distinct modes of action to protect crops against corn rootworm (CRW), including Bt proteins and an RNAi approach. The RNAi technology suppresses the expression of specific genes in corn rootworms, causing them to die when they feed on the plants’ roots.
Pioneer CRW field studies have shown ~99% reduction in adult emergence of western corn rootworm and northern corn rootworm compared with nontraited controls, helping to reduce future CRW populations and expand traited or nontraited seed and management opportunities for the following year.
The Vorceed Enlist technology also includes tolerance to four herbicides – 2,4-D choline, glyphosate, glufosinate and FOPs – to help farmers address tough-to-control weeds more effectively, especially herbicide-resistant weeds. Enlist Duo and Enlist 1 herbicides are the specific 2,4-D formulations that are approved for use on Vorceed Enlist corn.
The investment in technology and laboratory research on products such as Vorceed Enlist is capped off by extensive field evaluation before they reach farmers’ fields, notes Eric Riedeman, Pioneer corn breeder.
“Year after year of testing thousands of inbreds, thousands of hybrids in the field, help us make sure growers will have a product that’s going to perform for them,” Riedeman says. “This year had its share of unique challenges in my geography, northwest Iowa and southwest Minnesota. Both were both pounded by rain early in the season, so seeing how our technology can perform through that kind of environment, day in and day out and over time, is a really big deal to our growers,” Riedeman adds.
Vorceed Enlist corn products offer single-bag integrated refuge solutions, meaning farmers do not need to plant a separate refuge area for insect resistance management.
“With the refuge already built in, we were thinking about insect resistance management (IRM) and the durability of those traits—how long we can keep those traits out there to control these pests,” adds Eric Scherder, U.S. crop protection commercial launch leader for Corteva. “With product development, we’re always taking the stewardship aspects into consideration first.”
Resicore Rev Herbicide Offers Application Flexibility
Also being ramped up for a broad introduction in the 2025 season is Corteva Agriscience Resicore Rev herbicide. It can be used for traited corn hybrids and conventional corn, as well as on reduced- and no-till acres.
The new premix formulation features three modes of action – acetochlor (Group 15), mesotrione (Group 27) and clopyralid (Group 4) – to address 75 tough broadleaf and grass weeds, including Palmer amaranth, waterhemp, marestail and giant ragweed.
“Resicore Rev gives us pumped-up flexibility from an application-timing standpoint,” says Scherder. “It can be applied preplant, preemergence or postemergence on corn up to 24 inches tall.”
The flexibility for use is a huge benefit for farmers and retailers alike, says Brandon Geiger, a seventh-generation farmer and owner of Geiger Ag, based in northeast Kansas.
“As a retailer it’s very exciting in that it opens up that application window to 24-inch corn and gives us tank-mix capabilities, including UAN and ammonium thiosulfate,” Geiger says. “We only have just so many slots on our spray trailer, so being able to have three modes of action in one tank is really important. Stacking those modes of action to combat weeds also helps us better utilize what we already have in our toolbox. That’s part of being good stewards.”
Scherder adds, “When you think about the economics of farming right now, we’re trying to be as efficient as we can, to try and (put) as many things in the tank and get across that acre. That tank-mix flexibility with Resicore Rev will really save a lot of time and money.”
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