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Farmers are ready for more Roundup Ready crops
Test plots of Roundup Ready sugar beets are being grown for the first time in the state this year. Monsanto expects limited quanities of seed to be available next year, with more available in 2000.
Now that farmers have two years of Roundup Ready soybeans under their belts and the first year of commercially available corn looked good, many are wondering when other crops will make it to the farm.
The next Roundup Ready crop Michigan farmers are clamoring for is sugar beets. "We've got the (gene transfer) event in the registration process with the EPA now," said Wendell Knehans, Monsanto market manager. "We should see Roundup Ready sugar beets in the year 2000."
"There's an outside chance there will be very few in '99," Knehans continued, "and when I say very few I mean just for seed bulk-up. Just like soybeans, we'll see a lot more as we go through the progression after the seed bulk-up."
Roundup Ready canola will be released on about the same timeline as beets.
"Alfalfa is further out," Knehans said. "It's hard to predict an exact year, but we're working on Roundup Ready alfalfa. It'll be after the year 2000."
"There's a lot more work because there are a lot more varieties of alfalfa," he explained. "You not only have to get it in alfalfa, you have to get it bred back to all the varieties growers are interested in."
According to Knehans, Monsanto researchers are also working on wheat and rice, but those releases are several years off.
Roundup price drops
In an effort to promote the entire Roundup Ready system -- seed, spray and all -- Monsanto announced early this month that it would drop the price of the herbicide brands by $6 to $10 a gallon. The technology fee for Roundup Ready soybeans is raised from $5 to $6.50 per bag, but the per-acre cost is still reduced with the lower herbicide price.
Company spokespersons say the price drop brings a Roundup application down below the cost of a tillage pass.
"The (soybean) system will experience a decrease of about $1 an acre where they're conventionally tillings and where they're using a Roundup burndown in front of that, they'll experience a decrease of $3 an acre -- so a lot more where they're no-tilling," Knehans said.
"At the end of the day, they need to look to make the most money they can," he said.
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