After lengthy negotiations stalled its release, BASF Canada and Saskatchewan Pulse Growers are now ready to unveil Clearfield lentils.
A distribution agreement was scheduled to be announced at Crop Production Week 2006, which kicked off on Jan. 9.
The deal paves the way for 2,750 bushels of herbicide tolerant lentil seed to be distributed royalty-free to about 150 seed growers for multiplication in 2006.
Both parties acknowledged the release of the two red lentil varieties is one year behind schedule.
“The negotiations were lengthy and a lot of it dealt with the corporate model versus the grower model,” said SPG chair Dean Corbett.
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BASF wanted to follow the path established by other owners of herbicide tolerant technology, which is to have growers sign a technology use agreement and pay an annual royalty for planting the crop.
That distribution strategy didn’t sit well with the grower association, which owns the rights to the two red lentil lines into which the trait was backcrossed.
The group maintained that growers have already paid for the development of those lines through the pulse check-off fee.
“I think you’d have a revolt,” said Corbett, to the idea of farmers paying additional royalties.
Negotiations were further disrupted by a separate set of discussions between Saskatchewan Pulse Growers and the University of Saskatchewan’s Crop Development Centre on a new long-term funding arrangement.
Portions of the Clearfield lentil distribution agreement hinged on that pulse breeding agreement, which took longer than expected to finalize.
Eventually the two parties agreed on a compromise where Clearfield lentils would be distributed royalty-free to growers with the stipulation that all interested producers sign an annual commitment.
Growers will be allowed to save seed but among other commitments they have to pledge to test their seed at BASF-certified labs each year before planting to see if the seed has adequate levels of herbicide tolerance.
“Those were some of the issues that took us a little bit of time to work out,” said Jeff Bertholet, BASF seed and technical development manager.
It was a complicated deal but a stronger relationship emerged between the grower group, the breeding centre and BASF, he said.
For this year, there is expected to be enough seed to supply interested select seed growers and possibly a little left over for commercial release. If all goes well in the upcoming season, seed growers should be able to expand the seed supply enough to meet the anticipated demand from farmers in 2007 when the crop is finally commercialized.
Growers anxious
Many growers are itching to get their hands on the two new lines of red lentils, which will have similar agronomic characteristics to CDC Robin and CDC Blaze, because broadleaf weed control has been a serious constraint to the pulse industry, said Corbett.
Bertholet said the new lines will expand red lentil acreage north into the thin black and black soil zones of Saskatchewan and increase production in other regions of the province.
“This should allow (growers) to maximize their yield potential for lentils,” he said.
The chemical company will make its money off the sale of companion herbicides like Odyssey, which recently received registration for use on Clearfield lentils, and Solo, a new broad-spectrum herbicide for canola and field peas that should be registered for lentils by 2007.
Bertholet said lines of Clearfield green lentils should be available for growers by 2008.
Corbett added that research is also continuing on conventional lentil lines so farmers will have a choice.
