Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have approved dicamba tolerant soybeans, Monsanto announced today.
The regulatory approval means Monsanto may soon offer a soybean with tolerance for glyphosate and dicamba.
“Receiving Canadian regulatory approval on dicamba-tolerant soybeans is great news for farmers and is another step down the road to offering our customers increased yield potential, expanded weed resistance management strategies and improved overall weed control in soybeans,” said Bill Lester, corn and soybean trait marketing lead for Monsanto Canada, in a statement.
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Earlier this year, Monsanto announced its plans to offer soybean growers a new dicamba tolerant trait stacked on top of its existing Roundup Ready technology.
The new product, branded Genuity Roundup Ready 2 Xtend, is expected to be ready for the 2014 growing season.
The stacked herbicide tolerance should help growers in North America who are struggling with glyphosate resistant weeds. For instance, researchers at the University of Guelph have confirmed there are dozens of fields in southwestern Ontario where giant ragweed is now resistant to glyphosate. Other weeds with glyphosate resistance in Canada include common ragweed, Canada fleabane and kochia.
Just south of the border, North Dakota State University scientists say there are regions in Minnesota and North Dakota where 70 to 95 percent of all fields have glyphosate resistant waterhemp.
“Our existing recommendations around sustainable weed management solutions in soybeans support the use of multiple modes of action as part of an integrated weed management strategy,” said Derek Freitag, Monsanto Canada’s technology development lead in Eastern Canada. “(This new technology) will support this strategy and will also provide farmers with a much-needed potential solution to help manage the glyphosate-resistant weeds that now exist in Canada.”
