Requiem for the Boll Weevil, Tobacco Budworm

Boll Weevil Eradication Programs (BWEP) started in 1978 in the Coastal states of the Cotton Belt and worked their way westward. The boll weevil is now completely eradicated in most areas. Areas left are in maintenance programs.

In the early ‘90s, an employee of a state BWEP said, “One of these days, we’re going to eradicate the boll weevil, and when we do, we’re going after the budworm.”

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The tobacco budworm had become almost uncontrollable in some areas, particularly the Mid-South.

That ended in 1996 with the introduction of Monsanto’s Bollgard, the first Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) insect-resistant trait. Bollgard was literally the death of the tobacco budworm in cotton.

Who could even imagine in 1990 that the budworm would be defeated well before the boll weevil? How to eliminate the boll weevil was thinking out of the box; the beat down of the budworm was thinking off the wall. Both BWEPs and Bt were giant leaps forward for cotton production, and both are examples of how timing is everything for out-of-the-box and off-the-wall thinking.

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“Bollgard provided the insect protection that led to increased yield, cost savings and trips across the field. There was a huge success with that technology,” says Tom Schaeffer, Monsanto traits marketing manager.

“Then came Roundup Ready technology, which brought the broad-spectrum weed-control performance, application flexibility and just peace of mind,” Schaeffer continues. “Growers liked the technology and quickly adopted it.”

Yes, they did, according to the USDA’s 2009 Cotton Varieties Planted report. USDA says transgenic varieties were planted on 94.8% of U.S. Upland acreage last spring. Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and South Carolina had 100% of their acreage planted in a transgenic variety. Texas, with over half the country’s cotton acreage, had 90.4% in transgenic varieties.

“Satisfaction with both Bollgard and Roundup Ready technologies continues to be very high,” Schaeffer says.

Monsanto then brought the second generation of both products to market – Bollgard II and Roundup Ready Flex. These and any future traits will be marketed under the Genuity brand.

Other companies as well – Bayer CropScience and Dow AgroSciences, for instance – have the equivalent of second-generation traits and are expanding traits portfolios as fast as research, development and regulatory approvals will allow.

“Our Genuity family of traits is focused on making farmers more successful. We want them to do what they do best, and do it even better,” Schaeffer continues.

Roundup Ready Flex is also under the Genuity brand.

“What we want to bring farmers now is the stacked traits,” says Schaeffer. “So Genuity Bollgard II/Roundup Ready Flex is really the platform we want to offer. It’s the complete system of insect protection as well as weed control.“

In the developmental or research pipeline are products like Bollgard III, lygus protection, nematode protection and drought tolerance.

There are also weed-control traits with different modes of action that will be stacked with glyphosate tolerance, one being dicamba. “There are a lot of possibilities in the research pipeline,” Schaeffer says. “We’re beginning to explore what turns on intrinsic yields. Is there a biotech solution? And there’s fiber quality.”

Precision spending:
cutting down on input costs

In terms of sheer volume, nitrogen is at or near the top of all inputs employed by cotton growers. Although prices have dropped over the past two years, it’s also one of the most expensive fertilizer elements. And since nitrogen fertilizer production is energy intensive, future prices are likely to rise.
“Because nitrogen is mobile in the environment, it can be transformed biologically to forms that are not available to the crop. Producers should strive to apply only enough nitrogen and to apply it in a timely manner to optimize cotton growth,” says Dr. Bob Nichols, Senior Director of Agricultural Research, Cotton Incorporated.
The idea is to minimize input costs, but the precision effort also helps to minimize cotton’s environmental footprint. With that two-pronged goal in mind, Cotton Incorporated funded two five-year research projects to calibrate nitrogen use efficiency in cotton. The projects, set in California and Texas, both confirmed that the most cost effective nitrogen applications should be based on what nitrogen is not supplied naturally by the soil.
“An accurate determination of that relationship can be found by conducting nitrate soil tests taken at a depth of two feet in the spring,” advises Nichols. Cotton Incorporated found that 50 or more pounds of nitrogen are often readily available in the upper two feet of the soil’s profile. The research suggests that reducing fertilizer rates by an amount equal to that which is naturally provided in the soil could be done without affecting yields.
Advancements like these in the precision field could pay huge dividends for mainstream growers in the near future. For their part, Cotton Incorporated remains dedicated to the cause of furthering the acceptance of precision agriculture.
“We are utilizing our experienced Cotton Specialist across 10 states to see if modern cotton cultivars require less nitrogen than older ones,” explains Nichols. Researchers at Cotton Inc. hypothesize that new cultivars have smaller seeds and require less nitrogen, which if true, could provide producers another avenue to reduce their nitrogen input levels.
Cotton specialists are also currently evaluating sensor-based nitrogen management options. There are currently two commercial on-the-go sensors that are being evaluated; Greenseeker and CropCircle. These two sensors provide the ability to adjust nitrogen rates in real time for corn, wheat and turf grass. Thee next goal for Cotton Incorporated is to translate that sensor data into a working nitrogen rate for cotton.
Several projects in 2008 made huge gains towards this goal. What is perhaps most promising for these projects is that the same technology could eventually be used to determine more cost-effective application rates for plant growth regulators and defoliants in real time.
A major goal here for Cotton Incorporated is to make these precision agriculture techniques more widely accepted among cotton growers. As always, the easiest way to make this a reality is to show growers the difference these advances can make to their bottom line. Researchers like Nichols believe they are well on their way to accomplishing that goal.

Adds Janice Person with Monsanto Public Affairs, “We’re able to do genetic selection and we know more about a cotton plant than ever before. We’re testing them in high-drought-stress environments so we can pinpoint which ones perform best dryland or irrigated. While growers may look at genetics and traits separately, at the end of the day they’re going to see a higher performing package than they’ve ever had before.”

Lee Rivenbark, Bayer CropScience Global Head of Cotton Seed and Traits, was with Helena Chemical Co. in the Mississippi Delta in 1995 when the world’s first genetically modified seed was introduced. The Buctril-tolerant BXN system was available in two Stoneville varieties, but was on the market for just less than a decade.

“Bollgard and Roundup Ready came right after the BXN system and it was obvious that producers were going to adopt that technology – better insect control, easier to manage weed control,” Rivenbark says. “The thing I remember most about the first generation traits was how growers were able to move across the field more efficiently with reduced labor.”

That gave growers economies of scale. Those producers who wanted to expand could do so with the same labor and little or no more equipment.

“Now growers are rapidly moving into the second generation of traits, but during this switch, they are beginning to really look at germplasm,” Rivenbark continues. “Growers like the advantages of Bollgard II and Roundup Ready Flex, but in some regions of the country, they wanted to stay with the first generation of traits because of the variety. I learned something from that – growers look at yield and fiber quality first.”

GlyTol is a glyphosate-tolerant trait exclusive to Bayer, similar to Roundup Ready Flex.

“We’ve had it in trials from the east coast to the west coast,” Rivenbark says. “This trait is going to have a wide window of application with a high degree of tolerance to glyphosate with the grower having the option of using whatever glyphosate (brand) they choose. That’s the key – the farmer has the freedom to choose the glyphosate formulation he wants to use with Bayer’s high-performing germplasm and traits.”

GlyTol is scheduled to launch in 2010, with a stack with the Liberty Link trait following. The Liberty Link trait provides tolerance to the non-selective contact herbicide Ignite. The Liberty Link trait is already available in some of Bayer’s FiberMax varieties and can be a tool in glyphosate-resistance management.

“GlyTol stacked with LibertyLink will be the focus in 2011 as we introgress with insect traits,” says Rivenbark. “We hope to have GlyTol/LibertyLink stacked with Bollgard II in 2011. In 2012, we are going to stack GlyTol/LibertyLink with TwinLink. That will give a producer a dual herbicide system with the choice to use glyphosate or Ignite. Then there will be a dual Bt trait that is 100% from Bayer CropScience. At that point, the full trait package will be from Bayer.” Rivenbark says Bayer’s drought-tolerant gene will “hit the market first, or be right there at the same time” as others.

“We actually have drought-tolerant cotton in small, regulated trials today and the initial results show a lot of promise for a producer to continue to grow high-yielding, high-quality cotton that can withstand the elements of reduced water or drought situations,” he adds. “It’s a little early in development to give percentages, but right behind GlyTol/LibertyLink/TwinLink will come drought tolerance and nitrogen utilization traits.

“All of this is on the horizon as Bayer continues to invest in technology to improve fiber characteristics and is working globally with mills to better understand what their needs will be 10 years from now. We have a full proprietary pipeline as it relates to cotton.”

Dow AgroSciences’ PhytoGen brand of cotton seed made a major move into the Mid-South this spring with its PHY 375 WRF coming in as the number one variety planted in the Mid-South. PHY 375 is stacked with Dow’s WideStrike twin-Bt insect-protection gene and Roundup Ready Flex.

WideStrike gives growers another transgenic option to fit different situations.

“What traits brought growers was insurance,” says Dr. Joel Faircloth, Cotton Development Specialist for Dow AgroSciences. “If they couldn’t get in the field to make an application for lepidopteron pests they were covered. It also reduced the number of applications for in-season pests when the boll weevil was out of the way.”

Faircloth has seen traits development from both sides of the aisle – commercially with Dow, and as a cotton Extension specialist in both Virginia (2003-08) and Louisiana (2000-03).

“With WideStrike, number one, it’s always good to bring competition to the marketplace,” Faircloth says. “It also increases your protection from the fall armyworm.”

Looking ahead, he says stacked herbicide traits will play an increasingly important role in resistance management.

And then there’s drought tolerance again, the importance of which, Faircloth says can’t be understated: “I think drought resistance is very exciting. In my opinion, this could very possibly be one of the best traits ever, particularly for growers out west.”

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