Monsanto is field testing a new Roundup Ready wheat trait just as the old one is causing customer unrest after inexplicably appearing in a field in Oregon.
The new research is part of the company’s second crack at developing and commercializing herbicide tolerant wheat.
The first attempt started in 1997 and ended in 2004 when Monsanto announced it was discontinuing its Roundup Ready wheat program because of consumer rejection of the product.
Monsanto started over in wheat research in 2009. Its first new herbicide tolerant wheat project is a stacked trait wheat tolerant to dicamba and glufosinate.
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The company is also testing early proof of concept for a yield and stress trait.
Both of the projects are genetically modified wheat.
Monsanto conducted trials of the new hard red spring wheat varieties at two locations in North Dakota in 2011 and seven locations last year. It will be conducting trials at 16 locations in North Dakota this year.
The dicamba and glufosinate tolerance project has been moved into Phase 2 of the company’s research and development pipeline.
“We are encouraged by the progress we are making in wheat from both a breeding and biotechnology perspective,” said Monsanto public affairs manager Sara Miller in an email.
The company also initiated “some early work” on a new Roundup Ready wheat this season. It is a different trait than the one detected in the wheat volunteers in a field in Oregon this spring.
That project is in the proof of concept phase of development, which will include small-scale, entry level field trials in North Dakota this growing season.
Miller said Monsanto’s new lines of GM wheat are at least a decade away from commercial approval.
A document detailing the products in Monsanto’s development pipeline says herbicide-tolerant wheat has the potential to be planted on eight to 10 million acres in the United States. Its value to the company is classified as “low,” which means less than $250 million.
Canada and Australia have been identified as “additional geographic opportunities,” but the product has not been field tested in those countries or anywhere else in the world.
Monsanto Canada said it hasn’t decided what its plans are for the new lines of wheat.
“We’ve had lots of people ask us to get back into the business and to engage on wheat research in Canada,” said spokesperson Trish Jordan.
“It just hasn’t been a priority for us. We’ve been focusing on other things for the Canadian marketplace, but that may change at some point in the future, I’m sure.”
Cherilyn Nagel, director of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association (WCWGA), is one of the voices calling for Monsanto Canada to get back into the wheat business.
She blames herself and fellow farmers for the failed first attempt at Roundup Ready wheat.
“It is my opinion that the Roundup Ready wheat was put back on the shelf because we weren’t organized enough and didn’t have the best message to put forward about why it was a good thing,” said the former WCWGA president.
Nagel was unaware Monsanto has been field testing herbicide tolerant wheat in North Dakota since 2011.
She would like to see work on the new traits north of the border as well but realized it has been less than a year since the demise of the CWB monopoly.
The CWB was strongly opposed to Roundup Ready wheat.
“There were a lot of barriers that (Monsanto) would have to get through. I think they got really discouraged,” she said.
Nagel isn’t nervous about Mon-santo field testing new lines of herbicide tolerant wheat despite the customer backlash to the Oregon incident.
